Lies My Teacher Told Me was really interesting. It covers all of the the myths of American history, and gives a clearer understanding of how we got to where we are (even quoting specific textbooks to point out their errors and omissions).
The whole series based off of
The Killer Angels:
Gods and Generals and
The Last Full Measure for the Civil War,
Gone for Soldiers for the Mexican War,
Rise to Rebellion and
The Glorious Cause for the American Revolution,
To the Last Man for World War I, and
The Rising Tide for World War II (the start of a trilogy).
Michael (TKA) and Jeff Shaara tell the stories of the events through the eyes of real people who were there; even though the books are fiction, and much of the dialog and internal monologue is invented, everything that is written about actually happened.
1776 focuses on just that one year, starting in late 1775 in England and going up through the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Gives a LOT of information on the Revolution and the people involved during that time, but is very readable.
The
Don't Know Much About... series by Kenneth C. Davis are all easy to read and very interesting. And, there are multiple subjects to choose from.
What If... is an anthology of essays about major world events and how different outcomes could affect history. In asking the questions, the authors (people like James McPherson, David McCullough, the late Stephan Ambrose, and others) explain both the background information and future outcomes of the real events, so they give a good understanding even before asking their questions.
I also used to own two books called
The Optimist's Guide to History and
The Pessimist's Guide to History (guess which was bigger
), which were basically timelines with explanations for each event. Often amusing, but also very informative.
Hopefully my history-geekiness will help a little
