Summer
Assignment
Assignment:
1.
Choose two books from the attached list.
3. Each book should be from a separate
section of the list (World History, Africa, Asia, etc.)
4. Reports
are due the first day of school.
Optional Assignment:
1. You may
do additional reports for 25 extra credit points (applicable to tests).
*
tests are very difficult
*
25 points is equivalent to ˝ a test
*
maximum of two per semester
2. Books
read for extra credit should be no less than 200 pages
Book Report Format
1. Reports
should be typewritten, double spaced.
2. 600 word
minimum
3.
Thoroughly discuss the following areas.
* It will usually be best to address each
of these separately.
A. Topic: What ideas are the author
attempting to communicate? If the book is a novel, briefly
describe the story. If the book is
historical non-fiction, briefly describe the events depicted in
the book. What knowledge did you gain
by reading this book? Did the book
challenge any ideas you hold? Did it
present a new way of looking at an area of history?
B. Point of View/ Bias: What do you
think motivated the author to write this book? Does
the author have a specific agenda in writing the book? How could the issues described in the book
be viewed differently? Support
your answers with specific evidence from the book including pages where the
evidence can be found.
C. Outside Content: What
other information was useful in reading the book? Were specific maps/graphs
included to help explain the reading?
What outside knowledge helped you in your understanding of the
book? What could have been done to make
the reading more understandable?
D. At the end of your
report, include the following information
1. Bibliographic
information: Title, Author, Publisher, Place of Publication, Date of
Publication
ex: The Rape of Nanking, Iris
Chang, Penguin Books, NY,NY, 1997
2. Time spent reading
3. Time spent on report
4. Word Count
AP World History Reading List
*Doug Vomsteeg, Temecula Valley High School, primarily compiled the following list and commentary.
* Most books are available from amazon.com, some
might be in the public library, and I own a few.
World History
Karen Armstrong, Buddha, Muhammed, or The History of God
Religion creates a sense of identity that transcends
language and ethnicity. An understanding of the world’s ‘wisdom traditions’ is
essential for students of world history.
Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe
900-1900
This is probably the best book by the most famous
environmental historian in world history. Students interested in environmental
history might also read John McNeil’s Something New Under the Sun for
the 20th century.
Susan Whitfield, Life Along The Silk Road
The Silk Road is the transcontinental highway of the
Ancient World. This is one of the most accessible introductions to its role in
world history.
Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
A well-known ‘popularizer’ of history. Her history
books read a lot like novels.
Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon
One of the best biographies I have ever read. It is
the history of the world’s greatest general, and a fascinating introduction to
the Ancient World. Scholarly and readable – an unusual combination.
Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings, or Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches
An anthropologist offers
fascinating insights into the origins of war, religious practices, and social
customs.
John McNeil, Something New Under The Sun: An Environmental History of the
Twentieth Century World
Winner of the 2001 World
History Association Book Award.
William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples
A classic study of the role
of disease in world history.
J.M Roberts, The Penguin History of the WorldFirst published in 1976 to great acclaim, this major one-volume history has been fully revised for this third edition and contains 90 maps. "A work of outstanding breadth of scholarship and penetrating judgments. There is nothing better of its kind.—Ingram Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence.
"Pomeranz uses that
European invention--economics--to overturn Eurocentrism, establishing beyond
cavil a New Fact in our world. Never again will Europeans imagine they stood
alone in the doorway of economic growth. Pomeranz and his colleagues in the new
sinology have reintroduced the Central Kingdom and its stunning historical
sources, and Pomeranz has written the one essential book." Deirdre McClosky, UofI
Samuel M. Wilson The Emperor's Giraffe and Other Stories of
Cultures in Contact
Ancient historical cultural
contacts
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Winner of the Pulitzer
Prize. Highly recommended!
Jomo Kenyatta, Facing
Mount Kenya
Provides a detailed insider description of the Gikuyu peoples of Kenya. THe book takes a structural functionalist approach to anthropology, providing a very detailed description covering virtually all aspects of tribal life.
