World Civilizations Reading List
Students should select two books (one per semester) from this list to read both in class and at
home. There will be activities attached to these books. There are many other great Historical
Fiction books out there. If you would like to read something not on the list, please ask.
**Please note I have not read all the books on the list. Parent approval/guidance picking a book is
recommended.**
Cover
Title
Author
Description
The Adventures of
Details the life and extensive travels of Ibn Battuta, an
Ibn Battuta: A
Dunn, Ross Islamic scholar of the fourteenth century, interpreting his
career as a diplomatic envoy within the cultural and social
Muslim Traveler of E.
context of Islamic society
the 14th Centurty
The Adventures of Green, Roger Robin Hood, champion of the poor and opponent of the
Sheriff of Nottingham, takes refuge in the Sherwood Forest
Robin Hood
Lancelyn
and outwits his enemies with daring and panache.
Adventures on the Galloway,
Ancient Silk Road Priscilla
This book provides accounts of journeys undertaken by three
men along the Silk Road, including seventh-century Buddhist
pilgrim Xuanzang, Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan, and
thirteenth-century merchant Marco Polo.
African Folktales
Abrahams,
Roger
Nearly 100 stories from over 40 tribe-related myths of
creation, tales of epic deeds, ghost stories and tales set in
both the animal and human realms.
After the Black
Death: A social
History of Early
Modern Europe
Huppert,
George
This book leads the reader into the real villages and cities of
European society after the Black Death.
All Quiet on the
Western Front
Remarque,
Erich
An Edible History Standage,
of Humanity
Tom
Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German
army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become
soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into
pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as
horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a
single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that
meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but
different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out
of the war alive.
More than simply sustenance, food historically has been a
kind of technology, changing the course of human progress
by helping to build empires, promote industrialization, and
decide the outcomes of wars. Reveals how food has helped
shape and transform societies around the world, from the
emergence of farming in China by 7500 BCE to the use of
sugar cane and corn to make ethanol today.
Orwell,
George
An allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked,
mistreated animals and their quest to create a paradise of
progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing
satires ever published. As readers witness the rise and bloody
fall of the revolutionary animals, they begin to recognize the
seeds of totalitarianism in the most idealistic organization—
and in the most charismatic leaders, the souls of the cruelest
oppressors.
McCourt,
Frank
An uminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depressionera Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the
slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no
money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy,
rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages.
Arab and Jew:
Wounded Spirits
in a Promised
Land
Shipler,
David K.
Focusing on the diverse cultures that exist side by side in
Israel and Israeli-controlled territories, Shipler examines the
process of indoctrination that begins in schools; he discusses
the far-ranging effects of socioeconomic differences, historical
conflicts between Islam and Judaism, attitudes about the
Holocaust, and much more. And he writes of the people: the
Arab woman in love with a Jew, the retired Israeli military
officer, the Palestinian guerilla, the handsome actor whose
father is Arab and whose mother is Jewish.
Ben Hur
A thoroughly exhilarating tale of betrayal, revenge and
salvation, it is the only novel that ranks with Uncle Tom's
Cabin as a genuine American folk possession. Wallace writes
Wallace, Lew with a freshness and immediacy that brings every actionpacked scene to life and illuminates the geography, ethnology
and customs of the ancient world.
Animal Farm
Angela’s Ashes
Beowulf: A New
Heaney,
Verse Translation Seamus
The Bonesetter’s
Daughter
Tan, Amy
The national bestseller and winner of the Whitbread Award.
Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is
the classic Northern epic of a hero’s triumphs as a young
warrior and his fated death as a defender of his people. The
poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and
then having to live on, physically and psychically exposed in
the exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels in this
story to the historical curve of consciousness in the twentieth
century, but the poem also transcends such considerations,
telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent
and liberating.
Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always
had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to
forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which
reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . .
The Broken
Spears: The Aztec
Describes ancient Aztec civilization and presents Native
Leon-Portilla,
American accounts of the persecution and slaughter that
Account of the
Miguel
accompanied Cortes' conquest of Mexico.
Conquest of
Mexico
How a Renaissance genius re-invented architecture in
Florence. At first denounced as a madman, Brunelleschi
literally reinvented the field of architecture amid plagues,
wars, and political feuds to raise seventy million pounds of
metal, wood, and marble hundreds of feet in the air. Excellent
reading for anyone who plans to be an engineer or architect.
Brunelleschi’s
Dome
King, Ross
Buddha: A Story
of Enlightenment
Chopra,
Deepak
An account of the life of the Buddha, written for western
readers, traces his spiritual journey while explaining how his
experiences and teachings have changed the world and
continue to influence every facet of life.
Chinese Fairy
Tales and
Fantasies
Roberts,
Moss
This fresh and elegant translation of 100 tales from 25
centuries of Chinese literature opens up a magical world far
from our customary haunts. Illustrated with woodcuts.
Cleopatra: A Life
Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious
negotiator. She was married twice, each time to a brother.
