Reddit mentions of Anime: A History

If you can stand dry writing, check out Jonathan Clements' Anime - A History. It was a slog to get through for me, but it has many interesting topics since it covers the whole time span from the beginning of anime.

To understand anime, you also need to understand manga and possibly video games, since a lot of tropes very developed and spread there before hitting anime. Sadly I only can recommend you a german book for that. Miriam Brunner's Manga is pretty neat.

You should also always look for more sources, there are actually quite some books about the topic of manga and anime.

https://www.amazon.com/Anime-History-Jonathan-Clements/dp/1844573907

Really? There is a lot of discussion of anime like Lupin III even in the West. From a historical standpoint, anime like Star of the Giant are still significant today due to various animation techniques used, although not knowing it really isn't that surprising outside of Japan. I believe that Sazae-san was the longest running television show worldwide, so that's pretty interesting. Besides knowledge of anime history and some early revolutionary animating techniques, there isn't that much of a reason to watch very many of these shows anymore. If you're interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading this book

Anime - A History by Jonathan Clements is apparently a good book, though I've never read it myself.

You should read John Clements' books, appropriately titled Anime: a History

I'm going to echo sdlroy and say that Clements's Anime: A History is really worth reading. He structures it using some ideas from historical epistemology about the kinds of historical accounts that normally get excluded from prestige/artistic histories, and I learned a tonne from reading it. That decision means less detailed treatments of periods we're more familiar with, but then... we're already more familiar with them. I think now that it's out it's really necessary reading for anyone who's interested at all in anime's history, not because it's the last word but precisely because it opens up so many less well-known things to think about. (And some of the anecdotes are priceless.)