Summer Reading, History and Social Sciences Department, 2009

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for mutual support? James Madison

The History and Social Science Department offers the summer readings below to students entering grades 9-12 to promote the enjoyment of reading and to spark intellectual interest in our fields of study. Both fiction and non-fiction works appear on this list. Students are expected to read one book for each history or social science course in which they are enrolled. Some courses require one particular book. Other courses provide a range of choice. Where there is choice, brief description of the books appear. In this case students can find heavier historical fare as well as lighter reading. This is the goal: to read, to learn, to enjoy.

GRADE 9 (all courses)

Guns, Germs and Steel, Chs. 4-6, 8-11 Jared Diamond

GRADE 10

Modern World History (choose one)

The Boxer Rebellion Diana Preston

One hundred years ago, China, led by a militant sect called the Boxers, rose up in revolt against all manner of European and Japanese presence and influence, forever altering China and its relationship with the outside world. Preston examines the Boxer Rebellion primarily from the perspective of the Western diplomats and missionaries who narrowly escaped massacre in Peking (as Beijing was then known), Tientsin and elsewhere in the summer of 1900.

Cod Mark Kurlansky

This engaging history of a "1000-year fishing spree," traces the relationship of cod fishery to medieval Christianity and Christian observances, international conflicts between England and Germany over Icelandic cod, slavery, the molasses trade, and the dismantling of the British Empire. Kurlansky writes in an entertaining style while providing accurate scientific information. The story does not have a happy ending, however. The Atlantic cod has been fished almost to extinction.

Daughter of Fortune Isabel Allende

Raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile after being abandoned as a baby, a pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California at the height of the Gold Rush and finds adventure and adversity on her road to independence and love. This novel exposes the reader to mid-nineteenth-century life in the bustling ports of Chile, Great Britain, Northern California, and China.

No True Glory Bing West

The most hard-fought campaign since the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in April 2003, the battle for Fallujah seems to embody most every facet of the American military experience in that country--inordinate courage by the fighting men and their immediate superiors, indecision and contradiction by U.S. leaders from the top down, a disconnect between military will to succeed in Iraq and a lack of dollars and troops to support it, and a treacherous relationship between Fallujans and those Americans who would do everything to "help" them.

Women of the Silk Gail Tsukiyama

The author takes her readers back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn to dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their ambition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own.

The Guns of August Barbara Tuchman

To many people, World War I seems like ancient history. It is when the modern world began, or, in Barbara Tuchman's opinion, when the 19th Century ended. This was the same war that saw the debut of the airplane, submarine, tank, poison gas, machine gun, flamethrower, and hand grenade.

With attention to fascinating detail, she explains just how the war started and why it could have been stopped but wasn't.

The United States in the Modern World I (choose one)

Daughter of Fortune Isabel Allende

Raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile after being abandoned as a baby, a pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California at the height of the Gold Rush and finds adventure and adversity on her road to independence and love. This novel exposes the reader to mid-nineteenth-century life in the bustling ports of Chile, Great Britain, Northern California, and China.

Flashman George MacDonald Fraser

The quasi-historical personal recollections of a British Army officer of the mid-19^th century, recounting his service in Afghanistan and India. Always emerging a hero from the most dastardly acts of cowardice, Harry Flashman is the picaresque rogue par excellence. As a man he can stoop lower, hit fouler, lie smoother, deceive further and, above all, run faster than anyone else. The first packet of the Flashman Papers.

1831 Louis Masur

In his study of the events of 1831, historian Louis Masur argues that America's future faced inevitable upheaval directly linked to the failure of the founders to resolve two issues: slavery and the federal-state conflict. Topics included in this book: slave rebellion leader Nat Turner, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Jackson & nullification, and the plight of the Cherokee.

Master and Commander Patrick O’Brian

This is the first in a long series of novels about the dashing Brit Jack Aubrey and life on the open seas during the early 19_th century. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleon Wars, Captain Aubrey lead his men through many a naval battle and develops a strong friendship with the ship’s surgeon, Steven Maturin.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder

In this Pulitzer Prize winner, a bridge collapses in eighteenth-century Peru; five die. Who were they? In the answer to that question lie numerous cosmic ironies, which are related in a melancholy narrative of great power, simplicity and beauty. Brother Juniper, a thoughtful friar, witnesses the event, views this event as an opportunity to prove the existence of god and, finally, to elevate theology and prove God’s plan.

