Ancient Israel

I've been taking Bible History in school and so far what I've found very interesting were the ancient Israelis and their split between the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

However, I'm not very much educated on the subject from there so my questions are several. Is there a certain "subject" that this time period would be called so I can look into it further and are there any premier books that give the history (or as much as there is to be recorded) on this era before and after?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Biblical archeology might be a subject of intresst for you. As general Middle Eastern archeology might also be.