Do Historians have Favorite Books? Or more than one but on the same period?

Question

Thank you for your answer.

Answer 1

I especially enjoy economic history and a favorite of mine is "The Wealth of Nations" by Smith

Answer 2

everyone who reads has favorite books....

Answer 3

of course historians have favorite books! However, this tends to depend entirely on what interest the historian (period and view point) as well as the person.  If you mean is there a book liked overall by historians, then the answer is i doubt it. there is always someone who dislikes some book.  Is there a particular topic you are interested in?  Maybe I can help.  I recently got a ba in history.  

Answer 4

Oh yes - Martin McCauley:  The Soviet Union 1917 - 1991, read it about 8 times, undergrad, postgrad & for pleasure.

Robert Service:  Stalin: A Biography, read it 3 times

RJ Arch Getty & Oleg Naumov:  The Road to Terror - 4 times

All books about the Soviet Union, all very different, all (for me) very enjoyable reads.

Source: Historian

Edit to Vince M.  Some books are composed of primary documents, The J Arch Getty book is mostly translations of offical documents that show how the terror grew, and how it was a banal and bureaucratic process.

Answer 5

Of course we do. You get trained to critique the books good points and bad points when studying so you will naturally have favourites.

Answer 6

Real historians are the ones that WRITE books, not just learning for other people's books.

For that reason, a historian researching ANY period or set of events will want to refer to sources from as early, or close to the event as possible.

Civil War researchers, for example, will learn a lot more from reading letters, ledgers, train schedules and as many source documents as they can find.  Real historical records are not the same thing as history books.  History books have already had the facts predigested and the author's conclusions already made.  To publish a book or paper solely from another person's history book is kind of like doing a book report from Cliff's Notes, instead of actually reading the book.

There is nothing original there, and, if there is nothing new or original, what is the point of publishing the book?

To get back to your question about historian's "favorite" books, for each, I'll bet they'd answer that it would be the earliest source available.

Answer 7

Historians have several books on a particular time period and they also have "favorite" books representing a time period. A historian can't do their job properly by just relying on one book because there are so many different opinions on what/how/when affected an era. These varying opinions are what form a historians opinion. Not that I'm a historian, but I've used several books researching WW II, however, Stephan Ambrose is my favorite author. Hope that helped.

Answer 8

looking at just a certain time period only is like looking at one piece of a jigsaw puzzle as it is, or more intensely with a microscope.  Its great to study a certain time period or event in history and know as much as possible about it, but not overall just by itself.  Its best to know more of the rest of the big picture, then everything makes sense.