Member-only story
These Books Changed How I Think About History
I’ve always had trouble understanding people who get upset at attempts to diversify and expand what gets taught in schools. I’ve been equally baffled by who gets to count as a real hero or a real American. As my own reading–and self-led education–has gone on, I’ve found myself not just more and more interested in people and stories I didn’t learn about in school, but identifying with them more, too. I liked the Autobiography of Malcolm X more than The Catcher in the Rye. When I read My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass I don’t feel guilty, I feel empowered.
Since February is Black History Month here in America (and backlash about such history is currently front-page news), I thought I would put together a collection of history books and literature that have opened my mind and my heart and made me a better person. They changed how I understood history in some cases, but in the best cases–as with all great books–they changed how I understood myself.
But before we get into it, I want to preemptively address some of the notes I (unfortunately) get when I talk about things like this. There is a jaw-dropping scene in Wright Thompson’s incredible and haunting book, The Barn (you can also listen to his episode on the Daily Stoic podcast) where in the course of his research about the tragedy of Emmett Till, he decided to go back…