Ngugi Wa Thiongo, et al Petals
of Blood
Written in 1977, it is an
angry cry against the betrayal of the independence struggle. The main
characters each come to terms with the harsh disappointments of modern Kenya, a
place that, in Ngugi's depiction, is dominated by corrupt businessmen and
politicians who have quickly and conveniently forgotten the high ideals of the
revolt they waged to expel the British.
---. Grain of Wheat
---. River Between
---. Weep Not Child
Frantz Fanon, The
Wretched of the Earth
"This is not so much a book as a rock thrown through
the windows of the West. It is the Communist Manifesto or the Mein Kampf of the
anticolonial revolution, and as such it is highly important for any reader who
wants to understand the emotional force behind that revolution."--Time
Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost
A revealing account of the colonization of the Belgian Congo and the atrocities committed against the Africans.
Miriam Mathabane, Miriam’s
Song: A Memoir
It is the gripping tale of a woman -- representative of an entire generation -- who came of age amid the violence and rebellion of the 1980s and finally saw the destruction of apartheid and the birth of a new, democratic South Africa.
Mark Mathabane, Kaffir
Boy
Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and Mathabane eventually won a tennis scholarship to an American university.
Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq
Alley
Midaq Alley centers around the residents of one of the teeming back alleys of Cairo.
Khushwant Singh, Train
to Pakistan
Teeming with characters who reflect the horrors of religious intolerance, which flourished when artificial boundaries were set up to divide India by religions. The book cries out against the losses of civility, tolerance, and life itself.
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Condition (Zimababwe)
As
an African voice, Tambu comes to understand that oppression has many forms; it
is never simple and solutions are hard to come by. An honest look at the
struggles of identities in the face of colonialism.
Buchi Emecheta, Bride Price
An insightful novel into the life of the Ibo people of Nigeria.
Bessie Head, When
Rain Clouds Gather
D.T. Niane Sundiata,
an Epic of Old Mali (Africa)
Tepilit Ole Saitoti, The
Worlds of a Maasai Warrior: An autobiography
Laurens Van Der Post, A
Story Like the Wind
This is a beautifully crafted story about the coming of age of a young boy in Africa. There are wonderful contrasts between events of great violence and relationships of intense tenderness. The language is beautiful and the descriptive passages never lag. A joy to read
- - A
Far-Off Place (sequel turned into Disney movies – don’t let
that fool you)
Alan Paton, Cry,
The Beloved Country
Stephen Kumalo,
a Zulu pastor, and his son, Absalom, experience the joys and tragedies of a
South African community struggling with the injustice of apartheid. Ingram
Mark Bowden, Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War
Every reading list should
offer something for the military history fan – even though this is not a
central theme of AP World History. This book is a riveting account of American
soldiers in Somalia that has lessons for the future of both armed conflict and
peacekeeping.
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
An autobiography of one of
the 20th century’s most important leaders.
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative
An autobiographical account
of an African slave.
Max Yeh, Beginning
of The East
Provides a unique point of view on the influences of Columbus on the western hemisphere in a view that is simultaneously western and oriental.
The
Arabian Nights, (Islamic Golden Age)
These tales, including Aladdin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, have entered into the popular imagination, demonstrating that Shahrazad's spell remains unbroken.
Manuel Komroff, editor The
Travels of Marco Polo
Ross Dunn, The
Adventures of Ibn Battuta
Battuta logged over 70,000
miles, some of it through dangerous regions, and as far as from Morocco to
China and back. It offers very interesting insights into the Muslim world of the
14th century.
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
(India)
His
final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of
enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor
reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the
rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the
river.
Brian Bruya
Kamala Markandaya, Nectar
in a Sieve
A woman in poverty struggles
to find happiness in changing India.
George Orwell, Burmese Days
A British Imperialist
struggles with internal conflicts amid a story of racism, love and deceit.
Iris Chang, The Rape of NankingA chilling account of “The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.” - Chang Jung Chang ,Three Daughters of China
The forces of history and
the exceptional talents of this young writer combine to produce a work of
nonfiction with the breadth and drama of the richest, most memorable fiction
classics. Wild Swans is a landmark book, with the intimacy of memoir and the
panoramic vision of a monumental human saga, which tells of the lives of Jung
Chang, her mother, her grandmother, and of 20th-century China.Ingram
Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient:
Global Economy in the Asian Age
A fundamental rethinking of the rise of the West and the origin of the world-system. Absolutely essential to understanding world history.
