.... Read up on the lore.
Seriously this game is surrounded by so much rich lore its unreal, it will definately add to your enjoyment of the game.

I onli discoverd tes by randomly pickin up oblivion, am probably gonna get flamed for this next bit, but i never botherd with the in game books didnt know anything about the lore except for the basics that i read on the races in the game manual/chatacter creation screen. I was a blind fool...

BUT THEN I SAW THE LIGHT.

Skyrim was announced and i discoverd the forums and the brilliant community who showed me the error of my ways. I slowly picked uplittle bits of lore here an there but i wanted more i was hooked. I was pointed towards www.imperial-library.info & www.UESP.NET which are now bookmarked i started new playthroughs on ob. with races who i never botherd with befor but after reading there lore they now appealed to me. for the first time i used backstorys and actualy read the books. i enjoyed ob so much more.

Sorry for going on i just wanted to get my point across. Skyrim will be brilliant guranteed BUT weather you look at the lore about time lines, gods or just the races i promise you skyrim will be just that little bit better. Thanks for listening

I had a basic knowledge of the lore from playing both Morrowind and Oblivion, then about a week ago I started reading about all the things that happened between Oblivion and Skyrim, and a ton of other things..It's really deep.

And I'm currently in the awkward "Holy crap this is confusing" stage.

Indeed. They need more books though, two is simply not enough.

You N'wa! How can you not have read any lore!!??

lol Joking. Yes I have to agree that Elderscrolls lore is the best. I started in Morrowind when I was young wee child, and hated reading. Somehow though Morrowind hooked me, and I started to love reading. Became a fantasy world I could dive into, and now I'm a bit of a lore buff. But back on topic, lore makes the game world so much richer, and playing it so much funner.

i have no idea what happened between oblivion and skyrim but i hope they have new ingame books

Oblivion to Skyrim in a nutshell.

The empire went to hell and everyone started killing eachother.

Glad I could help. :3!

ok i heard cyrodill was without leader and some dude/warlord/whatever took over but thats all

Heres my suggestion.

FUS RO DAH everything!

The lore is pretty great, I'm hoping there are little references and easter eggs that only someone who has played other TES games extensively or have read up on lore will get, while everyone else ignores it or doesn't notice. It would be very justifying..

im not a new commer but neither am i that familiar with the lore. could anyone provide a good link?

All you will ever need, right http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki. Enjoy.

thank you sir.

@DarkZenith, Thanks that helped alot

The lore was always a strong point in TES games, very enjoyable very deep, uncomplete leading to much speculations are lore are.
Very wonderfull and surely an immersion factor.

Rich in lore? i really cannot wait to play. thanks for the info.

Yeah in a nutshell due to there being no emperor the other provinces have took advantage, Elsweyr & black marsh succeed from the empire.

The thalmor (altmer goverment) take control of the aldmeri dominion (valenwood an summerset isles).

Red mountain erupts destroying Vvardenfell and some of morrowind, argonians take advantage and invade an conquer morrowind from the dunmer.

Titus mede took made himself emperor by taking the imperial city with a thousand men. Later takes on the thalmor but fails...