History Reading Challenge 2014 – A Sail to the Past

It’s now two months before New Year; time to think of another challenge! ;) After long enough being in the comfort zone of novels and plays, I decided to challenge myself next year to move onto non-fiction, but still in the story-of-the-past area; meaning that I’m going to read HISTORY. Would you like to accompany me in this yearlong sail to the past? This is the general outline of the challenge:

What books to pick?
Challenge levels
How to join?
Optional analysis – more challenge!
Giveaway

**What books to pick?**

1. Pick one or more History books written by historian(s)—must be pure non-fiction; historical fiction is not allowed.
2. It has to be a work through investigation and researches, and not only collecting and listing historical data.
3. Biography is permitted, but not Autobiography, as I think autobiography lacks the objectivity of a history.
4. I’m not an expert in this area (history), so you are more than welcome to correct or add something if I’m wrong.
5. Frankly speaking, I don’t read many histories yet (and that’s why I’m creating this challenge), so I might not be the right person to consult with, about whether this or that is a pure history or not. For reference, you can consult these lists:
100 Best History Books
Goodreads’ Best History Books

Note: The 100 Best History Books is more reliable than Goodreads list, as Goodreads created the list from people’s labels, and it is proved sometimes not accurate. So, be careful before picking a book, you better check the synopsis first or even better…google it! :)

**Challenge level**

I have set several levels to challenge ourselves along the year:

Student : read 1 to 3 books

Scholar : read 4 to 6 books

Historian : read 7 or more books

**How to join?**

1. To join in, you must have either blog/Facebook/Goodreads where you can post your thoughts.
2. Pick one of the level suits you, and post about this challenge in your blog, or just comment in this post. You can mention books you’d like to read too—but no obligation (I’m only curious!). Of course, you might change the level or the books later on along the event.
3. Register through the linky below (you might put the link to your challenge post or just your blog/FB/Goodreads URL).
4. Place the challenge banner somewhere on your blog, linking to this post, in case others want to participate too.

**Optional analysis – more challenge!**

After reading and reviewing, you might want to add more challenge to your history reading. As I am working on WEM project, I picked these analysis questions from the project that would be interesting to work on. Go to the analysis questions

Of course you can choose to work on all of it, or parts of it, or none at all. It’s optional, anyway. But….your efforts would well rewarded, as in the end of the challenge, every analysis post would be included in….

**Giveaway**

I will provide a master post with a linky, where you can put all your posts (review and/or analysis). At the end of the challenge I will pick randomly 2 (two) winners (one from review posts and one from analysis posts) to win: history book(s) of your choice max. $15 from The Book Depository.

**Analysis Questions**

Note: The questions might not suit all history books, so you’d better pick only the related ones for each book.

Who is this story about?
Guiding questions: (you don’t have to answer all questions, you can answer your own way)
- Are they individuals, group of people, or entire nations?
- If individuals: Is the history focused on a single person, or on a network of individuals who may be related by blood or some other tie?
- If group of people: How does the historian distinguish them: by nationality, gender, age, class, job, economic status?
- In both cases: Is the historian telling you a ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’ history? In other words, is it focusing on wealthy, influential people, political power? Or on ordinary people and their daily lives?
- If entire nations: What is distinctive about each nation? How do its people envision themselves: as warriors, men of learning, farmers, free people? And how (in the historian’s eyes) is the nation better (or worse) than other nations?

What challenge did this hero/ine (from above question) face?
What challenges the ability of the central character(s) to lead full lives?

Who or what causes this challenge?
The historian’s task is to answer this question; does he/she succeed in doing so?

What does it mean to be human?
Guiding questions: (you don’t have to answer all questions, you can answer your own way)
- A history always highlights one particular aspect of human beings as central.
- In this history, how are men and women portrayed?
- Are they essentially workers, patriots, members of families, businessmen, rational animals, children of God?
- What is their central quality?
- To what must they aspire in order to be human?

Why do things go wrong?
Guiding questions: (you don’t have to answer all questions, you can answer your own way)
- What causes one set of people to be challenged or persecuted by another?
- What motivates the oppressors?
- Why do people live in squalor?
- What motivation does the historian give to his/her wrongdoers?

What is the end of the history?
Guiding questions: (you don’t have to answer all questions, you can answer your own way)
- How is the end different from the beginning?
- What is the goal of the historical story?
- What does the historian see as the ultimate shape and form of humanity?

And now, have a good sail to the past for the whole year! (don’t forget to register via the linky below!)