Being more involved with the world - politics, economics, social issues
I feel a bit uncomfortable opening a topic about this issue, as I know there is a lot of stigma around people "not being interested in politics". "They must be stupid", and so on. Well, I know that's not the case for me. I've spent my life so far mostly being interested in science, engineering, technology, neurology, psychology, but also creative ventures. I'm a very curious person I would say, and enjoy finding out a lot about many different topics. However, I have never developed a solid base when it came to geography, politics, economics, culture. Due to undetected depression in primary school, I performed badly and was sent to lower vocational (is how you call it I think - I'm Dutch). Long story short I managed over time to find myself and climbed up to university level. I never did any proper high school though (not on university preparatory level) and so miss a lot of basic knowledge about the world that I feel embarrassed about. On top of that, I'm a very abstract and visual person, and have a great deal of difficulty remembering names (of things, places, people). That's difficult with specifically these subjects. I've been triggered by events in the last few years to get more interested in politics, but after a short burst of reading online articles I'd usually give up because it felt like there was just too much for me to know and catch up on, too many relationships spanning the globe with too many dependencies and stakes. It was overwhelming. With the elections in the US my interest was peaked again and I notice myself reading a lot of articles in the last 3 days. I'm running into the same problems though; not knowing a lot about the history, the games in the shadows, the international relationships, the wars and war crimes, the whole situation with Russia, there's just too much. I feel like knowing everything that is playing, everything that is at stake, and then staying up to date, would leave me no time for the things that really interest me as a passion instead of a necessity.
However, I do see the importance of these subjects and I do want to develop at least a gross feel for it. It will probably never be the focus of my life. My question to you is, could you advise me some good summaries, books, sources of information that can get me up to speed in a reasonable amount of time? In other words, let's say you had to start over. What would you do?
Edit:
I found some sources myself. Coursera: