Books for Summer/first semester Outside
Reading
You will need to choose a book from the list below and begin
reading it for your summer reading assignment. Please download
the syllabus for our class and email me with any questions.
General Topics
The following books contain essays that are relevant to many different time periods and topics. They are
appropriate in any quarter, at any point in the year.
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The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. Richard Hofstadter. ISBN
0679723153
Lies My Teacher Told Me. James W. Loewen. ISBN 0684818868
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. Barbara Tuchman. ISBN 0345308239
Profiles In Courage. John F. Kennedy. ISBN 0060806982
The 18th Century
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America at 1750. Richard Hofstadter. ISBN 0394717953
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. H. W. Brands. ISBN
0385495404
A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution. Carol Berkin.ISBN 0151009481
John Adams. David McCullough. ISBN 0743223136
John Marshall: Definer of a Nation. Jean Edward Smith. ISBN 080505510X
Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution. A. J. Langguth. ISBN 0671675621
The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Gordon Wood. ISBN 0679736883
Angel In The Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. Benson Bobrick. ISBN
0140275002
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Robert Middlekauff. ISBN
0195035755
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. Joseph Ellis. ISBN 0679764410
His Excellency: George Washington. Joseph Ellis. ISBN 1400040310
1776. David McCullough. ISBN 0743126712
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Joseph Ellis. ISBN 0375405445
The Constitution: A Documentary and Narrative History. Page Smith. ISBN 0688083498
The Federalist Papers. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, & John Jay. (Also available online)
ISBN 0451647711
The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Debates. Edited by Clinton Rossiter. ISBN
0451615240
American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic Joseph Ellis
ISBN 030726369X
The following table from the Rossiter book will help you read the arguments for and against adopting the
U. S. Constitution in the words of those who made those arguments.
Need for a stronger Union
Anti-Federalist writing
Federalist writing
[opposed to the Constitution] [in favor of the Constitution]
John Dewitt, #1 & #2
Federalist 1-6
Bill of Rights
John Dewitt, #2
James Wilson, 10/6/87
Federalist 84
Nature and powers of the
union
Patrick Henry, 6/5/88
Federalist 1, 14, 15
Responsibility and checks in
self-government
Centinel #1
Federalist 10, 51
Topic
Extent of union, States' rights, Pennsylvania Minority:
Bill of Rights, taxation
Brutus #1
Federalist, 10, 32, 33, 35, 36,
39, 45, 84
Extended republics, taxation
Federal Farmer 1 & 2
Federalist 8, 10, 14, 35, 36
Broad construction, taxing
powers
Brutus #6
Federalist 23, 30-34
Defense, standing armies
Brutus #10
Federalist 24-29
The judiciary
Brutus 11, 12, 15
Federalist 78-83
Government resting on the
people
John Dewitt #3
Federalist 23, 49
Executive power
Cato #5
Federalist 67
Regulating elections
Cato #7
Federalist 59
House of Representatives
Brutus #4
Federalist 27, 28, 52-54, 57
The Senate
Brutus #16
Federalist 62, 63
Representation in the House of Melancton Smith, 6/20 Representatives and the Senate 6/27/88
Federalist 52-57, 62-63
The 19th Century
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Undaunted Courage: Merriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the
American West. Stephen Ambrose. ISBN 1684826976
Democracy in America. Alexis de Tocqueville, 2 volumes. (Also available online). ISBN
394701100 & 394701119
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South Kenneth Stampp
The Age of Jackson. Arthur Schlesinger. ISBN 0316773433
Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times HW Brands ISBN 1400030722
The Americans: The National Experience. Daniel Boorstin. ISBN 0394703588
The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. David M Potter. ISBN 0061319295
The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. H. W. Brands.
ISBN 0385502168
With Malice Toward None. Stephen B. Oates. ISBN 0060924713
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. James McPherson. ISBN 0345359429
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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Goodwin Kearns ISBN
0743270754
This Hallowed Ground. Bruce Catton. ISBN 0671828738275
Landscape Turned Red. Stephen Sears. ISBN 089919172X
Chancellorsville. Stephen Sears. ISBN 039587744X
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass. ISBN 0385007051
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant. ISBN 0306801728
Custer's Luck. Edgar I. Stewart. ISBN 0806116323
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Dee Brown.
ISBN 055310277X.
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Edmund Morris. ISBN 0698107837
Theodore Rex. Edmund Morris. ISBM 0812966007
TR: The Last Romantic. H. W. Brands. ISBN: 0465069592
Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady. Sylvia Jukes Morris. ISBN 0698109945
The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s. H. W. Brands. ISBN 0226071162
The 20th Century
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Standing at Armageddon : The United States 1877-1919. Nell Irvin Painter. ISBN
0393305880
Our Game: An American Baseball History Charles Alexander
Babe: The Legend Comes to Life Robert Creamer
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Ron Chernow. ISBN 0679757031
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power Daniel Yergin ISBN 0671799320
The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace Daniel
Yergin ISBN 0684848112
The Good War Studs Terkel ISBN 978-1-56584-343-1
Over Here: The First World War and American Society. David M. Kennedy. ISBN
0195032098
Freedom From Fear: The United States, 1929-1943. David M. Kennedy. ISBN 0195038347
No Ordinary Time: FDR and the Homefront of World War II Doris Goodwin Kearns ISBN
0671642405
Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender
of Germany. Stephen Ambrose. ISBN 0684815257
D-Day June 6, 1944 : The Climactic Battle of World War II. Stephen E. Ambrose. ISBN
068480137X
Americans at War. Stephen E. Ambrose. ISBN 0425165108
The Longest Day: June 6, 1944. Cornelius Ryan. ISBN 0671890913
Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974. James T. Patterson. ISBN 0195117972
The Greatest Generation. Tom Brokaw. ISBN 0375502025
Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 Stephen Ambrose and Douglas
Brinkley
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Alex Haley. ISBN 0345376714
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. Taylor Branch. ISBN 0671687425
All The President's Men. Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward. ISBN 0671894412
The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 David Wyman and
Elie Wiesel ISBN 978-1595581747
Race Matters Cornell West
Democracy Matters Cornell West
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Race: How Blacks and Whites Feel About the American Obsession Studs Terkel
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide Samantha Powers
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years David Talbot
A Testament of Hope : The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. and James Washington