10 Things You Don't Know About

[HoreTore]

Maybe 10 things YOU didn't know.

I could go on, but HoreTore already made my point.

I wished I hadn't though.

I was more crass in my response than I should've been, mainly because of my deep-rooted hate of history shows(except a few made by the BBC).

The things mentioned here are all things that is much better argued in a biography. Still, shows like these have a purpose: it's a low-level entry point for a given subject. Watching them might give you the inspiration to explore the subject deeper, and that can only be good. One must, however, remember that such shows will only give a surface look at things, and are prone to give you the wrong idea of the facts.

All that said, I also loathe biographies and rarely read any. Lenin and Stalin's biographies are exceptions, of course, and occupy the place of honour in the middle of my bookshelf. Aside from those two, I only read biographies as an entry to a subject. For example, when I wanted to know more about Burma, I started with Aung San Suu Kyi's biography. Biographies tend to represent one angle of history, so you can't rely on them to give you a good account.