How to Start Studying History?
You’ve done it. You decided. The boring lectures from high school are not going to stop you now. You have chosen to study history. Congratulations on your first step in the journey of a historian.
So, where do you start?
History is a vast subject no matter how you break it down. Thousands of years, thousands of cultures, empires, and nations, billions and billions of people. It can seem too much at times. I know I sometimes feel that way when trying to work on new articles. At times where it feels like too much I take the advice of many professors from my undergrad years and simply break it down. Please note this is my method, you do not have to follow it, but I would like to share it in hopes some may find it useful.
Above is a flow chart for how I sometimes break down history when I’m having trouble deciding what to research next (You can start at the top, or if you already know one of the headings you want to study you can start there).
First, I choose a corner of the world to work in. As an example let’s pick the Middle East.
Now the Middle East, with all its history is still a large area to work with. In the next step, I chose a culture, people, nation, or empire to focus on. Let’s choose the Ottoman Empire.
Then to break it down further you want to narrow your time frame. You can do this by a century or year, or by an already established age. Continuing our exercise I am going to select the Golden Age, from 1481-1566.
Now this is where many people may stop and just dive in. A single age of an Empire or Nation can still be a lot to begin researching. This is why I break things down further and choose a single person, place, thing, or event, to study from my chosen time period. This limits my scope and gives me a clearer focus. This doesn’t cut you off from learning about other topics from that time. In fact, when researching one topic I’ll find something else will pique my interest. If I chose to study the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent I would also encounter topics like his wife Hurrem Sultan, the Harem system, Ottoman Law, his campaigns, the military etc. I can make note of these other topics that interest me and bookmark them for further research.
This system helps me break down vast topics in history into smaller bite-size topics that are easier to study. I highly recommend using a method like this to break down your own research interests. If you try going down the chart but get stuck trying to find a time period or topic to narrow in on I recommend just hitting play on a history playlist or video on one of the following YouTube channels and see what may catch your eye:
Overly Sarcastic Productions-Entertaining Bit-Sized History videos covering many different topics.
Extra History-Entertaining Bit-Sized History videos covering many different topics.
Timeline-World history documentaries.
Odyssey-Ancient history documentaries.
Chronicle-Medieval history documentaries.