Hi folks...I'm curious as to what your interests are in the fields of history and/or geography? Do any of you have academic backgrounds in these areas? Which literature is the most captivating to you?

I'm interested in the social aspects of history, I have taken sociology and I've taken history- but I haven't taken a class called Social-History.
I enjoy reading classics.

I studied linguistics and literature , but history always has been my 'violon d' Ingres'.
My interest is in the first place practical : I like to travel. Especially Britain and France.Especially in Britain
I feel that history is in the air wherever you go as there has not been that amount of destruction of historic buildings as I find on the continent.
The craziest situation for me is Germany because I know most city centres have been "razed" and yet it all looks like brand new medieval stuff.
Have been racking my brain what U.S.A. must be like if there is nothing that's older than just a few centuries.
Even when I walk through Ghent I see "old stone" all over the place.
Guess U.S.A. is even MORE ancient history ; but Nature's History then.
I like to join guided tours (if the guides are competent and entertaining).
One of my most exciting historic experiences was with a middle-aged lady in London who made me forget the busy traffic in London while she was taking me from the Southbank to Shoreditch and back to Liverpool Street station.
Guess I like history for the "colourful stories" it offers.
Historical anecdote and gossip is really my thing.
And yes of course I admit you have to take all those stories with a pinch of salt. But even when history gets mixed up with the imaginary and the fantastic it tells me something about what people (think they) are like.

When I come across such 'exciting stories' I do check the historic truth , but even when I discover they are not 100%
true fact I still keep my fascination for them.

So now you can safely 'disqualify' me as an amateur , but I wont mind for a second.

Flemmie I'm so happy you don't regret joining us on this side! It certainly looks as though you're enjoying yourself!
I'm an eclectic in my historical tastes but I must say that I've always centered on the nineteenth century no matter where I wander. Why? For me it's accessible to us all, if you were born in the late 1950's for example your grandparents are a living link to the past. Yesterday I was stirring something with a silver spoon and I said to my daughter, "here's my heritage from your great great grandmother!" It is dated 1857! Or the quilts they made are from the frontier days in the Dakotas before the family that survived typhoid joined the others in California.
So when I did work in American history I liked the nineteenth century eras and found myself working on people like Victoria Woodhill and the communes and the educational systems of the time.
When I began doing art history the nineteenth century still appealed to me and I chose subjects from that area.
I've been able to visit the artists' homes, even talk to one or two of their descendants which makes it come alive for me.
Genealogy is also another of my things, and I clicked up to the 16th century for my father's family thanks to the great web page the people put up.
One thing I found really fascinating is that my mother's ancestors wrote so well. Their letters were printed in a book on that family name. I mean they wrote about everyday events in clear English for the time, though they used a German dialectic amongst them.
When I visited the area as I had a job there later, I was happy to finally see where some of my ancestors had started out life.

Being as curious as I am about the past, it is hard for me to imagine that so many people out there are not. With so much to be learned from the successes and failures of those that have gone before why would someone not be interested? I too often hear young people use the expression: "Why would I care what a bunch of dead guys did?"
Tough to counter that kind of thinking.

I love learning what life was like in previous times. What did they do on a daily basis? How did they deal with this issue or that situation? What were some of the things they dealt with that we take for granted? What kind of clothing did they wear? How did they fix their hair? Those kinds of things.

I remember history classes in school and how incredibly boring they were. All we were taught was to spit back who won this battle or the date of that war. And, what I kept wanting to know was -- what was life like for those people? I'm not opposed to learning about wars or battles. But, tell me what it was like out there on the front lines in the Civil War. Tell me what the women and children were doing while the men were off fighting. Tell me the _life_ in those wars. Tell me the interesting parts of history.

One example of what I'm talking about was the Great Depression. Remember studying it back in school? Remember how dry and boring it was? I do. Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to get to know a person who lived through the Depression. Instead of being in soup lines, he was playing tennis, having parties, and living as if nothing had happened. And, in his world, it hadn't. Not everyone faced the things we were taught in school during the Depression. Some people were very comfortable and didn't experience the kinds of things we've always associated with that time period. Not every family was the Waltons. It was very interesting and educational for me to learn a more complete picture of what went on then, rather than a narrow-minded view. And, it kind of makes me angry to know that I went that long being taught that things were only one way. Schools need to give a more accurate, and complete, picture of history.

I agree, but that's not always possible. Atleast not on the high school level, which is probably the best level to do so. People push schools to give more standardized tests. Studying for those tests takes time. In the end, students aren't really learning about history, they are learning about how to tackle the questions on those test. The questions are so varied that teachers can't spend too much time on one subject. They instead touch on everything they could and pray that those subjects are going make it on the tests.
I think teachers would go more into subjects, but right now they are not at the liberty to do so.

