• APUSH INDEPENDENT READING OPTIONS BY UNIT:
     
    Most of the following selections are available in the NASH library. Those titles with graphic and/or potentially offensive content are denoted by as asterisk (*).  This page is a listing of some SUGGESTED works; you are not bound to this list only.  I encourage student initiative in selecting topics for the oral presentation, and a visit to the bookstore is absolutely encouraged.  If you would like to do a presentation on a work outside the list of titles here, however, see me for preliminary text approval.
     
     

    First Semester

     

    Unit I: The Colonies Before the Revolution

     

    Bailyn, Bernard, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century

    Boorstein, Daniel, The Americans: The Colonial Experience

    Boyer, Paul.  Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft

    Breen, Timothy.  Puritans and Adventurers

    Bridenbaugh, Carl, Jamestown 1544-1699

    Cordingly, David.  Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates

    Equiano Olaudah.  Equiano’s Travels

    Diamond, Jared.  Guns, Germs, and Steel:  the Fate of Human Societies

    Dunn, M. M., William Penn: Politics and Conscience

    Keyhoe, Alice Beck.  America Before the European Invasions

    Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus

    Morgan, E. S., The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

    Morison, S. E., Builders of the Bay Colony

    Philbrick, Nathaniel.  Mayflower:  the Story of Courage, Community, and War

    Norton, Mary Beth.  In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692

    Rediker, Marcus.  Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750

    Townsend, Camilla.  Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma

     

     

    Unit II: The American Revolution 1763-1783

    Alden, J. R., A History of the American Revolution

    Bailyn, Bernard, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson

    Billias, George Athan, ed., The American Revolution:  How Revolutionary Was It?
    Calhoon, Robert M.  The Loyalists in Revolutionary America

    Fast, Howard.  April Morning

    Fischer, David Hackett.  Paul Revere’s Ride
    Fischer, David Hackett.  Washington's Crossing

    Jensen, Merrill, The Founding of a Nation

    Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party

    McCullough, David, 1776

    Middlekauff, Robert, The Glorious Cause

    Morgan, E. S., The Birth of the Republic

    Norton, Mary Beth, Liberty’s Daughter:  The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800
    Philbrick, Nathan.  Bunker Hill

    Raphael, Ray.  A People’s History of the American Revolution

    Tuchman, Barbara, The First Salute

    Wallace, Audrey, Benedict Arnold: Misunderstood Hero?

    Wood, Gordon S., The Radicalism of the American Revolution

     

     

    Unit III: Establishing the Government

    Bowen, Catherine Miracle at Philadelphia
    Brookhiser, Richard, What Would the Founders Do?
    Brown, Robert, Charles Beard and the Constitution

    De Tocqueville, Alexis.  Democracy in America

    Ellis, Joseph J.,Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

    Hamilton, Jay, and Madison The Federalist

    Jensen Merrill, The Articles of Confederation

    Kerber, L. K.., Women of the Republic

    McCullough, David, John Adams

    Szatmary, David, Shays’ Rebellion:  The Making of An Agrarian Insurrection

    Wills, Garry.  Cincinnatus:  George Washington and the Enlightenment

     

     

    Unit IV: Launching the New Government

    Ammon, Harry.  The Genet Mission

    Baldwin, L. D. The Whiskey Rebels
    Brookhiser, Richard.  What Would The Founders Do?

    Chambers, William Nisbet., Political Parties in a New Nation: The American Experience

    Combs, J. A. Jay’s Treaty

    Ellis, Joseph.  His Excellency: George Washington

    Miller, J. C. The Federalist Era

    Norton, Mary Beth.  Liberty’s Daughters:  The Revolutionary Experience of American Women

    Slaughter, Thomas.  The Whiskey Rebellion:  Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution

    Smith, J. M. Freedom’s Fetters

    William, Martin.  Citizen Washington*

     
     

    Unit V: Jeffersonian Republicanism

    Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage:  Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

    Brodie, Fawn.  Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History

    Coles, Harry L. The War of 1812

    Dangerfield, George. The Era of Good Feelings

    Edmunds K. David.  Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership

    Ellis, Joseph.  American Sphinx:  The Character of Thomas Jefferson

    Heidler, David.  Old Hickory’s War:  Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire

    Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict

    Johnstone, Jr., R. M. Jefferson and the Presidency

    Lambert, Frank.  The Barbary Wars:  American Independence in the Atlantic World

    Peterson, Merrill. Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography

    Stagg, J. C. A., Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783-1830

    Walters, Jr. Raymond.  Albert Gallitin: Jeffersonian Financier and Diplomat

     
     
    Unit VI: Antebellum American Culture

    Billington, Monroe, The American South

    Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South

    Dangerfield, George.  The Awakening of American Nationalism, 1815-1828

    Dublin, Thomas, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1837

    Jabour, Anya.  Scarlett’s Sisters:  Young Women in the Old South

    Johnson, Paul E. A Shopkeeper’s Millenium: Society and Revival in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837