She waged a brutal civil war against the first and poisoned the
Schiff, Stacy second; incest and assassination were family specialties. She
had children by Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, two of the
most prominent Romans of the day. With Antony she would
attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled both
their ends. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra
has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Her
supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have
been lost
Cod: A Biography
of the Fish that
Kurlansky,
Changed the
Mark
World
A history of the fish that has led to wars, stirred revolutions,
sustained economies and diets, and helped in the settlement
of North America features photographs, drawings, and
recipes, as well as the natural history of this much sought
after fish.
Collapse: How
Diamond,
Societies Choose
Jared
to Fail or Succeed
A study of the downfall of some of history's greatest
civilizations discusses the Anasazi, the Maya, and the Viking
colony on Greenland, tracing patterns of environmental
damage, poor political choices, and other factors in their
demise.
A Connecticut
Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court
Twain, Mark
Hank Morgan finds himself transported back to England's
Dark Ages — where he is immediately captured and
sentenced to death at Camelot. Fortunately, he's quick-witted,
and in the process of saving his life he turns himself into a
celebrity — winning himself the position of prime minister as
well as the lasting enmity of Merlin.
Cortes and
Montezuma
Collis,
Maurice
Chronicles the Spanish exploration of Central America,
beginning with Cortes' 1519 landing in Mexico, providing a
view of the clash of two men and two worlds, one eventually
doomed to extinction.
Cows, Pigs,
Wars, and
Harris,
Witches: The
Marvin
Riddles of Culture
Crossing the Line:
Finnegan,
A Year in the Land
William
of Apartheid
Cry the Beloved
Country
Paton, Alan
An anthropologist speculates on the origins of bizarre and
mysterious human lifestyles, customs, and institutions
throughout history.
This seminal piece of cross-cultural journalism is an account
of a white American's experience teaching black students in
South Africa—an account essential for its incisive coverage of
the student anti-apartheid movement, as well as for the
unpretentious charms of its prose.
Impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white
man’s law – deeply moving story of a Zulu pastor and his son
and racial injustice in Southern Africa in the 1940s.
Dance of the
Tiger: A Novel of
the Ice Age
The Dark Child:
The
Autobiography of
an African Boy
David Copperfield
A detailed picture of life 35,000 years ago in Western Europe.
One of the world's leading scholars of Ice Age fauna, Kurtén
fuses extraordinary knowledge and imagination in this vivid
Kurten, Bjorn evocation of our deepest past. This novel illuminates the lives
of the humans who left us magnificent paintings in the caves
of France and Spain.
Laye,
Camara
Dickens,
Charles
Author’s childhood memories: his father's work as a goldsmith
and his position in society, his parent's magic, village life, the
rice harvest, elementary Koranic education, circumcision and
young men's secret society, secondary education in Conakry,
girls and courtship, and departure to study in France. After
almost half a century in print, this deserves to be called a
classic.
Based on the author's own tumultuous journey from boy to
man, this epic traces young David's progress from his
mother's sheltering arms to the miseries of boarding-school
and sweatshop and the rewards of friendship, romance, and
self-discovery in his vocation as a writer.
When humans understood that the earth was flat and it was
the center of the universe, all life revolved around that truth.
Then, Galileo introduced his telescope. And with that single
innovation, architecture, music, literature, science, politics--all
of it changed, mirroring the new view of truth. Examination of
The Day the
Burke, James the moments in history when a change in knowledge radically
Universe Changed
altered man's understanding of himself and the world around
him.
The Death Of
Woman Wang
Diary of Lady
Muraski
Spence,
Jonathan D.
Shikibu,
Murasaki
Life in the northeastern county of T'an-ch'eng emerges here
as an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry,
and heavy taxation. Against this turbulent background a
tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an unhappy
wife act out a poignant drama.
The Diary recorded by Lady Murasaki (c. 973 c. 1020), author
of The Tale of Genji, is an intimate picture of her life as tutor
and companion to the young Empress Shoshi. Told in a
series of vignettes, it offers revealing glimpses of the
Japanese imperial palace the auspicious birth of a prince,
rivalries between the Emperor's consorts, with sharp criticism
of Murasaki's fellow ladies-in-waiting and drunken courtiers,
and telling remarks about the timid Empress and her powerful
father, Michinaga. The Diary is also a work of great subtlety
and intense personal reflection, as Murasaki makes
penetrating insights into human psychology her pragmatic
observations always balanced by an exquisite and pensive
melancholy.
Don Quixote
The Endurance
Exodus
First They Killed
My Father: A
Daughter of
Cambodia
Remembers
FolkTales from
India
Cervantes,
Miguel
Chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant
Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho
Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain.
Alexander,
Caroline
In August 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World
War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of
twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the
last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first
crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a
treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had
come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their
ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the
ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded
on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and
they would make two near-fatal attempts to escape by open
boat before their final rescue.
Uris, Leon
Ung, Loung
The birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies--the
beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the
tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American
nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious,
heartbreaking, triumphant era.
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official,
Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of
Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol
Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's
family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained
as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings
were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors
would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.
Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an
unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet
miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of
unspeakable brutality.
Ramanujan,
A.K.
Folktales from India is an enchanting collection of one
hundred and ten tales translated from twenty-two different
languages, by turns harrowing and comic, sardonic and
allegorical, mysterious and romantic. Gods disguised as
beggars and beasts; animals enacting Machiavellian
intrigues: sagacious jesters and magical storytellers; wise
counselors and foolish kings -- all of these inhabit a fabular
world, yet one firmly grounded in everyday life. Augmented by
A. K. Ramanujan's definitive introduction and notes, this is an
indispensable guide to India's ageless folklore tradition.