But, this went beyond the high school level. My college History courses were just as dry and boring. Yawn.... You'd think that, at SOME point in my life, I'd find a teacher/professor/etc who actually enjoyed the subject and wanted to pass along the excitement to his or her class. But, alas, no!

I have a feeling there are a few of the teachers I'm searching for here at FT, though! I think I just may get my wish after all.

I'm studying physics, but I like history - both the parts about daily life and the parts about who won which battles - so I'm filling my distribution requirements with as many history classes as possible.

My history-department history teachers have been pretty boring, but once you get outside the department things get better. For example, two of my best professors have taught classes on the Mongol conquests (as viewed through the art of Mongol subject states) and Nazi Germany as seen through the propaganda machine. Somehow the extra focus seems to make for better presentations and more interested professors than "Western Civilizations Until 1650".

Now that I come to think of it ..I guess one of my uncles
aroused my interest in history when I was something like ten.He gave me a book which was normally not within my age-category."The Lion of Flanders", by Hendrik Conscience.Some kind of Flemish Braveheart.It was all so romantic and exciting I wrote a school essay about it which was longer than the teacher had ever read.Then the teacher started reading excerpts from it to the class. I 'glowed'.
Later that same uncle told me about my greatgrandfather having run some kind of coach-inn.And he showed me old pictures of all my "greatgrandfamily etc."
I learned my ancestors had lived in the North of France.I got on my bike and started making tours of the area between Dunkirk and Lille . I found some 'romantic' tombstones. Such as a lady who had her first name Fanny written in golden letters on her grave and who had grown very old and had never married. I imagined her to have had many love affairs and never having given up her independence. Some "Virgin Monarch" kind of. With such a name like "Fanny" she could not but have been a pretty woman.
Silly of course but I discovered desolate little villages which had been the birthplaces of specialpeople such as the great traveller Willem of Rubroek. He was the
franciscan friar who before Marco Polo had travelled to Mongolia and discovered the Gothic text of the prayer to the Lord I later had to study at university.
I started looking at landscapes and seeing that indeed where I was walking there had been sea-bottom some ten centuries ago.
Wherever I travelled I 'felt' the presence of the past (as long as I stayed away from the horros of big cities).Especially in Britain and in Ireland it was as if the past was still palpable.
With my mom I went to museums where she showed me objects that had been common tools in her own grannie's time.She still knew about ancient customs.
She also showed me what the life of women had been, much more arduous but probably less stressing than nowadays.
It simply was not BOOKS but kind of developing an 'eye for things'.
Never did I have a particular area of history that I limited my interests too.A relative of mine became a leading egyptologist and I liked to talk to him on his favourite subjects.I read some of the books he published.But that approach never was mine.
Walking around in the alleystreets near Southwark Cathedral
in London I was fascinated by remnants of the past such as
a rose window from a long decayed medieval building, a plaque commemorating where the Clink Prison had been. One day I met an American who was doing research on the Globe theatre. He told me about the Winchester Geese,the Cardinal's Cap sailors' pub and how people crossed the Thames in small boats that were like modern taxis.
What I saw was not really there anymore.There were just a few traces. The rest had to be completed with the eye of imagination.
Guess that's what 'history' comes down to for me.
And then came the Internet , which gave me a 'home library' not even all my uncles' books were match for.
Hm. Must sound very naive to all those serious guys here.
Well I happen to enjoy myself and nobody is going to rob me of that.
OK?

geography:
i had a great teacher, who made this a really interesting subject. when i studied it at o'level, i loved the study of 'Tectonic plates' - looking at volcanoes, fault lines, earthquakes, weathering, river formation etc wow!! wish i had made more of an effort then, wish i could study it again now that i;m older!
allynellie

Allynellie I have a friend in Alaska that also is very interested in the movement of tectonic plates, though purely for selfish reasons. He tells me that the plates are moving in a northerly direction. In another 25 thousand years the state of California may actually be where the state of Alaska now is. Then FINALLY Alaska will have a major league baseball team. Lol.

Lol!!
i'd like to come back in 25k years and see the result.
allynellie

I've always liked history and it didn't matter how boring the teacher was, because most of the stuff I read at home anyway. I'm TRYING to finish up a thesis on sociolinguistics - the Czech National Revival - so this has been pretty much a dream/nightmare for me. I like Flemmie's style and only quibble with this European there's nothing to see in America attitude. Anyone who's been in Boston, or stood on the battlefield at Antietam, or looked at Jeffereson's "sea view" will know that there is a lot more to see all over North America than just hot dog stands.

I look on history with a passion. Anything and everything that's gone before... I have felt the spine tingling awe of the pyramids... almost cried watching the sun set on stonehenge... jumped up and down with glee upon seeing the millenium celebrations in London... that's history too now... But the biggest sense of history's passing i have ever felt was standing in Hoboken, New Jersey only a few days ago and trying to understand what was up with the skyline of Manhattan... it's just not the same... it's strange to think that such huge buildings are now consigned to history...

