I didn't start playing RQ until 1989, in the midst of Avalon Hill's 3rd ed. It was written in pretty dry prose by that time. Now that I have most of Chaosium's earlier stuff, I can see what the original appeal of the game was supposed to be: everything resembles the actual study of history & anthropology, even though it's set in a nominally fictional world.

I don't own anything from the recent Mongoose edition, so I'm wondering- is the historical perspective is there at all?

I don't yet have any of the Glorantha-related items for that line, but I do have one suggestion, based on my acquisition of some of the non-Glorantha books: buy them on eBay or other places.  The price that Mongoose charges for their books if you buy direct from them (based on the sizes of them) is a little high (IMHO).

Your best bet would probably be to check some of the previews of the various Glorantha-related books that they have up.  I know the core Second Age book has a fair number of short PDF excerpts available: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/ ... sSeries=39 .