History Guides

Dec 27, 2024
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How history can guide you to better decisions

History can help us live in tune with a changing world. And you can make use of history - even if you have never studied history at university nor read all twelve volumes of Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History.

We are all historians in a way. We make sense of our lives and the lives of others through stories of the past. History makes use of two human skills that underpin all our thinking about human society: narrative and empathy.

Narrative

Psychologists tell us that humans think with narratives. It is a gift because narrative is a subtle, complex thinking tool. But it can also be a trap if you fall for the “narrative: presented by powerful interests. My guides will help you find the many real stories concealed behind superficial popular images of the past. They will help you ask when presented with historical comparisons in current issues: how else can we tell this story?

Empathy

The human genius for narrative depends upon our empathy. We do not only tell our own story. We seek out, listen to, identify with, and feel for the stories of others. Good history relies on empathy for friends, strangers, and the dead. My history guides will strengthen your capacity to ‘walk in another’s shoes.’ A little more compassion and understanding might even prevent a catastrophic war.

My Online Courses

In 2023 and 2024 I delivered two history guides as online courses. They both showed adult learners - without jargon or rigid theories, and without the need to do expensive, inaccessible formal study - how to make sense of our changing world with quality history.

Mindful History. In this guide, I show how to apply a simple 5-step process to apply history concepts, stories and skills to real-world scenarios that relate to your individual concerns. This program helps you make meaningful historical comparisons and “think in time” to make wise decisions.

Civilizations for World History Explorers. In this guide I explore with you, like a trusted travel companion, the history of all civilizations that have flourished and fallen in every environment on earth. Through a slow read of just one book (Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Civilization), we explore world history in an imaginative and compassionate way. It will be our travel guide to the history of civilizations - one of the more contentious and divisive concepts in history. But it does not have to be so. The past is a foreign country... but thankfully we are all experienced foreign travellers today.

Change in how I deliver my online courses

I previously offered these courses at courses.jeffrichwriter.com. But this site is no longer active. In late 2024 I closed my account on the platform that I used for these courses. These two courses are temporarily inaccessible.

However, I will bring refreshed versions of these guides to Substack in 2025.

Available History Guides on Substack

After closing my account on the platform, I streamlined my online content to offer my history guides for members here on Substack. Four history guides are available now on Substack

History Guide to Geopolitics: Imagine You are a Foreign Minister

This guide to geopolitics does not tell you want to think but invites you to imagine you are a Foreign Minister. Imagine you must make decisions that affect the world and shape history. The guide includes seven short ‘briefings’ - like I used to do when I was a government official - on the essential lessons of history for geopolitics. The seven lessons are:

  • Introduction and Myths of Geopolitics

  • Geography

  • International Politics

  • Power Factors

  • Power Players

  • Great Power Narratives

  • Globalisation

Post-1945 World Order

The post-1945 world did not begin from a well-ordered rulebook. It began in a bombed-out city. So says John Darwin in After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires 1400 to 2000. My Post-1945 World Order history guide takes you step-by-step through John Darwin’s masterpiece of world history so you can understand the key patterns in world history since 1945. This post-1945 world - the ‘world of nations’ and American Primacy - is the world that today we are leaving behind.

Classic History Essays Read as Mini Audiobooks

My guides also include some classic reflections on history, read slowly as ‘mini audiobooks.’ It is a great way to absorb and reflect on the use of history to live in tune with a changing world. These audiobook guides include:

World Literature since 1901 - the Nobel Archive

My guide to the cultural history of the modern world through reading all 121 winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature is available at the Nobel Archive page.

Coming Soon - the Rise and Fall of Empires

On the Burning Archive YouTube channel, I am doing a series on the Rise and Fall of Empires. In 2025 I will adapt this series into a special program for members. This series summarises the story of modern empires based on John Darwin, After Tamerlane: the rise and fall of global empires from 1400 to 2020. The currently available videos are:

My History Guides on YouTube

Many of my videos on YouTube are introductory guides to the best in world history today and how you can make use

My essential approach to mindful history is set out in this video.

My guides include interviews with historians from around the world:

On YouTube I have also provided guides to important recent history books or prominent historians. These include:

You can also explore my guide to the 75-year history of NATO.

And my playlist on the history of Russia.