Modern History

[msb]

Can anyone recommend a good history book or books dealing with events since WWII? I am particularly interested in the 70s and 80s, though a good overview of the 50s and 60s would also be helpful.

I am 22 and extremely ignorant of anything that occurred between the mid seventies and what I can remember from my early teens (mid nineties).

[nimble]

There is a 20th century American Chronicle. That covers most big events and semi big events in the 20th century. If you are looking for one particular aspect of culture then I can recommend other books. But for general knowledge of the 20th century in America I would recommend that.

[Tom Rexton]

Modern world history? Or what particular region/country/continent/etc...?

Also what particular historical topic? Political, social, cultural, economic, scientific/technological, philosophic, etc...?

[msb]

World history or American history. I'm looking for general overviews, but most of my ignorance is political and cultural.

[nimble]

im telling you american chronicles is the best for your situation. It has little clips of newspapers for every major event in the 20th century in America. And for the not so big stories, they write a little detailed response.

[msb]

I'll check it out, Nimble. I wasn't ignoring your suggestion, I was just answering Tom Rexton's question.

[nimble]

i see

[Montesquieu]

Wow, you're asking for a lot and their simply isn't a lot of good material on the period, especially of a very broad nature. Paul Johnson wrote a pretty good history of the twentieth century called "Modern Times."

For some more specific stuff, George Herring is probably the best Vietnam era historian.

John Earl Heynes and Harvey Klehr have done outstanding work on the workings of communists in the United States and the subsequent historical coverup perpetrated by leftist historians.

Military history for this ear is still coming out, Robert Leckie has written some good books, particularly "The Road to Glory" about the Chosin Reservoir campaign. Anything you can find by John Keegan about the period is going to be good, "The Iraq War" and "Intelligence in War" are his latest efforts.

If you want some barebones stuff, keep in mind that staying awake is going to be tough with this, you can try reading some of the presidential memoirs of the period like Eisenhower's double memoirs "Mandate for Change" and "Waging Peace", Johnson's "The Vantage Point", and Nixon's "RN: Memoirs of Richard Nixon." Keep in mind that these men aren't very smart and the last two are big liars.

Unfortunately there is just not much good material because most of the historians around are all idiots with no ability to integrate any knowledge, therefore allowing them to write broad or general histories.

[Free Capitalist]

Why not use something like an encyclopedia? And then once you get a broad overview, get specific books about particlar subjects, i.e. Reagan administration, influence of Hayek and rise of Chile, invasion of Grenada, Soviet glasnost/perestroika, etc etc.

[AshRyan]

You could read Paul Johnson's A History of the American People starting after WWII. It only goes up through the Clinton administration, but it is pretty good. You might find it especially interesting since you mentioned that you are interested in learning about "political and cultural" history, which he does focus on quite a bit.