John Hersey, Hiroshima
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. This book tells what happened on that day, told through the memoirs of survivors.
Bette Bao Lord, Spring
Moon: A novel of China
Spanning five generations of a Chinese family, the book illuminates the social and political upheavals of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century China through its focus on Spring Moon, the cherished, if headstrong daughter of the wealthy and powerful house of Chang.
Elizabeth Kim, Ten
Thousand Sorrows: Journey of a Korean War Orphan
--- Legacies: A Chinese
Mosaic
Paul West, The
Tent of Orange Mist
In December
1937 the city of Nanking, China, falls to brutal Japanese invaders. Thus begins
a compelling drama wherein the teenaged daughter of an eminent scholar is
forced to work as a prostitute . . . The Tent of Orange Mist illuminates the
plight of intellectuals and artists during profound social and cultural
upheaval. Ingram
Dr. Junichi Saga, Memories
of Silk and Straw
A collective
autobiography based on interviews taped by a Japanese doctor in a small
lakeside town near Tokyo. The villagers tell their simple, but fascinating
stories in their own way, in this funny, but poignant picture of country life
in pre-high-tech Japan. Ingram
Ida Pruitt, A
daughter of Han (China)
. . .she bore and buried children, worked as a maidservant, begged for food, and felt pride in her old age by sharing a home with her son and his family. A lively, driven woman who wants only to provide for her family, often without the support of her opium-addicted husband. Unfortunately, the book ends in 1938 with the Japanese occupation of Peking, and the rest of Ning Lao's life is unknown.
Pa Chin Family
"Pa Chin's Family--one of the most celebrated novels of the May 4th Movement--continues to be indispensable reading. Its clash of the traditional and the modern, of age and youth, of Confucianism and individualism remains relevant to any understanding of how China struggled, and continues to struggle, to escape the constraints of stifling orthodoxy." William N. Rogers II, Center for Asian Studies
Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas
An interesting account of Zheng He’s sea voyages to
the Indian Ocean – just before Europeans round the tip of Africa.
Richard Bernstein, Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk
Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment
Cultural diffusion is a central theme in AP World
History. Retrace the steps of a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim to India.
Jonah Blank, Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through
India
India lies at the heart of an ancient maritime
trading network with overland links to Central Asia and the Middle East. This
is an entertaining introduction to the geography of India and religion of
Hinduism via travel literature.
Rene Grousset, Empire of the Steppes
The classic history of the Mongols, rulers of the
world’s largest empire.
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
The world’s first novel and a window into ancient
Japan.
Jonathan Spence, The Memory Palace of Mateo Ricci, A Question of Hu, The Death of Woman Wang, or Emperor of China: A Self Portrait of K’ang Hsi
Jonathan Spence is one of the world’s most prolific
experts in Chinese history
Sterling Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty
An entertaining and informative history of 19th
and early 20th century China.
Ved Mehta, Daddyji
"Delightful...conceived as a series of cameos of village and urban family life from the end of the last century to the end of the first 40 years of this, DADDYJI is intimate, personal, as well as a history of modern India in the making." (The Times, London)
Jonathan Spence,
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (Ming – China)
---. The Death of Woman Wang (China)
Whitehouse and
Yanagisawa, Lady
Nijo’s Own Story (Japan)
Sun Tzu, Art
of War
Sun Tzu's timeless classic extremely accessible to students of Chinese history and culture, as well as to anyone interested in the highly volatile military and political issues in present-day China.
Robert Van Gulik, The
Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Tang dynasty)
This book is a translation of an actual Chinese mystery novel from the 1700s. It offers a very interesting look at Chinese culture from the time of the Manchu Empire
R.K. Narayan, The
Ramayana
Ramayana the ancient epic tale of India most popular in a hundred forms like music, dance, art and folklore is narrated in this book by a story teller who has a very suitable traditional background and deep insight into the religious, social and political values upheld in India.
