[FS]

In the matter of books and music I always find it incredibly hard to pick a starting spot, because I want to simultaneously take in the most informative or entertaining there is while also wanting not to miss out on anything. In the end I succeed at neither.

In this case, I think a first step would be to find a very short and systematic (but complete) list of historic events, and then to note down events that you would like to look into more - then, use that as reference to look for good books on the subject.