I just thought of another thing that inspired me and my children. When the hands-on concept is dealt with well, and I've mainly seen the Anglo-Saxon type models of museums work so far, you can actually touch and feel things and dress up like the inhabitants of an Indian village for example, or any other subject.
A small museum in Indiana where we lived had these environments for the kids and my children were dressed like Indians and playing in a canoe or pioneers.
This is a different concept in museums and education.

The point I wanted to make is not that "America has no history" (*) , but that to my spontaneous feeling the history of America is more about "Grand Canyon","Death Valley", "Zabriskie Point" and "century-old sequoias". History of the earth rather than man-made history. Anyone who ever travelled with a geologist, will have experienced that they do not count in "centuries".
That wider sense of history I also have when I walk around in the Burren , Ireland. The man-made history of the Dingle
Peninsula is already more impressive than the 'old stone' you keep seeing in France when you make a tour of France's castles and cathedrals.
Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" tells me more about history than
the tourist brochure telling me about the iconography of medieval painters or sculptors.
So my point of view is not that "America has no history", but that the USA history (no reason why Independence War and Civil War would not make 'great history') are NOT what I think of when I wonder what America's 'real history' is.
And what visible traces it offers to the visitor.Supposing the traces are not all built over as they are in many European areas.
Sure there are quite a few "National Parks" that have events from Washington's and Lincoln's time as their theme
and there are even aspects of East Coast and Pennsylvania history that would fall in with my spontaneous perception of what 'attracts' me as history (the Amish;the Dutch in New York; "carroussels" in PA)it's more the Works of Nature,
the shaping of 'the earth crust'that fascinates me.
What impresses me when I travel is a sense of 'time having passed here'.Can I be forgiven for including geography into my concept of history??
And no, I take no particular interest in hot dog stands but a nice 'antique' icecream cart is also history to me.Because it reminds me of times when I still could look at things with the eyes of a kid.Hope I have not lost ALL of that.

(*)-Surprised that nobody pointed out I had overlooked the Native Americans , about who I indeed hardly know a thing.

I sat Geography in High school.... Just wondering, should we blame continental drift for separating countries and our ancestors apart?

I am very glad we ARE apart , and so different, Thanaput!! It makes visiting lovely countries like yours so fascinating!.
And just think of the variety in food!!!(My favourite subject.)

Nice meeting you again ren32, please mail me and tell me a bit about your self...By the way thanks for your explanation on the pound, was great well expressed. Thai food very lovely...I do miss my fish and chips though....Any way back to my plate movement that must have caused the variation in skin toning. What yar reckon pal?

As an American, born and raised in northern Illinois, joined the Air Force and lived in Japan for 4 years; visited Thailand briefly, vacationed in Mexico, existed in Viet Nam and passed through a number of cities, I am a sometime student of history. That is, I am selective in where I would like to visit and sites that I would like to see and people that I would like to vist.
Tops on my list is Merry Old England. If Queen Elizabeth has an hour or so I would like to visit with her. Many years ago, before she married that Philip fellow, I was in love with her (she didn't know it, of course).
I would still like to do a month tour of the birthplace of Anglo civilization. If you see her, tell her that I still have an official souvenier copy of her coronation and if she will kindly autograph it for me I promise not to embarrass HRH.

I like to read about the American literary expatriates in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I'm also interested in the artists and art movements of that time, and I'm particularly fascinated with the "Bohemian" salons where artists and literary figures frequently mingled and shared ideas which led to groundbreaking and revolutionary work in both areas.

My interest in history was encouraged by the fact that it was my one of my two (or three) best subjects at secondary school. Later, my interest was sustained by the fact that I studied German as my main subject at university. (In England, most degrees used to be *highly* specialized). Although the main focus of the degree was firmly on the literature (and language), anyone with a real interest in Germany must try to understand this country's mind-boggling past ... For a long time, Germany was regarded as a highly civilized country, a bastion of civilization with outstanding achievements in music, literature, philosophy, theology, art, architecture and all the natural sciences and medicine. It was also much admired for its excellent education system, key elements of which were imitated abroad. It was in Germany that universities first stressed the importance of *research* ... The list of remarkable achievements is very long and impressive; and nothing that has happened in the last 90 years has undone them.

However, sections of the country's élites - the senior military and key politicians - 'blew' Germany's reputation, first by deliberately plunging Europe into war in 1914; and, as for the Nazis, they made Germany's name *mud* - some of which unfortunately still sticks.

It has often been said that Germans have the difficult task of confronting their country's past. Surely, any serious student of German has to do the same.

(I hope to answer some of Jazz's other questions another time).