Gates of Fire: An
Epic Novel of the
Battle of
Thermopylea
Pressfield,
Steven
At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece,
the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred
strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against
the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.
A re-evaluation of Genghis Khan's rise to power examines the
Genghis Khan
Weatherford, reforms the conqueror instituted throughout his empire and
and the Making of
his uniting of East and West, which set the foundation for the
Jack
the Modern World
nation-states and economic systems of the modern era.
Expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few
during the Industrial Revolution, but also shows humanity’s
capacity for compassion and hope. Etienne Lantier, an
unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young
man with a dangerous temper. Forced to take a backbreaking job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other
work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry, and in
debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When
conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further,
Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean
starvation or salvation for all.
Germinal
Zola, Emile
Gilgamesh: A
Verse Narrative
Mason,
Herbert
Presents a verse narrative of the ancient Babylonian epic
about love, death, loss, heroes, and friendship, including an
historical essay on the original poem.
Guns, Germs,
and Steel: The
Fates of Human
Societies
Diamond,
Jared
Dismantles racially based theories of human history by
revealing the environmental factors he feels are responsible
for history's broadest patterns.
Gunpowder:
Alchemy,
Bombards, and
Pyrotechnics
Kelly, Jack
Traces the history of the explosive mixture created by
Chinese alchemists in the tenth century, a critical invention
that has fueled innovations and shaped the technology of
warfare and the evolution of modern history.
Guns of August
Haj
Tuchman,
Barbara
Uris, Leon
The world leading up to the beginning of World War I –
August, 1914.
An epic story of hate and love, vengeance and forgiveness
and forgiveness. The Middle East is the powerful setting for
this sweeping tale of a land where revenge is sacred and
hatred noble. Where an Arab ruler tries to save his people
from destruction but cannot save them from themselves.
When violence spreads like a plague across the lands
of Palestine--this is the time of The Haj.
The Haunted
Land: Facing
Rosenberg,
Europe’s Ghosts Tina
After Communism
The Pulitzer Prize-winning look at the collapse of Communism
in Eastern Europe.
The Heart of
Darkness
Conrad,
Joseph
Dark allegory describes the narrator's journey up the Congo
River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a
mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants
of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character
development, psychological penetration.
Heroines: Great
Women Through
the Ages
Hazell,
Rebecca
The lives and contributions of such women as Joan of Arc,
Sacagawea, and Marie Curie are portrayed here, showing
that talent and determination can initiate progress despite
obstacles.
The Hidden
Dimension
Hall, Edward Not really history, but cultural and human “proxemics” –
demonstrates how man’s use of space defines personal,
T.
business and cross-cultural relations.
The Hiding Place
Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her
courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World
Boom, Corrie War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews
escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's
Ten
concentration camps. But she survived and was released--as
a result of a clerical error--and now shares the story of how
faith triumphs over evil.
Hirohito and the
Bix, Herbert
Making of Modern
P.
Japan
Hiroshima
A History of the
World in 6
Glasses
Hershey,
John
Standage,
Tom
The Horse
Goddess
Llewelyn,
Morgan
I, Columbus: My
Journal 14921493
Roop, Peter
I, Juan de Pareja
Borton de
Trevino,
Elizabeth
In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor
Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished
look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign
ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the
full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such
clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained
from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's
political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status.
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first
atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's
journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day.
Told through the memories of survivors.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity
from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of
beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made
in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important
to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In
ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast
seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits
such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration,
fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious
slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it
stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of
Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual
exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began
drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with farreaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though
carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they
became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in
particular is the leading symbol of globalization.
Troy is in crumbling ruin and Athens is rising far to the south.
It is a time when mortal men and women are becoming gods
and goddesses as news of their extraordinary adventures
sweeps across the land. In this world, Epona, a woman
whose life is celebrated in legend, meets Kazhak, a Scythian
warrior and prince. Their stormy love affair sends them
sweeping across eighth-century Europe, pursued from the
Alps to the Ukraine by Kernunnos--a mysterious Druid priest
known as the "Shapechanger."
Excerpts from Columbus’s journal.
Society of Classical Spain and the great painter Velasquez,
through the eyes of his closest associate and servant. Yes, Pa-r-e-j-a.
Imperium: A Novel Harris,
of Ancient Rome Robert
The Inheritors
Isaac Newton
Golding,
William
Gleick,
James
Islam: A Short
History
Armstrong,
Karen
The Janissary
Tree: A Novel
Goodwin,
Jason
Jayne Eyre
Bronte,
Charlotte
Judge Dee At
Work: 8 Chinese
Detective Stories
VanGulik,
Robert
A novel of ancient Rome – the cautionary tale of Cicero, the
greatest orator of all time, and his extraordinary struggle for
power in Rome.
Eight Neanderthals encounter another race of beings like
themselves, yet strangely different. This new race, Homo
sapiens, fascinating in their skills and sophistication, terrifying
in their cruelty, sense of guilt, and incipient corruption, spell
doom for the more gentle folk whose world they will inherit.
