Earlier this century, I found the author Barbara Tuchman and started reading her histories, and they soothed my beliefs that we're heading to hell in a handbasket. The world HAS been in more difficult straits, her works convinced me. A DISTANT MIRROR is a great one - a long history of Europe in the 13th and 14th Centuries, full of marauding gangs, the beginning of unionized labor vs serfdom, the Brits owned the Atlantic Coast of France for a while longer, and the era of the Two Popes.
Or if you think our world politics only recently suck, check out her much shorter history, A PROUD TOWER, discussing the populist movements and a handful of important personalities from 1870 to 1914. I only thought we had it bad NOW.