    Johnson, Walter.  Soul by Soul:  Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market*

    Klaw, Spencer.  Without Sin:  The Life and Death of the Oneida Community*

    Sellers, Charles.  Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846

    Van Every, Dale.  The final Challenge:  The American Frontier, 1804-1845

     
     
    Unit VII: Politics for the Common Man

    Bartlett, Richard A.  The New Country:  A Social History of the American Frontier, 1996-1890

    Billington, R. A. America’s Frontier Heritage

    Ehle, John.  The Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation

    George Rodgers Taylor, ed., Jacksonversus Biddle: The Struggle over the Second Bank of the United States

    Pessen, Edward.  Jacksonian America

    Satz, R. N. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era

    Schlesinger, Jr., A. M. The Age of Jackson

    Turner, F. J. The Frontier in American History

    Ward, J. W. Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age

     
     
    Unit VIII: American Expansion and Manifest Destiny

    Bartlett, I. H. Daniel Webster

    Billington, R. A. The Far Western Frontier, 1830-1860

    Bringhurst, N. G. Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier

    Eisenhower, John S. D. So Far From God:  The US War with Mexico

    Holliday, James.  The World Rushes In

    Horsman, Reginald.  Race and Manifest Destiny:  The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism

    Johannsen, Robert.  To the Halls of the Montezumas:  The Mexican War in American Imagination

    Myers Meyers, John.  The Alamo

    Parkman, Francis.  The Oregon Trail
    Philbrick, Nathan.  Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the US Exploration Expedition 1838-1842

    Potter, D. M. The Impending Crisis 1848-1861

    Singletary, O. A. The Mexican War

    Walters, R. G. American Reformers, 1815-1860

     

     

    Unit IX: The Drift Toward Disunion

    Blassingame, John.  The Slave Community

    Craven, A. O. The Growth of Southern Nationalism 1848-1861

    Douglass, Frederick.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    Griffin, William D. The Irish in America, 550-1972

    Helper, Hinton.  The Impending Crisis of the South

    Oates, Stephen B.  To Purge This Land With Blood

    Osofsky, Gilbert, ed. Puttin on Ole Massa

    Quarles, Benjamin.  The Negro in the Making of America

    Shurtleff, Mark L.  Am I Not a Man?  The Dred Scott Story

    Stampp, Kenneth.  Americain 1857: A Nation on the Brink

    Stowe, H. B. Uncle Tom’s Cabin

    Weinstein, Allen and Gatell, Frank Otto, ed.  American Negro Slavery

    Wittke, Carl, The Irish in America

    Wittke, Carl.  Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America

     
     
    Unit X: The Civil War and Reconstruction

    Benedict, M. L. A Compromise of Principles:  Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction 1863-1869

    Brodie, Fawn, Thaddeus Stevens

    Catton, Bruce.  (Any of his Civil War works)

    Carter, D. T. When the War Was Over

    Cox, LaWanda.  Lincolnand Black Freedom

    Crane, Stephen.  The Red Badge of Courage

    Donald, David ed.  Why the North Won the Civil War

    Foner, E.  Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877

    Goodwin, Doris Kearns.  Team of Rivals:  The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
    Guelzo, Allen.  Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America

    Krannawitter, Thomas.  Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President

    Mackey, Robert.  The Uncivil War:  Irregular Warfare in the Upper South

    McPherson, James.  Battle Cry of Freedom:  The Civil War Era

    Potter, D. M.  The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861

    Roark, J. L. Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction

    Shaara, Michael.  The Killer Angels

    Stampp, Kenneth M. and Litwack, Leon F. ed.  Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings

    Swanson, James L.  Manhunt:  The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer

    Thomas, E. M. The Confederate Nation 1861-1865

    Wiley, Bell Irvin.  Life of Billy Yank

    Wiley, Bell Irvin.  Life of Johnny Reb
    Wills, Garry.  Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America
    Winik, Jay.  April 1865: The Month That Saved America

    Woodward, C V.  Mary Chestnut’s Civil War

     
     
    Second Semester
     

    Unit XI: Gilded Age America

    Ambrose, Stephen.  Nothing Like It in the World:  The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad

    Ayers, E. L. After Reconstruction:  The American South in the Late Nineteenth Century

    Avrich, P.  The Haymarket Tragedy
    Davies, Margery.  Woman's Place Is at the Typewriter
    Crawford, Margaret.  Building the Workingman's Paradise: the Design of American Company Towns

    Josephson, Matthew.  The Robber Barons

    Kehl, James A.  Boss Rule in the Gilded Age:  Matt Quay of Pennsylvania

    Livesay, Harold C.  Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business

