Ken Burns' documentaries are worth watching.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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AskUSA
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It's going to be tough because a lot of American history that gets taught in American schools is propaganda from the 50s
Are we talking about America as in the people's history of one or two entire continents, or as in the country of the United States?
If it's the latter, CrashCourse: US History can get you started with some solid basics of different time periods of significance. It treats the subject seriously, but doesn't take itself overly serious, so it isn't too dry as you get started.
Since we're a "new" country, so much of our history is documented and preserved that you can deep dive almost any moment of it, so we don't have any real "dark ages" where there's a lot of questions as to what happened or why.
It's in a community called askUSA
My mistake there. I have all my "Ask_" communities together in one linked community, and this is a recent add to that.
It still was important to differentiate if OP wanted to include more early non-European history, or just the colonization and governing of the American territory. Like if someone asked for the history of Germany, do they want from the Roman Empire or the unification of states into modern Germany.
Exactly I meant the latter one United States. Thanks for the recommendation
I've heard nothing but good things about A People's History Of The United States and it's been on my short list of books to read for a while. Haven't gotten to it yet, but I think it's worth a read.
Yea that kinda anti American bias I wasn't really looking for but thanks for the recommendation
"Cartoon History of the United States" by Larry Gonick, like all the cartoon history series, is an absolutely excellent quick high-level overview.
Other people mentioned "A People's History of the United States." Honestly, I would recommend it. It's not really "anti-American," per se, but it's definitely anti-government. Anti-government is extremely American, in terms of our culture. Also, a lot of the history of this country is painful, ugly, or crooked, and while the book does present one specific perspective on it, which honestly just might not be relevant or interesting to someone from outside, it's a pretty vital perspective. Also "Lies my Teacher Told Me."
Personally, I very much like deep dives into the living color detail of particular times in history. "Team of Rivals" gives an excellent picture of the flavor of the culture and government at the time of the civil war. "Patriots" is for the Vietnam War. Likewise "Carrying the Fire" for the space program, "Liar's Poker" for Wall Street and the new financial world, and "Playing with Fire" for the politics of the 1960s. For the early 20th century, WW2, and and the revolution, I honestly can't think of ones that suit in the same way, but that's what I would do if I really wanted to get a deeper look and understand it more, and some random samples of particular points.
Hope this is useful.
Edit: Also, the Hardcore History podcast with Dan Carlin. I haven't listened to all that much, but what I tried was great.
Probably from some global south country we decimated and genocided.
You picked a good one! Greece, China, or Egypt would take a lot longer!
As an Egyptian, well yes and no. Egyptian history tends to suffer from "and then nothing happened for a few hundred years" syndrome so at least until the Islamic conquest a high-level understanding shouldn't take too much time. After the Islamic conquest you gotta deal with the monstrosity that is Arab Caliphate politics, which is... Uh... Yeah, and then you reach the Ottomans and again nothing happens for a few hundred years.
It's kind of what happens when for most of your history you're ruled by foreign empires; there's less potential for things to really go off the rails compared to the shitstorm that is American politics where you gotta think in 4 year intervals rather than 100 year intervals.
Podcasts:
History That Doesn't Suck Revolutions (The American Revolution is covered therein) American History Tellers