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The problem with "dad history" can't be solved from the historian end. There are already GREAT accessible books for the general reader on all the mainstream subjects of US history & more published every day. The bookstores need to stock them & the readers need to read them.
I'm very sorry to say that even my favorite indie bookstores have TERRIBLE stock in popular history. Part of it is the price of UP books - that's also on publishers & readers, not authors.
Part of the problem for readers is not being able to find the good books at the same prices as the crap - that's a problem to refer to publishers & bookstores NOT historians.
The other part of the problem for readers is the real crux. Readers of popular history are often looking for pleasurable reading about our own past. Guess what - if you want comfort from the past you might need to turn to fiction. Our past is actually not heroic.
What do we like in fiction? Heroes. These days we often like very complicated anti-heroes, but still. Protagonists. Plot, not exposition. And we're all overworked, so we don't want reading to feel like work.
What makes good, real, valuable history? No heroes (power doesn't actually work that way outside of our individual mental constructs). Some plot, sure, but also systemic & even random sources of change. And complexity, not for its own sake but for accuracy, bc truth matters.
Stop looking to history to get your fiction fix. There's a lot of great fiction that deserves to be read, too. But you should ALSO read good history. Maybe not before bed. Maybe in place of 90% of the news and 99% of self-help.