    Morgan, H Wayne ed.  The Gilded Age: A Reappraisal

    Morgan, H. W. From Hayes to McKinley:  National Party Politics, 1877-1896

    Porter, G., John Hope Franklin, and A. S. Eisenstadt The Rise of Big Business 1860-1920

    Woodward, C. V. Origins of the New South 1877-1913

    Woodward C. V. Reunionand Reaction:  The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction

    Woodward, C. V.  The Strange Case of Jim Crow

     
     
    Unit XII: Urbanization, Immigration, and the West

    Adams, Henry.  The Education of Henry Adams

    Addams, Jane.  Twenty Years At Hull House

    Bannister, Robert.  Social Darwinism

    Bell, Thomas.  Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America

    Brown, Dee.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

    Bodnar, John.  The Transplanted:  A History of Immigrants in Urban America

    Clanton, G.  Populism: The Humane Preference in America 1890-1900

    Connell, Evan S.  Son of the Morning Star:  Custer and the Little Bighorn

    Fite, G. C.  The Farmer’s Frontier 1865-1900
    Gardner, Mark Lee.  To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West
    Goodwyn, Lawrence.  Democratic Promises:  The Populist Movement in America
    Kessener, Thomas. The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York City
    Koenig, Louis N.  Bryan: A Political Biography of William Jennings Bryan

    Larson, Erik.  Devil In the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America*

    McCullough, David.  The Great Bridge:  The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge

    Paul, R. W. The Far West and the Great Plains in Transition, 1859-1900
    Philbrick, Nathan.  The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of Little Bighorn

    Riis, Jacob.  How the Other Half Lives

    Shannon, F. A. The Farmer’s Last Frontier:  Agriculture, 1860-1897

    Steffens, Lincoln.  The Shame of the Cities

    Tarbell, Ida.  A History of the Standard Oil Company

    Thomas, J. L.  Alternative America:  Henry George, Edward Bellamy, and Henry Demarest Lloyd

    Utley, Robert M.  The Indiana Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890

     

     

    Unit XIII: The Progressive Era

    Anderson, D. E. William Howard Taft

    Baker, Ray Stannard.  Following the Color Line
    Blum, John Morgan.  Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality

    Chambers, John.  The Tyranny of Change:  America in the Progressive Era, 1900-1917

    Croly, Herbert.  The Promise of American Life

    DuBois, W. E. B. Souls of Black Folks

    Gould, L. L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

    Hofstadter, Richard.  The Age of Reform

    Link, A. S. and McCormick, R. L.  Progressivism

    Morris, Edmund.  Theodore Rex
    Mowry, G. E. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt

    Pringle, Henry F.  Theodore Roosevelt

    Sinclair, Upton The Jungle

    Thelen, D. P.  Robert LaFollette and the Insurgent Spirit

    Weinberg, Arthur and Weinberg, Lila, ed.  The Muckrakers

     
     
    Unit XIV: The United States Emerges as a World Power

    Beisner, R. L. From the Old Diplomacy to the New 1865-1900

    Beisner, R. L. Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900

    Cosmas, G. A. An Army for Empire:  the United States Army in the Spanish-American War

    Fussell, Paul.  The Great War and Modern Memory

    Karnow, Stanley.  In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines

    Kennedy, D. M.  Over Here: The First World War and American Society

    La Feber, W.  The Panama Canal

    Maddox, Robert J.  The Unknown War with Russia

    Morgan, H. Wayne.  America’s Road to Empire:  The War with Spain and Overseas Expansion

    Musicant, Ivan.  The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century

    Tuchman, Barbara.  Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945

    Tuchman, Barbara.  The Zimmermann Telegram

    Welsome, Eileen.  The General and the Jaguar: Pershing’s Hunt for Pancho Villa

    Young, M. B. American Expansion: The Critical Issues

    Young, M. B. Rhetoric of Empire:  American China Policy, 1995-1901

     
     
    Unit XV: Boom and Crash
    Barry, John M.  Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
    Bohn,  Michael K.  Heroes and Ballyhoo: How the Golden Age of the 1920s Transformed American Sports
    Chalmers, David.  Hooded Americans: The History of the Ku Klux Klan

    Galbraith J. K. The Great Crash, 1929

    Huggins, Nathan Irvin.  Harlem Renaissance 

    Jackson, J. The Ku Klux Klan in the City 1915-1930

    Larsen, Edward J.  Summer for the Gods:  The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion

    Leighton, Isabel, ed.  The Asprin Age 1919-1941

    Lewis, Sinclair.  Babbitt
    Lewis, Sinclair.  Main Street 

    Lauchtenburg, W. E. The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932

    Murray, Robert.  The Harding Era

    Murray, Robert.  The Red Scare

    Okrent, Daniel.  Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition 

    Russell, Francis.  The Shadow of Blooming Grove:  Warren G. Harding in His Times

    Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur.  The Crisis of the Old Order

