Large libraries are the best place to find history books. The selection is awesome, and the price is right. If you prefer the bookstore, don’t go to the popular histories that are prominently displayed. They tend to emphasize entertainment value over scholarship. They often try to be best sellers by telling the audience what they want to hear. Instead, go to the discount table. Histories that are slow sellers and have been marked down in price often have the best data. Avoid biographies that concentrate exclusively on some popular hero. However, biographies that explain the historical context within which the main character lived are often very good.
The best history books are usually written by specialists who have spent a lifetime researching the material, but there are many exceptions. Good contemporary history is often written by journalists. Many excellent histories have been written by archeologists, linguists, and amateur historians. The best historical fiction can also provide a good picture about everyday life in a given time and place.
If you are reading a history book and it is continuously telling you that your own countrymen are magnificent, heroic, and brilliant and that foreigners who oppose them are vile, evil, and stupid, watch out. There are a lot of books like this, and they are often entertaining, but they are not good history. The data they contain is biased. There is always another side to the story.
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