Modern European History (choose one)

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague Geraldine Brooks

When the plague arrives at a small English village on a bolt of cloth from London, the minister devises a challenging plan to cope with the disease. Housemaid Anna Firth becomes the unlikely heroine. Based on an actual event.

Eleni Nicholas Gage

A true story written by the son of a woman in the Greece of 1948. Communism, civil war and the traditions of village life converge and the woman is imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Gage, an investigative reporter, goes to Greece to discover the truth about his heroic mother and her death.

The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. Sandra Gulland

This is a fictional account of the life of the woman who eventually became Napoleon’s wife. It begins long before when Josephine is a child growing up in the Caribbean in a French colony. It provides insights into the political intrigue before, during and after the French Revolution.

Nicholas and Alexandra Robert Massie

Massie offers a moving, tragic, and unforgettable account of the extraordinary Imperial dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II, his doomed empire, and a revolution that would inexorably change the world forever. "A larger than life drama."

Master and Commander Patrick O’Brian

This is the first in a long series of novels about the dashing Brit Jack Aubrey and life on the open seas during the early 19_th century. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleon Wars, Captain Aubrey lead his men through many a naval battle and develops a strong friendship with the ship’s surgeon, Steven Maturin.

All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Marie Remarque

Remarque has written the classic story of youthful, enthusiastic young men who enlist in the German army of World War I and learn the ravages of war.

Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Dava Sobel

Sixteenth Century Italy is revealed through the letters exchanged between Galileo and his beloved daughter, who is confined to a convent. Their relationship supports the scientists as his discoveries lead him to be tried for heresy by the Catholic Church.

Modern European History AP (choose one)

All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque

Remarque has written the classic story of youthful, enthusiastic young men who enlist in the German army during World War I and learn the ravages of war.

Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Dava Sobel

Sixteenth-century Italy is revealed through the letters exchanged between Galileo and his beloved daughter, who is confined to a convent. Their relationship supports the scientist as his discoveries lead him to be tried for heresy by the Catholic Church.

Nicholas and Alexandra Robert Massie

Massie offers a moving, tragic, and unforgettable account of the extraordinary imperial dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II, his doomed empire, and a revolution that would change the world forever. “A larger than life drama.”

Girl With a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier

Chevalier imagines the subject of Vermeer’s famous painting to be the artist’s young maidservant, and explores the gradual development of their relationship. Chevalier provides vivid descriptions of the Dutch Golden Age as well as the world of seventeenth-century painting.

King Leopold’s Ghost Adam Hochschild

A gripping account of how King Leopold II of Belgium took over the Congo and his brutal treatment of its native peoples. The narrative focuses on the unlikely hero Edmund Morel, a Liverpool shipping agent who discovered Leopold’s atrocities and worked tirelessly to end them.

The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of King Louise XIV and Marie-Antoinette Deborah Cadbury

A fast-paced narrative that describes the French royal family on the eve of the French Revolution as well as the fate of each member of the family during the Revolution. Cadbury pays particular attention to the story of the young prince, Louis XVII, seeking to unravel the mystery surrounding his final days.

The United States in the Modern World II (choose one)

Hard Times Charles Dickens

The novel is a bitter indictment of industrialization, with its dehumanizing effects on workers and communities in mid-19th-century England. Louisa and Tom Gradgrind have been harshly raised by their father, an educator, to know nothing but the most factual, pragmatic information. Their lives are devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination, and the two have little or no empathy for others. Only after several crises does their father realize that the principles by which he raised his children have corrupted their lives.

North and South Elizabeth Gaskell

This book examines the nature of social authority and obedience and provides an insightful description of the role of middle class women in nineteenth century society. Through the story of Margaret Hale, a southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skillfully explores issues of class and gender, as Margaret's sympathy for the town mill workers conflicts with her growing attraction to the mill owner, John Thornton.

A Lost Lady Willa Cather

Marian Forrester is the symbolic flower of the Old American West. She draws her strength from that solid foundation, bringing delight and beauty to her elderly husband, to the small town of Sweet Water where they live, to the prairie land itself, and to the young narrator of her story, Neil Herbert. All are bewitched by her brilliance and grace, and all are ultimately betrayed. For Marian longs for "life on any terms", and in fulfilling herself, she loses all she loved and all who loved her. This, Willa Cather's most perfect novel, is not only a portrait of a troubling beauty, but also a haunting evocation of a noble age slipping irrevocably into the past.