Brings the reader into Newton’s reclusive life, but primarily
provides clear explanations of the concepts that forever
changed our perception of bodies, rest, and motion – ideas so
basic to the 21st century that it can truly be said: We are all
Newtonians! Recommended for math/physics students.
No religion in the modern world is as feared and
misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular imagination as
an extreme faith that promotes terrorism, authoritarian
government, female oppression, and civil war. In a vital
revision of this narrow view of Islam and a distillation of years
of thinking and writing about the subject, Karen Armstrong’s
short history demonstrates that the world’s fastest-growing
faith is a much more complex phenomenon than its modern
fundamentalist strain might suggest.
Murder mystery set in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire.
Jane Eyre is the story of a small, plain-faced, intelligent, and
passionate English orphan. Jane is abused by her aunt and
cousin and then attends a harsh charity school. Through it all
she remains strong and determinedly refuses to allow a cruel
world to crush her independence or her strength of will. A
masterful story of a woman's quest for freedom and love.
Jane Eyre is partly autobiographical, and Charlotte Brontë
filled it with social criticism and sinister Gothic elements. A
must read for anyone wishing to celebrate the indomitable
strength of will or encourage it in their growing children.
The eight short stories in Judge Dee at Work cover a decade
during which the judge served in four different provinces of
the T'ang Empire.
Julius Caesar
King Leopold’s
Ghost
Roman dictator Julius Caesar returns from a victorious
campaign in Spain, causing his fellow-citizens to mistrust the
scope of his political ambitions. Afraid that he will accept the
Shakespeare, title of ‘king’, a group of conspirators persuade Marcus Brutus
to join their plot against Caesar. William Shakespeare’s play
William
revolves around Marcus Brutus as he grapples with issues of
friendship, honor, and patriotism.
Hochschild,
Adam
The haunting account of a megalomaniac of monstrous
proportions, a man as cunning, charming, and cruel as any of
the great Shakespearean villains. It is also the deeply moving
portrait of those who fought Leopold: a brave handful of
missionaries, travelers, and young idealists who went to
Africa for work or adventure and unexpectedly found
themselves witnesses to a holocaust.
The Kitchen Boy:
Alexander,
A Novel of the
Robert
Last Czar
Recreation of the the tragic, perennially fascinating story of
the final days of Nicholas and Alexandra as seen through the
eyes of the Romanovs’ young kitchen boy, Leonka. Now an
ancient Russian immigrant, Leonka claims to be the last living
witness to the Romanovs’ brutal murders and sets down the
dark secrets of his past with the imperial family.
Le Morte D’
Arthur: King Arthur
and the Legends Baines, Keith
of the Round
Table
From the incredible wizadry of Merlin to the passion of Sir
Lancelot, these tales of Arthur and his knights offer epic
adventures with the supernatural as well as timeless battles
with out own humanity.
Lenin’s Tomb: The
Remnick,
Last Days of the
David
Soviet Empire
An account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the
global vision of the best historical scholarship with the
immediacy of eyewitness journalism.
Les Miserables
Hugo, Victor
First published in France in 1862, it is Victor Hugo's greatest
achievement--the ultimate tale of redemption. Former prisoner
Jean Valjean struggles to live virtuously after an unexpected
act of forgiveness by a kindly bishop changes his life. His
righteous actions change people's lives in surprising ways
and culminate in romance between two young people.
Rifka knows nothing about America when she flees from
Russia with her family in 1919. But she dreams she will at last
be safe from the Russian soldiers and their harsh treatment of
the Jews in the new country. Throughout her journey, Rifka
carries with her a cherished volume of poetry by Alexander
Pushkin. In it, she records her observations and experiences
in the form of letters to her beloved cousin she has left
Letters from Rifka Hesse, Karen behind. Strong-hearted and determined, Rifka must endure a
great deal: humiliating examinations by doctors and soldiers,
deadly typhus, separation from all she has ever known and
loved, murderous storms at sea—and as if this is not enough,
the loss of her glorious golden hair. And even if she does
make it to America, she’s not sure America will have her.
Life Along the Silk Whitfield,
Road
Susan
The Making of the Rhodes,
Atomic Bomb
Richard
Mapping the Silk Nebenzahl,
Road and Beyond Kenneth
Mary, Bloody
Mary
Meiko and the
Fifth Treasure
Memoirs of a
Geisha: A Novel
Meyer,
Carolyn
Coerr,
Eleanor
Golden,
Arthur
Brings alive the now ruined and sand-covered desert towns
and their inhabitants. Readers encounter an Ulghur nomad
from the Gobi Desert accompanying a herd of steppe ponies
for sale to the Chinese state; Ah-long, widow of a prosperous
merchant, now reduced to poverty and forced to resort to law
and charity to survive; and the Chinese princess sent as part
of a diplomatic deal to marry a Turkish kaghan. In the process
we learn about women's lives, modes of communication,
weapons, types of cosmetics, methods of treating altitude
sickness in the Tibetan army, and ways that merchants
cheated their customers.
Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly—or have been
so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear
energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of
hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an
interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the
Manhattan Project, and then into the bomb, with frightening
rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers—Szilard,
Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and
von Neumann—stepped from their ivory towers into the
limelight.
