Many books about romanian history are very dull, or are lacking in quality illustrations and maps, or are just written as scientific papers for other historians. In a lot of them, no consideration is taken to spark the imagination and interest of the general reader, and thus they have a non engaging style that will leave either confuse or bored to tears, or both :)
This is why many people know more about legends and fairy tales ( related to historical events) rather than actual history because fairy tales are actually interesting and are designed to stimulate your imagination, as opposed to most reading material that is on the topic of romanian history.
But of course, there are exceptions, and this is one of them:
"Historical Illustration Between Art and Science" is the latest book by Radu Oltean - an amazing illustrator and historian who spends a lot of time trying to understand history and then portray it in an interesting and engaging way through his book and art work.
This book is written both in english and romanian and can be found at a discount here ( the site is in romanian). The maps in the background are also made by him and represent how the cities of Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara looked a few hundred years ago.
What I especially love about him is his ethos to present history in an factual and non biased way; and not tainted by all sort of national or political agendas that tend to mislead in order to prove a point that is relevant to us and distorts what actually happen.
Another example of a book I love and is written by him is "Dacia: The Roman Wars" which tries to accurately represent a war that has been wrapped in myth for years, in an attempt to raise national pride. So coming with an objective perspective about this period is anything but easy, yet I feel he succeeds.
The book is not so common anymore because it is 5 years old, but you can still find it here.
I must emphasize that I don't get anything by promoting these books and the author, but I have been quietly enthusiastic about him and his work for years and they should be much more well known because good history books are so rare in my opinion. Also people should understand what really happened in back in the day and not get stuck with some regurgitated nationalistic bs that has nothing to do with historical accuracy - but is what is taught in most schools unfortunately.
To end on a lighter note - even if you don't like history, these books are full of pretty pictures and who doesn't like pretty pictures :) ?
My name is Adrian a.k.a "The nearsighted traveler". I'm a running enthusiast who loves to spend time enjoying nature. I write mostly about running, the places I explore and the interesting stuff I learn here on steemit.
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