Outstanding Historical Storytelling: Prescott, Parkman, de Voto...who else?

Extollager

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I'm starting a thread for discussion of a subject I know little about -- but I hope to learn something.

This thread asks Chrons folk to identify outstanding, readable narrative history. The strong emphasis, in the kind of book appropriate for this thread, is on storytelling: interesting persons, descriptions, and events, a reader-friendly narrative pace, etc. The emphasis will not be on sociological analysis, or dissection of "movements," or picking out "economic factors," etc. -- all of which might have their place. Nor is this thread intended as a place to list & talk about memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies.*

I'm reading Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico right now. Parkman's books about France and England in North America would also be specimens. I think Bernard de Voto wrote the kind of thing I have in mind.

Perhaps the thread could focus on books that cover a fairly extensive amount of time and that were written a long time after the events occurred. Thus I would prefer that we not talk about books that deal with, say, just one particular battle or scientific discovery, e.g. books whose focus is on the day-by-day account of (say) the Battle of Gettysburg.

My impression is that the kind of historical writing I'm after is regarded as old-fashioned, and the works that represent the type are sometimes criticized for lack of academic rigor.

Suggestions?

*So, for example, this is not a thread for nomination of Sledge's With the Old Breed, etc.
 
Try Norman Davies The Isles: A History or Europe: A History. The seem to fit your brief quite well.
 
Dask, I just ordered the three volumes of Motley's Dutch Republic (Everyman's Library). Thanks for mentioning this work!
 
Try Norman Davies The Isles: A History or Europe: A History. The seem to fit your brief quite well.
There's a thick rather beat up paperback edition of this in a little roadside freebie library I pass when I go for a walk. If it's that good I'll snag it and make room for it on my next round.
 
There's an enormous amount to choose from. I've heard academics explain their disdain for narrative history, but I suspect it's far more challenging to write. I think the best narrative history is written by historians who know how to tie events together like a good film editor piecing together various shots. It takes a vast amount of knowledge to do this well. It's far more impressive than hiding a threadbare theory behind jargon or collecting more data points in a "publish or perish" environment.

Off the top of my head...

Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie is a masterful tapestry of European military history, politcs, and personal biographies, clashing and influencing one another, propelling pre-WWI events forward.

Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy elegantly varies the narrative focus, moving from top-level WWII commanders and their decisions down to ground level troop battles and circumstances, than back up again.

Taylor Branch's Civil Rights Trilogy also weaves together many African-American biographies that are tied together in a sphere of competing strategies and limited resources with MLK at the center of the hurricane.

I could go on, maybe I will later after perusing my shelves. But there's a ton of good narrative history out there, although the multi-volume series are not as popular as they once were.
 
Peter Hopkirk's books about the Great Game would probably qualify.
 
You cannot go wrong with John Julius Norwich.

Tom Holland's Persian Fire, Rubicon, Athelstan are all very good and fall into your category.
 
I would recommend reading both Byzantium The Early Centuries and Byzantium The Decline and Fall.

Norwich has a great style of writing and you are pulled along gently as you read through his books.
 
Maybe George Bancroft, author of History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent?
 
I'm reading Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico right now.

This is so good that I just ordered his Conquest of Peru. It won't have any Keith Henderson illustrations, which I'll miss. Henderson took on only the Mexican book, I believe.
 
Cecily Veronica Wedgwood!


I have followed Alan Jacobs' advice and ordered A Coffin for King Charles.

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Simon Schama's Citizens. A history of the French Revolution. I have a feeling it's exactly what you're looking for.
 
The Republic of Suffering-Drew Faust. I've been reading a lot of American Civil War material for reference points in my new project I'm working on. For those unfamiliar with the War of The States, this piece is not only an accurate depiction of the pure brutality of the War, it is haunting. The chapter called "Burying" about the cleanup after Gettysburg is not for people with weak stomachs. Plus his accounts and numbers are pinpoint.
 
Cecily Veronica Wedgwood!


I have followed Alan Jacobs' advice and ordered A Coffin for King Charles.

View attachment 54527

A Coffin for King Charles was indeed very good. I followed it up by reading the first 80 pages or so of Jenkinson's new book Charles I's Killers in America, about Whalley and Goffe, not reading the later account of the mythologizing of them.

Now thanks to praise from Dask I have begun Van Wyck Brooks' literary history The World of Washington Irving even though I don't feel this is exactly the right time for that book, since I'm still into my 17th-century project. But I didn't want to wait for the Brooks.

 

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