This volume reproduces in full color 80 beautifully rendered
and rare maps, more than 40 of which have never been
published for the general public.
The story of Mary Tudor's childhood is a classic fairy tale: A
princess who is to inherit the throne of England is separated
from her mother; abused by an evil stepmother who has
enchanted her father; stripped of her title; and forced to care
for her baby stepsister, who inherits Mary's rights to the
throne.
When the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Mieko's nearby
village was turned into ruins, and her hand was badly injured.
Mieko loves to do calligraphy more than anything, but now
she can barely hold a paintbrush. And she feels as if she has
lost something that she can't paint without-the legendary fifth
treasure, beauty in the heart. Then she is sent to live with her
grandparents and must go to a new school. But Mieko is
brave and eventually learns that time and patience can help
with many things, and may even help her find the fifth
treasure.
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once
haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story
of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in
1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray
eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a
renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as
she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music;
wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to
reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous
rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it.
Michelangelo and
King, Ross
the Pope’s Ceiling
Re-creates Michelangelo's day-to-day world: the assistants
who worked directly on the Sistine Chapel, the continuing
rivalry with Raphael and others who had much to do with his
world (da Vinci, Savonarola, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Martin
Luther, Erasmus…) A clear vision of the "novelty" of
Michelangelo's image of God, and how "completely unheard
of in previous depictions of the ancestors of Christ" was his
use of women.
The authors describe their investigation into the death of King
Tut, recounting how they drew on forensic clues, historical
information, and the writings of Howard Carter to conclude
that Tut did not die of natural causes.
The Murder of
King Tut
Patterson,
James
Napoleon’s
Buttons: How 17
Molecules
Changed History
Le Couteur,
have greatly influenced the course of history. These
Penney M.
molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and
And
Burreson, Jay made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued.
A fascinating account of seventeen groups of molecules that
The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the middle
of the Indonesian archipelago--remote, tranquil, and now
largely ignored. At the beginning of the seventeenth century,
however, Run's harvest of nutmeg turned it into the most
lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a fierce and bloody
battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company
and a small band of ragtag British adventurers led by the
intrepid Nathaniel Courthope. The outcome of the fighting was
one of the most spectacular deals in history: Britain ceded
Run to Holland, but in return was given another small island,
Manhattan.
Nathaniel’s
Nutmeg
Milton, Giles
Nectar in a Sieve
In a small village in India, a simple peasant woman recalls her
life as a child bride, a farmer's wife, and a devoted mother
amidst fights to meet changing times, poverty, and disaster.
This is the very moving story of a woman in India whose
Markandaya,
whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those
Kamala
she loved. Markandaya's first published novel Nectar in a
Sieve was a bestseller and cited as an American Library
Association Notable Book in 1955. Its depiction of rural India
and the suffering of its poor made it popular in the West.
Not without My
Daughter
Oliver Twist
The Ottoman
Centuries
Mahmoody,
Betty
In August 1984, Michigan housewife Betty Mahmoody
accompanied her husband to his native Iran for a two-week
vacation. To her horror, she found herself and her four-yearold daughter, Mahtob, virtual prisoners of a man rededicated
to his Shiite Moslem faith, in a land where women are nearslaves and Americans are despised. Their only hope for
escape lay in a dangerous underground that would not take
her child...
Dickens,
Charles
Set in Victorian London, this is a tale of a spirited young
innocent's unwilling but inevitable recruitment into a scabrous
gang of thieves. Masterminded by the loathsome Fagin, the
underworld crew features some of Dickens' most memorable
characters, including the vicious Bill Sikes, gentle Nancy, and
the juvenile pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger.
The Ottoman Empire began in 1300 under the almost
legendary Osman I, reached its apogee in the sixteenth
century under Suleiman the Magnificent, whose forces
Lord Kinross threatened the gates of Vienna, and gradually diminished
thereafter until Mehmed VI was sent into exile by Mustafa
Kemal (Ataturk).
Novel about a young English woman in colonial India. It tells
of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the
century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that
lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common
misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair.
A Passage to
India
Forester,
E.M.
Pastwatch: The
Redemption of
Christopher
Columbus
The fictional portrait of Christopher Columbus is combined
with the story of a future scientist who believes she is capable
Card, Orson of altering human history to create a world overflowing with
hope and healing, but her interference has unexpected
Scott
repercussions for the present and future.
Peter the Great: Massie,
His Life and World Robert
The life of this captivating historical figure, chronicling the
pivotal events that shaped a boy into a legend—including his
“incognito” travels in Europe, his unquenchable curiosity
about Western ways, his obsession with the sea and
establishment of the stupendous Russian navy, his creation of
an unbeatable army, his transformation of Russia, and his
relationships with those he loved most: Catherine, the robust
yet gentle peasant, his loving mistress, wife, and successor;
and Menshikov, the charming, bold, unscrupulous prince who
rose to wealth and power through Peter’s friendship.
Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, tender and
unforgiving, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter
the Great is brought fully to life.
