Great idea for a thread.

My own history reading has been pretty much on the back-burner the last few years as I've been concentrating more on filling in some of the many holes in my fiction reading, but I hope to get back to it in the not too distant future.

I suppose I am getting a bit of history in an indirect way, since I'm going through a lot of stuff from the late 19th century. Mostly cultural rather than political history - memoirs, things like that. I've been reading the Goncourt Journals off and on the last year or so, for example. These were diaries kept by the two Goncourt brothers, well known writers in the Paris literary world, so you get lots of anecdotes about other famous French writers of the time but also a bit of political gossip now and then as they were pretty well-connected.

And in a comics connection, there are two books about real-life figures involved in some important historical events near the top of my pile: Chester Brown's Louis Riel about the Métis Rebellion in Canada in the 1870s, and Mary and Bryan Talbot's The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, about Louise Michel, a revolutionary involved in the Paris Commune.

Since I have a degree in history, I'll probably be popping in here occasionally. Normally I do read quite a bit of books on history and current affairs, but for the last year or so I've been reading (genre) fiction almost exclusively (had some heavy stuff happening in real life, so I had a real need for escapism).
That said, quite recently I read the book Holy Rollers about a notorious religious cult that was active in Oregon at the very start of the 20th century. This was an interesting episode in Oregon history, but the book is, frankly, rather uneven. It drags at places, and overall its not that well composed. The authors eschewed the use of footnotes or endnotes, which was really unfortunate, because there are many places in text where I was really interested in the source of specific quotes, etc. That decision is surprising, since both of them, at least according to the author blurbs, are academically trained (one is a paleontologist and the other a professor at a community college).
Also, just last night night I read Joe Kubert's Yossel, which is a work of fiction, but based on very real historical events. (Maybe I should have mentioned it in the "Make War No More" thread?)

I'm a more documentary type person watching on an average of 15-20 hours a week on the History Channel, Military Channel, and others too ... I love Civil War, WWI, WW2, Roaring Twenties, Retro, and anything that suits me fancy. I also read about 5 hours a week ... more than Comics of which I do about 1-2 hours ... this is a great thread and thanks for starting it up Slam_Bradley!

By way of background history was easily my first love. Before I was reading comics regularly I was taking out every book at the library about history that I could find. I suspect that the American Bicentennial had something to do with my love, as the Colonial Period of the US was always a focus. I swear I was the only 2nd grader ever who wanted to be a history professor. Eventually I moved on to hard sciences and SF reading (and comics). And then political science and law. But I've always loved history and was only a language requirement away from a double major in Political Science and History.

I did pass my love of history on to my middle son who will be getting a degree in History (with an endorsement to teach secondary ed history and government). And he wanted to be a history professor himself (his main area is French colonial history). But unfortunately academia has become a starvation position outside the hard sciences and tech so he is talking about going to law school after he gets back from The Peace Corps.

But his passion has rekindled mine and I've been reading a lot of history and archaeology articles and watching documentaries as well as interspersing history reading (both actual and historical fiction) into my regular reading rotation. Next up is City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas by Roger Crowley a popular history of the rise and decline of Venice as a trading empire. It's the last of Crowley's works left for me to read. His previous books, focusing on the Portuguese Empire; the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans; and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire by Suleiman the Magnificent have all been great reads. I'll probably post thoughts on it as I read it. It's about 1 1/2 short books out on the list.

"The Glory and the Dream" is a feast. I loved the sequence of short biographies of Americans who really have mattered, but, for various reasons, are forgotten. Those of Debs and Reuther jump to mind immediately. 

I'm sure there are others, but one odd omission form Manchester's encyclopedic volume is the saga of Apollo 13, which gripped the nation for quite a few days.

I would recommend "Goodbye, Darkness," Manchester's memoir of his time serving in the Pacific as well. His nerve-snapping account of a face-to-face showdown with a Japanese sniper is more than worth the price of admission. 

Ah, Zinn. All of his books and essays are bracing, honest, unrelenting, and heartfelt. Check out his autobiographical book, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train." 

Remind me to tell you of the time he spoke to a graduating class at a tiny, staid "independent" school where I taught for a few years... classic. 

Just finished this book. Description:

"The twenties and thirties witnessed dramatic changes in American life: increasing urbanization, technological innovation, cultural upheaval, and economic disaster. In this fascinating book, the prize-winning historian David Kyvig describes everyday life in these decades, when automobiles and home electricity became commonplace, when radio and the movies became broadly popular"

Really nice study of the changes that occurred in America that affect us 100 yrs later. Shows how society changed & why...

I highly recommend it.