We’ve run through quite a few World Atlases: my sons will pore over them for hours, memorizing cities and rivers and population data. #3 Son, who is weird even compared to his brothers, had a meltdown when he learned his atlas was out of date and Yugoslavia had split up.
I wish we knew more about all those people: the Sueves, Vandals, Alani, et al. They all had great rules, crappy rules, femmes fatales, mass murders of the royal family, all that epic stuff. I have a lectures series on “Nomadic Empires of the Steppes” that I’ll never understand unless I sit down with the notebooks and the atlas, because there are so many tribal and person names that are novel, even after a lifetime of history study.
One half of my favorite set:
https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Atlas-World-History-Prehistory/dp/0141012633
“I wish we knew more about all those people: the Sueves, Vandals, Alani, et al. “
I agree. Back when the Conservative Book Club offered real books and not pop-con fluff I picked up a University of Notre Dame Press book on the early history of Europe. When the mackerel snapper monks were clearing the forests and establishing isolated monasteries that would grow into famous cities. Good stuff.