Gail Tzukiyama, Women of the Silk
A rich portrait
of a woman's life in a China now lost. Her story is rendered with exceptional
grace, with the clear, shining dignity of legend or song; Tsukiyama lends her
voice to figures of women emboldened by their dream of growth and personal
power. Ingram
Da Chen, Colors
of the Mountain
Colors of
the Mountain is a classic story of triumph over adversity, a memoir of a
boyhood full of spunk, mischief, and love, during the time of Mao’s Cultural
Revolution.
Edward
Morgan Forster, A
Passage to India
A classic account of the clash of cultures in
British India after the turn of the century. Ingram
Arundhati, Roy
God
of Small Things
the story of young twins Rahel and Estha and the
rest of their family, but the book feels like a million stories spinning out
indefinitely; it is the product of a genius child-mind that takes everything in
and transforms it in an alchemy of poetry. The God of Small Things is at
once exotic and familiar to the Western reader, written in an English that's
completely new and invigorated by the Asian Indian influences of culture and
language.
Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China
A classic memoir of a reporter who travels to
interview Mao Zedong during China’s civil war.
Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: The True and Incredible Adventures of the
Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History
An adventure story from the Age of Exploration and
early European Imperialism set in the Spice Islands (Dutch East Indies).
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History
The plantation complex in the Atlantic economy is an
important topic in world history. An anthropologist examines the product at the
center of this economy.
Latin America
Elvia Alvarado,
Don’t
Be Afraid Gringo
"Elvia Alvarado tells the story of her life and the life of the people of Honduras. Read it and understand the struggle against tyranny of the poor. Read it and act."--Alice Walker
Carolina Maria De Jesus , Child of the Dark (Brazil)
Written between 1955 and
1960, Child of the Dark is the daily journal of a artist, a writer who,
as the single mother of three young children, supports her family by picking
through garbage for paper and scraps to sell.
Lawrence Thorton, Imagining
Argentina
A political novel about
"los desaparecidos" (the disappeareds), in Argentina during the late
1970s, it tells the mesmerizing story of Carlos Rueda, a man who discovers,
after his own wife disappears, that he can imagine the fate of other
disappeareds, but not his own Cecilia. Ingram
Nellie Campobello, Cartucho
and My Mother’s Hands
Contains fifty-six rapid-fire sketches of the Mexican Revolution seen through Nellie Campobello's childhood.
Kirkpatrick Sale,
Conquest
in Paradise
Dispels the myths surrounding the journey of
Christopher Columbus, with new translations of historical documents that reveal
the European motivations for exploration.
Ingram
R.C.
Padden, The
Hummingbird and the Hawk: conquest and sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico
Spanish
conquest of Mexico
Tessa Bridal, Tree
of Red Stars
Set in Uruguay in the 1960s, charts the toll of political events on a young woman and those close to her, as their democracy is gradually taken over by a military dictatorship.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
A brutal depiction of life in a Stalinist camp and a moving tribute to man's triumph of will over relentless dehumanization, this is Solzhenitsyn's first novel to win international acclaim.
Frances Gies, Women in the Middle Ages Nechama Tec, Dry Tears: The Story of Lost Childhood
A story of a young Jewish girl's coming of age during the tragic years of the Holocaust.
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s
Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl is known to
millions of readers as a psychotherapist who has transcended his field in his
search for answers to the ultimate questions of life, death, and suffering. Man's
Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometime unconscious human desire
for inspiration or revelation, and illustrates how life can offer profound
meaning at every turn.
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael
An award-winning, compelling
novel of spiritual adventure about a gorilla named Ishmael, who possesses
immense wisdom, and the man who becomes his pupil, offers answers to the
world's most pressing moral dilemmas. Ingram
Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year
A fictional account of a
London plague by one of Europe’s early novelists. A good companion to William
McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples.
Arthur Koestler, Darkness At Noon
A very famous and very dark
novel about Stalin’s purges.
Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World
An entertaining and
informative biography of Russia’s ‘westernizing’ emperor.