Pompeii
Pope Joan: A
Novel
The Prince and
the Pauper
The Prize
Harris,
Robert
The young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus has just taken
charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct that
brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine
towns around the Bay of Naples. His predecessor has
disappeared. Springs are failing for the first time in
generations. And now there is a crisis on the Augusta’s sixtymile main line—somewhere to the north of Pompeii, on the
slopes of Mount Vesuvius.
Rebelling against medieval strictures forbidding the
education of women, young Joan assumes the identity of her
Cross, Donna murdered brother and is initiated into the monastery of Fulda,
where she distinguishes herself as a great Christian scholar
Woolfolk
before relocating to Rome and becoming a powerful force in
religious politics
Twain, Mark
Yergin,
Daniel
The Question of
Hu
Spence,
Jonathan
The Rape of
Nanking: The
Forgotten
Holocaust of
World War II
Chang, Iris
During the reign of England's Henry VIII two boys were born
on the same date, with identical features--which no one
noticed, in as much as they belonged to two opposed social
spheres: Edward Tudor, crown prince, and Tom Canty, a
grimy street urchin. By chance happening to meet one day
they consider it a lark to switch places (Prince-for-a-Day) and
pretend to step into each other's roles. But disaster occurs
when the King suddenly dies; Tom is mistaken for the prince
and hauled off to the Palace, where he is ignorant of formal
speech, prescribed behavior and court etiquette. His protests
of not being the real heir fall on deaf ears. Thinking that the
crown prince has gone mad evil schemers with their own
agenda of usurping the throne plot to profit by him--prince or
pauper as he turns out to be.
Deemed "the best history of oil ever written" by Business
Week and with more than 300,000 copies in print, Daniel
Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the global pursuit
of oil, money, and power has been extensively updated to
address the current energy crisis.
To French Jesuit Jean-Francois Foucquet, John Hua Chinese
widower from Canton and a convert to Catholicismseemed
like the perfect choice to serve as the missionary's translator
and assistant. So Foucquet took Hu back to Paris with him in
1722, but Hu acted bizarrely on the overseas crossing and
was confined for two years in the lunatic asylum of
Charenton. Hu's behavior was clearly irrational: he wielded a
knife, made strange proclamations, slept outdoors. But was
he insane, and if so, did his journey to the West somehow
trigger the reaction?
Red Azalea
The Red Tent
This is a memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s
China. As a child, she was asked to publicly humiliate a
teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor
collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as
she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with
Min, Anchee another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of
one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed
overnight.
Diamant,
Anita
Told in Dinah's voice, Anita Diamant imagines the traditions
and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent.
It begins with the story of the mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah,
and Bilhah--the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give
her gifts that sustain her through childhood, a calling to
midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story
reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and
creates an intimate connection with the past.
The Rise and Fall
of the Third Reich: Schirer,
A History of Nazi William
Germany
An unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf
Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world.
Salt: A World
History
A history of salt notes its role as currency, in the
establishment of trade routes and cities, and as an agenda of
war, noting key figures who played major parts in its
manufacture and distribution.
Samarkand
The Samurai
Kurlansky,
Mark
Recounts the creation of his Rubaiyat throughout the history
of the Seljuk Empire, his interactions with historical figures
sich as Vizir Nizam al-Mulk and Hassan al-Sabbah of the
order of the Assassins, and his love affair with a female poet
of the Samarkand court. The second half of the story
Maaluf, Amin documents the efforts of a fictional American named
Benjamin O. Lesage to obtain the (fictional) original copy of
the Rubaiyat, witnessing Persian history throughout the
Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1907, only to lose
this manuscript in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
Endo,
Shusaku
Tells of the journey of some of the first Japanese to set foot
on European soil and the resulting clash of cultures and
politics.
Englishman William Adams was one of only twenty-four
survivors of a fleet of ships bound for Asia, and he had
washed up in the forbidden land of Japan. The traders were
even more amazed to learn that, rather than be horrified by
this strange country, Adams had fallen in love with the
barbaric splendour of Japan - and decided to settle. He had
forged a close friendship with the ruthless Shogun, taken a
Japanese wife and sired a new, mixed-race family. Adams'
letter fired up the London merchants to plan a new expedition
to the Far East, with designs to trade with the Japanese and
use Adams' contacts there to forge new commercial links.
Samurai William:
The Englishman
Who Opened the
East
Milton, Giles
The Scarlet
Pimpernel
Orczy,
Baroness
Emmuska
Reign of terror in France during/after the French Revolution.
Shaka The Story
of a Zulu King
Coutts, Alex
The book is an historical novel that tells of the origins of the
Zulu nation, and the birth, rise and death of King Shaka ka
Senzangakhona, most notable amongst a long line of
remarkable monarchs. The author describes his boyhood
years, assumption of the Zulu leadership, defeat and
incorporation of numerous Natal and Zululand tribes and
clans, relations with the sometimes manipulative and devious
Port Natal traders, and assassination after the loss of his
mother Nandi brought on increasing, schizophrenic mood
swings that worked to the detriment of the nation as a whole.
Siddhartha
Hesse,
Hermann
This allegorical novel, set in sixth-century India around the
time of the Buddha, follows a young man on his search for
enlightenment.
