3 World History Masterpieces You Can Read in 2024

My tips on three world history masterpieces that you can read in 2024. And how you can read them – yes, you can – with me in my new online history reading club program. The tips in the video and online course will save you time, make these great books less daunting, and help you achieve your 2024 history learning goals.

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Frankopan, The Earth Transformed – https://amzn.to/3SqZb4B
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Quinn, How the World Made the West – https://amzn.to/3U422St

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Are you looking for some quality world history books that you can put on your reading list in 2024 and what’s more actually get them read because look after all history books can be pretty long sometimes well I’ve got three really great history books and what’s more an actual bonus piece of advice on

One of the best ways you can make sure you get them read you can tick them off on on your reading plan for this year and these are free quality world history books that really present world history in all its diversity uh with empathy compassion and without judgment about all its wonderful

Variety and surprises uh and what’s more they are books that you can read you don’t need a history degree like me to do it some real fresh insights to what’s going on in the world today because it really does seem to be a history changing

Moment I’m Jeff rich I uh am a writer historian and content creator and I’ve got a PhD in history I then spent 30 years working in government thinking historically about all sorts of issues and now I uh write and teach about history on YouTube and on other

Platforms and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that later in the video uh but first let’s look at the first book and that is by Felipe Fernandez amesto civilizations uh and this is an absolutely brilliant book uh which is about 20 years old now but it is a

Classic Masterpiece of contemporary world history it covers a huge range of time and it’s quite distinctive because it looks at civilizations in the plural not just the rise of the western civilization not just single civilizations not just the usual focus on Rome and Babylon and you know Med Med

Eval Europe and then uh the Renaissance Etc it is a fascinating account of how civilizations adapt the environment to human needs that’s really the thing they all have in common none are better than the others some are more successful or or and they certainly have achievements

But it’s uh a bad thing to sort of compare civiliz ations to barbarians or to say only part of the world is the Civilized world and what could be more important a message today than to recognize the variety diversity and uh intrinsic Merit let’s say of all the civilizations around the

World uh Felipe Fernandez amesto is a brilliant story and I actually interviewed him on the uh YouTube channel and you can check that out um I’ll include a link at the end of the video uh his book provides a brilliant introduction to world history if you’re

Just getting into it because it gives a kind of a world tour of uh all the places where history’s occurred all the different environments and with a non-judgmental perspective about uh the many varieties of civilization and the impact on the environment of all these civilizations around the world especially I guess the

Industrial CI civilization of the West which we still live in uh since 1800 is also explored in my second book which is by uh Peter frankopan Peter Frank an the Earth transformed frankopan makes the hero of his history not the humans not the civilizations not the Nations or the

Empires but he makes the hero of his story the Earth itself the natural environment the physical world of which we are part and which we interact with how we affect climate how climate affects us and all the other species around the world uh it is an absolutely

Brilliant book It Starts from the dawn of time and takes us right up to now including uh some important thoughts towards the end about the debate which is still rages around the world around climate change and what to do with it this is a brilliant book to provide you

Sober realistic advice on the human history of how or or the real history of how humans have interacted with the physical Earth and overtime have transformed the Earth especially over the last you know 200 years it’s a fascinating reminder also that there have always been Global impacts of uh

Events in single parts of the world one example is that I live in Australia where the cycle of drought and uh heavy rains is very much driven by the elino or Elina effects which are caused by atmosphere and oceans interacting somewhere in the Pacific uh to the West

Of South America and in the uh 1780s and 1790s Peter Frank pan explains in his book there was a particularly severe El Nino effect which had a devastating impact on um you know the weather and climate and the um crops and all that sort of thing during the early

Settlement of Australia it almost extinguished the early British settlement of Australia they almost starved because they couldn’t grow their food and uh but it also had impacts around the world not least of course the uh uh harvests and the food prices in Europe and specifically in France that partly contributed to the French

Revolution in 1789 he also talks about volcanic explosions in different parts of the world that have Global impacts uh on the physical world and on the human world across the world that some people even say uh the mythology of the Vikings was initially a response to a huge volcanic eruption in the

700s that’s where the idea of Ragnarok came from uh Frankie Pan’s book is balanced and brilliantly present presents an astonishing range of scientific information clearly and sews it into a narrative about aspects of world history some of which you’ll know some of which will come as a surprise

And it’s a brilliant brilliant book absolutely one of the books of the year last year and one that it would be great if you did buy it and you haven’t got through it to put on your reading list plan and really get to the end of

It and remember I’m going to give you a bit of a tip at the end as to how you can do that the third book uh is by Josephine Quinn how the world made the West now uh ideas about the west and Western Civilization are very prominent

In discuss iions they’ve become a little bit more prominent in recent times as there’s been conflict between the west and Russia and China and I guess the global South and they are often accompanied by assumptions of superiority of Western Civilization with a narrative of the rise of the West and it’s Unique um

Killer apps I think as the historian Neil Ferguson once described them over the last couple of decades uh historians around the world have really done an enormous amount of work on this traditional story and revised it totally and thoroughly in this book by josephin Quinn this uh will get the a very

Different story to the story of the rise of the West we will get the story of of how the rest of the world actually made the West contributed the ideas to the West contributed uh the contact and the exchanges and all the rest of it that

Helped made our Shar one big example is Christianity it is not a western as in Western Europe North Atlantic uh religion its Origins are in you know West Asia North Africa uh en Quinn’s book is promises to build on this story it explain how the connections between civilizations rather

Than the Ambitions of Standalone civilizations drive so much historical change now the this book unlike the rest I haven’t been able to read yet I have read a bit of a preview in in naoi maxene’s book The West a new history of an old idea from 2019 which argued that

The idea of Western Civilization is largely Mythic that uh the modern West does not have a clear and simple origin In classical Antiquity and did not develop through an unbroken and singular lineage from there through medieval Christendom the Renaissance and the enlightenment to uh modernity and in fact tells the stories of individuals

Who um contributed the ideas of the west but were not of the West and she foreshadows in her book this forthcoming book by josephin Quinn how the world made the West Quinn’s book is coming out in late February on as an ebook or Kindle and then in paperback in June at

Least in Australia and I will be reading it I’ll be putting it right up the top of my reading list this year um William Dow rimple the popular and charismatic British historian is a huge fan and says it’s one of the most important books of global history to be

Written in recent decades why don’t you add it to your list and that’s free books already there are others I can recommend as well but I don’t want to overwhelm you and that’s part of the issue with reading some of these big long history books they can sometimes

Seem a little bit overwhelming there’s so much information to absorb there’s a lot of debates there’s all the different perspectives the different characters to get to know so how can you do it because I really believe you can do it you don’t need to be a you know a history PhD to

Read enjoy and benefit from these books you can use them yourself to come to your own in independent judgments of the world and this is really where I think I might have a way to help you out because I guess the best way to do it is to read

Them one book at a time and I am going to be delivering a uh online course history course over the next year through a subscription Plan called world history explorers where we take one book at a time we’ll read them together we’ll discuss them together we will knock them

Off our reading list together and we will come to a greater insight about world history and if you would like to join me on that Journey why don’t you check out the the link to my new program world history explorers in the description below and in the pinned comment if you’re curious

About Felipe Fernandez amesto perspective on world history and civilizations why don’t you check out my wonderful interview with him from 2023 right here thanks for watching