Having spent two conferences with Dr John Dickson, we've been encouraged to think rightly about history. We'll post the audio and video soon, but in the meantime, here are his top three history/background books:

• The Oxford Classical Dictionary, this is expensive, shop around
• The Dictionary of NT background, bit cheaper!!
• The Encyclopedia of the historical Jesus, another pricey volume, but apparently, as they say, worth it.

There's a longer list of twenty, but this seems a good place to start. Personally, as a history lover but history dunce, I have also found the NIV Archeological Study Bible edited by Walt Kaiser to be really useful. And slightly cheaper too….