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3 days ago“How to Invent Everything” by Ryan North.
I’m hesitant to suggest it because it is not exactly a ‘history’ book per se. It might not have the specifics, depth, breadth or even content you are looking for but I found it to be very, very engaging.
From the website for the book: It’s a (fictional) time machine repair guide that (non-fictionally) explains how to reinvent civilization from scratch.
My dad calls himself a BuJew Cath, which is Buddhist, Jewish and Catholic. “How does Jewish and Catholic work together?” you might ask. The answer is, it doesn’t. My dad is insane. He does it to prevent people from accusing him of being close-minded and so he can claim he’s a minority. It’s pretty sad.
Me personally, I follow my own even stranger belief system, which I haven’t defined fully and hopefully never will, because definitions turn into rules and rules are too binary and create impossibilities. I like to believe that anything and everything has already happened, is currently occuring and will do so constantly for all time. There’s a pseudo-solipsist angle as well, where my reality is created by me but others do the same, so as to allow for all believe systems independently. If two individuals have conflicting views, their own truths are true for each of them but not the other. Those with similar beliefs are then drawn to each other and those with dissimilar beliefs are repelled, like a type of magnetism. That’s the simple version.