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Stephen Crane

The story of a beautiful young girl living in the slums of New York in the late 19th Century provides a shockingly explicit portrait of the brutal conditions that existed in the poverty-stricken slums of New York. Originally refused by all publishers that it was submitted to because of its brutal and sexual realism.

United States History (choose one)

The Alienist Caleb Carr

It is 1896, and a serial murderer is on the loose in New York City. The twist here is that the unofficial investigation (sanctioned by Chief of Police Theodore Roosevelt) uses a doctor specializing in the new science of psychology to help solve the crimes. The result is a fascinating discussion of a city poised on the edge of modernity.

Common Ground J. Anthony Lukas

The climax of this humane account of ten years in Boston that began with news of Martin Luther King's assassination is a watershed moment in the city's modern history--the 1974 riots that followed the court-ordered busing of kids to integrate the schools. Lukas focuses on two working-class families, one headed by an Irish-American widow and one by an African-American mother, and on the middle-class family of a white liberal couple.

A Hope in the Unseen Ron Suskind

Cedric Jennings is the illegitimate son of an off-and-on drug dealer/ex-con and a hardworking, badly paid mother; it is her single-minded vision to have the boy escape the mean ghetto streets unscathed. Cedric has listened to her and is, as the book opens, an A student at a run-down, dispirited Washington, DC, high school, where he treads a thin line between being tagged a nerd and being beaten by gang leaders. Suskind, a Wall Street Journal reporter, follows the African-American youth through his last two years of high school and freshman year at Brown University.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X Malcolm X

Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different.

How the García Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez

Uprooted from their family home in the Dominican Republic, the four Garcia sisters arrive in New York City in 1960 to find a life far different from the genteel existence of maids, manicures, and extended family that they left behind. Julia Alvarez evokes the tensions and joys of belonging to two distinct cultures in this novel.

1831 Louis Masur

In his study of the events of 1831, historian Louis Masur argues that America's future faced inevitable upheaval directly linked to the failure of the founders to resolve two issues: slavery and the federal-state conflict. Topics included in this book: slave rebellion leader Nat Turner, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Jackson & nullification, and the plight of the Cherokee.

The Hub Thomas O’Connor

A comprehensive history of Boston from the arrival of the Puritans to the present day by one of Boston’s preeminent historians.

Out of this Furnace Thomas Bell

Using a narrative style that relies on information gathered from several primary sources, this novel describes the struggles faced by workers in the steel industry outside Pittsburgh. It follows several generations in one particular family; themes stressed in it include immigration, assimilation, and the obstacles faced by organized labor.

Time and Again Jack Finney

This novel describes a late 20^th century man’s journey back through time to the year 1882. It includes a fascinating description of New York City in the late nineteenth century.

The Burning Tim Madigan

A gripping account of the 1921 Tulsa race riots.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America Erik Lawson

Not long after Jack the Ripper haunted the ill-lit streets of 1888 London, H.H. Holmes murdered somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, in the churning new metropolis of Chicago. Many of the murders occurred during the city's finest moment, the World's Fair of 1893. Larson's book is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it.

Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir Doris Kearns Goodwin

When historian Goodwin was six years old, her father taught her how to keep score for "their" team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. While this activity forged a lifelong bond between father and daughter, her mother formed an equally strong relationship with her through the shared love of reading. Goodwin recounts some wonderful stories in this coming-of-age tale about both her family and an era when baseball truly was the national pastime that brought whole communities together.

Love Medicine Louise Erdrich

This novel describes the multigenerational saga of two extended families who live on and around a Chippewa reservation in North Dakota.

The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien

A powerful collection of interrelated short pieces on the experiences of ten US soldiers of the Alpha Company fighting in Vietnam.

All the President’s Men Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

Journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob deliver the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon's scandalous downfall.

American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman who Defied the Puritans Eve LaPlante

Anne Hutchinson's words are preserved in this well-researched account of her testimony against charges of heresy and sedition before the Massachusetts General Court in 1637. Hutchinson, a mother of 16, portrayed here as a feminist and a fighter for religious freedom who wielded great political power and eventually was banished to Rhode Island.

Mother Night Kurt Vonnegut

American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

GRADE 12

Economics AP

Naked Economics Charles Wheelan

Modern China

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Dai Sijie

Philosophy

Think Simon Blackburn

Politics in a Global Age

Overthrow Stephen Kinzer (paperback)

20^th Century U. S. Social and Cultural History

Ragtime E. L Doctorow

U.S. Government & Politics AP

Means of Ascent Robert Caro

World Religions

Siddhartha Herman Hesse