Silence Over
Dunkerque
Tunis
The Germans unleashed their powerful army through
Luxembourg and Belgium and in a few short weeks, Belgium
and France were defeated and the British forces on the
continent retreated to the port of Dunkerque. In an incredible
feat of daring and luck, the British were able to extract most of
the troops in their army, along with small numbers of French
and Belgians. In history classes, this is considered a victory
for the British, when in fact it was a complete defeat. Had the
Germans not been so swift in their victory, they would have
ground the British army into nothing.
This is the story of the retreat and evacuation as it was. It is a
combination of bravery, humiliation, death, defeat, fear, stoic
carrying on and often an every man for himself situation.
Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight
Anonymous
Brian Stone
(Translator)
Snow Flower and
See, Lisa
the Secret Fan
Snow Treasure
McSwigan,
Marie
The Source: A
Novel
Michener,
James
The Tale of Genji
Tale of Two Cities
A New Year’s feast at King Arthur’s court is interrupted by the
appearance of a gigantic Green Knight, resplendent on
horseback. He challenges any one of Arthur’s men to behead
him, provided that if he survives he can return the blow a year
later. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and decapitates the
knight – but the mysterious warrior cheats death and
vanishes, bearing his head with him. The following winter
Gawain sets out to find the Knight in the wild Northern lands
and to keep his side of the bargain.
In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl
named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a
laotong, an “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a
lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by
sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s written a poem in nu
shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order
to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As
the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on the
fan and compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of
isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.
Together they endure the agony of footbinding and reflect
upon their arranged marriages, their loneliness, and the joys
and tragedies of motherhood.
In the bleak winter of 19 0, Nazi troops parachuted into Peter
Lindstrom's tiny Norwegian village and held it captive. Nobody
thought the Nazis could be defeated—until Uncle Victor told
Peter how the children could fool the enemy. It was a
dangerous plan. They had to slip past Nazi guards with nine
million dollars in gold hidden on their sleds. It meant risking
their country's treasure—and their lives. This classic story of
how a group of children outwitted the Nazis and sent the
treasure to America has captivated generations of readers.
Michener vividly re-creates life in and around an ancient city
during critical periods of its existence, and traces the profound
history of the Jews, including that of the early Hebrews and
their persecution, the impact of Christianity on the Jewish
world, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition. This is an
epic tale of love, strength, and faith that finally arrives at the
founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East.
A compelling history of the Holy Land and its people & a richly
written saga encompassing the development of Western
civilization.
Shikibu,
Murasaki
Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of
courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the
world’s first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an
emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous
nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and
shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent
epic. Royall Tyler’s superior translation is detailed, poetic, and
superbly true to the Japanese original while allowing the
modern reader to appreciate it as a contemporary treasure.
Dickens,
Charles
Against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Dickens
unfolds a masterpiece of drama, adventure, and courage
featuring Charles Darnay, a man falsely accused of treason.
He bears an uncanny resemblance to the dissolute, yet noble
Sydney Carton. Brilliantly plotted, the novel culminates in a
daring prison escape in the shadow of the guillotine.
Things Fall Apart
Achebe,
Chinua
Two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a
“strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful
fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and
society, traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world.
The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the
clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with
the arrival of aggressive European missionaries. These
perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an
awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of
nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the
soul.
This Fleeting
World: A Short
History of
Humanity
Christian,
David
This book will take you on a journey from the earliest foraging
era to the agrarian era to our own modern era a fascinating
one.
Three Against
Hitler
Wobbie, Rudi A True story of three LDS teens fight for freedom.
With the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975, 15-year-old Teeda
and 15 members of her upper-class family were among
To Destroy You Is
Criddle, Joan millions driven from Phnom Penh into the countryside. Now
No Loss
living in America, Teeda here recounts a terrifying, slavelike
existence.
Trinity
Truman
Uris, Leon
McCullogh,
David
The history of the Irish Struggle. A sweeping and powerful
epic adventure that captures the "terrible beauty" of Ireland
during its long and bloody struggle for freedom. It is the
electrifying story of an idealistic young Catholic rebel and the
valiant and beautiful Protestant girl who defied her heritage to
join his cause. It is a tale of love and danger, of triumph at an
unthinkable cost -- a magnificent portrait of a people divided
by class, faith, and prejudice -- an unforgettable saga of the
fires that devastated a majestic land . . . and the
unquenchable flames that burn in the human heart.
The last president to serve as a living link between the
nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman's story spans
the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the
powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary
Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop
the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to
Korea, and fire General MacArthur.
Turkish
Reflections:
Biography of a
Place
Two Hearts of
Kwasi Boachi: A
Novel
Settle, Mary
Lee
An intimate portrait of Turkey by a tourist who falls in love with
historical and modern Turkey: emperors and nomads, sultans
and shepherds; she explores trails blazed by Alexander the
Great, Tamerlane, Genghis Kahn,and Ataturk. This is a cross
country odyssey into history, legend, mystery, and myth.
This story movingly portrays the perplexing dichotomy of the
cousins' situation: black men of royal ancestry, they are
subject to insidious bigotry even as they enjoy status among
Europe’s highest echelons. As their lives wind down different
Japin, Arthur paths–Kwame back to Africa where he enlists in the Dutch
army, Kwasi to an Indonesian coffee plantation where
success remains mysteriously elusive–they become aware of
a terrible truth that lies at the heart of their experiences.
