Reddit mentions of In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval Policy, 1889-1914

First off, I youre serious about giving (and particularly writing) an engaging presentation or lecture series, you should really try and read as much matieriel as you can. Through reading, youll absorb a lot of the background information for your topic, youll be well versed in the history of your subject, and youll have a lot of books to choose from if you need to assign or suggest reading (btw, you didnt specifiy at what level youre teaching this class, so Ill assume its college undergrads. So if some of this doesnt apply, just correct me and well go from there). But knowing the matieral will help you reach your audience better, after all its hard to be engaging when your stumbling over the materiel yourself!

But reading how other historians have framed the topic will show you how to frame it. You can say "Well, book A is pretty standard, and kind of boring. But book B approaches the topic from an interesting perspective, and I really like what it says". After you read 2, 5, 10, 100 books on the subject, youll see how people deal with the same topic differently. And you get to cherry pick every approach to make your own!

To build a good reading list, you can try just punching words into Google or Amazon (I cant help, sorry :\ ), but also go back to any Com Sci textbooks you have. Hopefully they have some kind of bibliography or further reading sections. Select some books which sound good, and get a hold of them. Even if those books are bust, you can mine the sources of those books for more books which might help you. (Wikipedia, and especially the references and bibliography section is also good for this, especially as a starting point).

However, you might think Im suggesting you read 20 different iterations of "History of Comp Sci, then and now". A good trick to keep your listeners/readers entertained is to tell interesting stories, anecdotes, or fun facts. Im sure as a teacher youve experienced this yourself, if somebody just stands up there and rattles off facts and reads off a powerpoint slide, nobody is engaged. But if you spice the facts up with personality, color, and flavor, youll keep people interested. Heres and example you might want to use: one early application of mechanical computers was in naval artillery and gun laying. In Defence of Naval Supremacy describes those systems and their development history. It will also make you smash your head in. But thats a really cool and interesting thing that you can talk about, to illustrate the connection between early computers, military engineering, and solving complex mathematical problems.

One final thing Ive been thinking about lately, is the idea that people really care the most about other people. Humans are social creatures by nature, and we relate most to the lives of other humans. By focusing in on the people, their lives, their struggles, their successes, and their failures, you can really bring your topic "to life" (forgive the phrase). Students learn best when they're engaged, I know I did. So if you give them something to relate to, a good story to tell, and are yourself eager and engaged with a topic, then theyll reflect that. If you just stand up at the front of the room and let'um have it, it wont be as fun, for both you and them.