Friday, March 26, 2010

READING UPDATE

Anyone interested in history (not just wars and empires) can pick these books:
  • A short history of the world- H.G.Wells: This book is a collection of facts related to our world right from the time earth came to existence and origin of life to growth of civilizations and up until world war II
  • Guns, germs and steel – Jared Diamond : Despite its weird title, the book is on the same line as previous one but is more of a reasoning book as compared to that by Wells. The author tries to unravel events arguing why things today are as they are.
  • Glimpses of World History- Nehru: This is a real big collection of letters written from prison to Indira Gandhi. Being letters, the content is most like one-to-one conversation (though we see only the teaching side) but still speaks about history in a number of dimensions. I am reading this one right now.
With such books nowadays, I really see the history curriculum we had as mere waste of time. Such a fine topic, if taught with the right attitude, can attract a majority of people and not seem “boring”.

4 comments:

  1. Awesome. I find the 3rd one the most interesting - is it?

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  2. I have read only one-fourth of it...n never felt like leaving it.... :)

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  3. 'With such books nowadays, I really see the history curriculum we had as mere waste of time. Such a fine topic, if taught with the right attitude, can attract a majority of people and not seem “boring”.'

    At the age when we begin to read, everything would seem boring. :P

    You still enjoy fiction?

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  4. Fiction has its beauty but I don't find it as compelling as a book which tries to travel through the vast history man has seen and tries to reason (though crudely) why things happened the way they did. Maybe, and I hope not, I am turning into an epic fan and going to like Mahabharat one of these days :P. Besides, my point regarding the school thing was that the attitude to teach those things in history was not that great.

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