r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	eenbiertje
Comment	History grad here. It's probably too early to be able to recommend specific books as we don't know exactly what areas you'll be studying. Do you have an area of interest? You'll be doing very general history (likely of the UK and early modern European history) in your first and second years. In third and fourth you'll have opportunity to specialise in given areas of history, depending of course on what is available at your given uni (depending on what specialisms they offer, what professors they have on board). But - and I know this seems like a lazy, non-academic recommendation - I strongly recommend dipping into the r/AskHistorians subreddit. I discovered it midway through my third year, when I was googling some specific queries on a topic in one of my elected classes. You'll find that the level of question asked on there, and the answers given, are of a very high calibre, with sources and references given for every answer. I wish I'd found it earlier, as it gave great insight into specific aspects of what I was learning in class. I was able to find questions and answers relating to what I was learning, and understand the topic on a deeper level. I found my contributions in class, and in turn what I gained from these classes, improved dramatically - all essentially from doing more outside reading. If you've got a topic of interest in mind, have a wee search through the subreddit's past posts. I found it helpful on three levels: 1. Simply getting wider knowledge about my topic of interest (why did X happen, who was responsible for Y happening etc.) 2. Getting to see how good, comprehensive, readable answers are laid out. I'm certain that browsing this subreddit improved my own writing ability. You see people who are experts (or on the road to being experts) in their fields, laying out their answers in coherent, illuminating ways. 3. Better appreciation for the actual process of studying history - i.e. understanding the constant, perpetual need to be weighing things up as you gain knowledge about a topic. Source A said X happened for that reason? Great, but how does that relate and interact with what source F said? Who was source A? What were their concerns and needs? Why would they say what they said? Even if you get into the habit of reading it casually, you'll pick up little things from the answers. Read up on [historiography](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography#:~:text=Historiography%20is%20the%20study%20of,work%20on%20a%20particular%20subject.) as a concept - the process of writing about history. Get to know a little about the different dominant views and philosophies related to historiography over time (Wikipedia is a fine resource for this).
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/if7n0y/studying_history_in_scotland_universities_what/g2w1el2/
Created	Wed 26th Aug 2020 8:36am
Status	normal ()

History grad here.

It's probably too early to be able to recommend specific books as we don't know exactly what areas you'll be studying. Do you have an area of interest?
You'll be doing very general history (likely of the UK and early modern European history) in your first and second years. In third and fourth you'll have opportunity to specialise in given areas of history, depending of course on what is available at your given uni (depending on what specialisms they offer, what professors they have on board).

But - and I know this seems like a lazy, non-academic recommendation - I strongly recommend dipping into the r/AskHistorians subreddit. I discovered it midway through my third year, when I was googling some specific queries on a topic in one of my elected classes. You'll find that the level of question asked on there, and the answers given, are of a very high calibre, with sources and references given for every answer. I wish I'd found it earlier, as it gave great insight into specific aspects of what I was learning in class. I was able to find questions and answers relating to what I was learning, and understand the topic on a deeper level. I found my contributions in class, and in turn what I gained from these classes, improved dramatically - all essentially from doing more outside reading.

If you've got a topic of interest in mind, have a wee search through the subreddit's past posts.

I found it helpful on three levels:

1. Simply getting wider knowledge about my topic of interest (why did X happen, who was responsible for Y happening etc.)

2. Getting to see how good, comprehensive, *readable* answers are laid out. I'm certain that browsing this subreddit improved my own writing ability. You see people who are experts (or on the road to being experts) in their fields, laying out their answers in coherent, illuminating ways.

3. Better appreciation for the actual process of *studying* history - i.e. understanding the constant, perpetual need to be weighing things up as you gain knowledge about a topic. Source A said X happened for that reason? Great, but how does that relate and interact with what source F said? Who was source A? What were their concerns and needs? Why would they say what they said?

Even if you get into the habit of reading it casually, you'll pick up little things from the answers.

Read up on [historiography](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography#:~:text=Historiography%20is%20the%20study%20of,work%20on%20a%20particular%20subject.) as a concept - the process of writing about history. Get to know a little about the different dominant views and philosophies related to historiography over time (Wikipedia is a fine resource for this).