Viking: Hammer of
This book presents the reader with a researched/educated
the North (Echoes Magnusson, understanding of the topic, through the author's knowledge of
the archaeological findings, historical records, sagas, and
of the Ancient
Magnus
mythology.
World)
The Vikings
Magnusson,
Mangus
The Virtues of
War: A Novel of
Alexander the
Great
Pressfield,
Steven
Warriors of God
Reston,
James Jr.
The Vikings hold a particular place in the history of the West,
both mythologically and in the significant impact they had on
Northern Europe. Magnus Magnusson’s indispensable study
of this great people presents a rounded and fascinating
picture of a nation who, in modern eyes, would seem to
embody striking contradictions. They were undoubtedly
pillagers, raiders, and terrifying warriors, but they were also
great pioneers, artists, and traders—a dynamic people,
whose skill and daring in their exploration of the world has left
an indelible impression a thousand years on.
I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So
begins Alexander’s extraordinary confession on the eve of his
greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating,
compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with
a warrior’s unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and
the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories. Whether
surviving his father’s brutal assassination, presiding over a
massacre, or weeping at the death of a beloved comrade-inarms, Alexander never denies the hard realities of the code
by which he lives: the virtues of war. But as much as he was
feared by his enemies, he was loved and revered by his
friends, his generals, and the men who followed him into
battle. Often outnumbered, never outfought, Alexander
conquered every enemy the world stood against him–but the
one he never saw coming. . . .
A rich and engaging account of the Third Crusade (11871192), a conflict that would shape world history for centuries
and which can still be felt in the Middle East and throughout
the world today. Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the
Third Crusade – brings an objective perspective to the
gallantry, greed, and religious fervor that fueled the bold clash
between Christians and Muslims.
The Water Thief
Pastor, Ben
We Were There at
Knight,
the Battle of
Clayton
Britain
When China
Ruled the Seas
Levathes,
Louise
In 304 c.e. Aelius Spartianus, officer and historian at the court
of Diocletian in Dalmatia, is writing the biographies of past
Roman rulers, including Hadrian, who has been dead for
nearly 175 years. Aelius's particular charge is to investigate
the unsolved mystery of the drowning death in the Nile of
Hadrian's favorite, young Antinous.
First hand accounts.
During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven epic
expeditions brought China's "treasure ships" across the China
Seas and the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands
of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of India, on to the rich
ports of the Persian Gulf and down the African coast, China's
"El Dorado," and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred
years before Captain Cook was credited with its discovery.
With over 300 ships--some measuring as much as 400 feet
long and 160 feet wide, with upwards of nine masts and
twelve sails, and combined crews sometimes numbering over
28,000 men--the emperor Zhu Di's fantastic fleet was a virtual
floating city, a naval expression of his Forbidden City in
Beijing.
When Hitler Stole
Kerr, Judith
Pink Rabbit
Anna is not sure who Hitler is, but she sees his face on
posters all over Berlin. Then one morning, Anna and her
brother awake to find her father gone! Her mother explains
that their father has had to leave and soon they will secretly
join him. Anna just doesn?t understand. Why do their parents
keep insisting that Germany is no longer safe for Jews like
them? Because of Hitler, Anna must leave everything behind.
Based on the gripping real-life story of the author, this
poignant backlist staple gets a brandnew look for a new
generation of readers just in time for Holocaust
Remembrance Month.
Witch Child
Rees, Celia
In 1659, fourteen-year-old Mary Newbury keeps a journal of
her voyage from England to the New World and her
experiences living as a witch in a community of Puritans near
Salem, Massachusetts.
Manchester,
William
From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by
ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and
wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose,
and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for
narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a
civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of
its rebirth-the dense explosion of energy that spawned some
of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters,
adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most
spectacular villains- the Renaissance.
A World Lit Only
by Fire
The World of the
Shining Prince:
Court Life in
Ancient Japan
Morris, Ivan
1421: The Year
the Chinese
Discovered
America
Menzies,
Gavin
1984
Orwell,
George
This is a portrait of the ceremonious, inbred, melancholy
world of ancient Japan, has been a standard in cultural
studies for nearly thirty years. Using as a frame of reference
The Tale of Genji and other major literary works from Japan's
Heian period, Morris recreates an era when woman set the
cultural tone. Focusing on the world of the emperor's courtthe world so admired by Virginia Woolf and others-he
describes the politics, society, religious life, and superstitions
of the times, providing detailed portrayals of the daily life of
courtiers, the cult of beauty they espoused, and the intricate
relations between the men and women of this milieu.
On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen
set sail from China to "proceed all the way to the ends of the
earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas."
When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor
had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The
great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records
of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long, selfimposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that
Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before
Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century
before Magellan. And they colonized America before the
Europeans, transplanting the principal economic crops that
have since fed and clothed the world.
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy
about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone,
Orwell's narrative is more timely that ever. 1984 presents a
"negative utopia," that is at once a startling and haunting
vision of the world—so powerful that it is completely
convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of
this novel, its hold on the imaginations of entire generations of
readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that
seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.