I'm starting to feel that a lot of people who are obsessed with ancient Rome have a rather naïve concept of history which is completely focused on Great Men and Great Battles. While politics and warfare certainly are fun to study, this leads to a very limited view of the past (and bullshit like "Hard times create strong men..."), and personally I find it a rather boring way to interact with history.

(I do realise there are more ways to study the classical world; I'm a great fan of Jona Lendering's blog (Dutch)).

During my study I've grown to love Early Modern Europe because of the massive developments in state politics and diplomacy, warfare, global exploration and religion. There's so much happening at once and it's really complex, but there's enough source material to study it properly.

Also, for people who like reading about ordinary people in the past, the Middle Ages can be really rewarding. Medieval people were a lot like us (more so than say Victorians) but also very different in really interesting ways. And they built a lot of awesome stuff.