    Shannon, David.  The Great Depression

    Smith, Richard Norton, An Uncommon Man:  The Triumph of Herbert Hoover

    White, William Allen.  A Puritan in Babylon

     
     

    Unit XVI: The New Deal

    Allen, Frederick.  Since Yesterday

    Burns, James MacGregor.  Roosevelt: the Lion and the Fox

    Brinkley, Alan.   Voices of Protest:  Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression

    Egan, Timothy.  The Worst Hard Time:  The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
    Goodwin, Doris Kearns.  No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt

    Lash, J. P. Eleanor and Franklin

    Leuchtenburg, W. E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940

    Parrish, M.  Anxious Decades
    Quinn, Susan: Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made Hight Art out of Desperate Times

    Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur. The Coming of the New Deal

    Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur.  The Politics of Upheaval

    Sindler, A. P. Huey Long’s Louisiana

    Shlaes, Amity.  The Forgotten Man:  A New History of the Great Depression

    Terkel, Studs.  Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression

    Tugwell, R. G. The Brain Trust

    Wright, Richard.  Native Son
     
    Unit XVII: Foreign Affairs: 1932-1945

    Allen, Thomas B and Polmar, Norman.  Codename Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb

    Ambrose, Stephen.  Band of Brothers

    Ambrose, Stephen.  Citizen Soldiers
    Atkinson, Rick.  The Guns At Last Light *

    Burns, James MacGregor.  Roosevelt:  The Soldier of Freedom

    Clausen, Henry and Lee, Bruce.  Pearl Harbor: Final Judgment

    Eisenhower, David D.  Crusade in Europe

    Feis, Herbert.  Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin

    Feis, Herbert.  The Road to Pearl Harbor

    Hastings, Max.  Overlord

    Prang, Gordon W.  At Dawn We Slept:  The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

    Rhodes, Richard.  The Making of the Atomic Bomb

    Sherwood, R. E. Roosevelt and Hopkins

    Sides, Hampton.  Ghost Soldiers *
    Sledge, Eugene.  With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa *

    Spector, Ronald.  Eagle Against the Sun:  the American War with Japan

    Terkel, Studs.  The Good War

    Weigley, Russell, F.  Eisenhower’s Lieutenants

     
     
    Unit XVIII: The Cold War Quest for Peace and Security

    Alexander, C. C. Holding the Line:  The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1961

    Altschuler, Glenn.  All Shook Up: How Rock ‘N’ Roll Changed America
    Baxandell, Rosalyn and Elizabeth Ewen. Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened
    Beschloss, M. R. Mayday

    Ferrell, R. H. Harry S. Truman and the Modern American Presidency

    Gaddis, J. L. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War

    Goldman, Eric.  The Crucial Decade and After

    Halberstam, David.  The Fifties

    Harrington, Michael.  The Other America

    Hastings, Max.  The Forgotten War

    Jackson, Kenneth .  Crabgrass Frontier:  The Suburbanization of the U. S.

    Kennan, George.  American Diplomacy, 1900-1950

    Latham, E.  The Communist Controversy in Washington

    McCullough, David.  Truman

    Miller D, and Nowack, M. The Fifties:  The Way We Really Were

    Parmet, Herbert.  Eisenhower:  The Necessary President

    Rovere, R. H. Senator Joe McCarthy
    Russ, Martin  The Last Parallel*

    Smith, Richard Norton.  Thomas E. Dewey and His Times

    Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur.  A Thousand Days

    Spanier, John W.  The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War

    Truman, Margaret.  Harry S. Truman

    Wilson, Sloan.  The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

     
     
    Unit XIX: The Stormy Sixties

    Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters:  Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-1963

    Caro, Robert. (any volume of his biography of Lyndon Johnson)
    Carson, Rachel.  Silent Spring

    Fairlie, Henry.  The Kennedy Promise

    Friedan, Betty.  The Feminine Mystique
    Goldman, Eric.  The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson

    Haley, Alex.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X*

    Harrington, Michael.  The Other America
    Hayslip, Le Ly.  When Heaven and Earth Changed Places*

    Isserman, Maurice and Michael Kazin.  America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s

    Karnow, Stanley.  Vietnam: A History

    Miller, James. “Democracy Is In the Streets”: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago

    Moody, Ann.  Coming of Age in Mississippi
    Moore, Harold G.  We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam

    O’Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home*

    Reedy, G.  Lyndon B Johnson, A Memoir

    Sheehan, N.  A Bright Shining Lie:  John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

     

     

    Unit XX: Modern America: World Leader or Falling Giant? 

    Atkinson, Rick.  Crusade:  The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War

    Bernstein, Carl and Woodward, Robert.  All the President’s Men

    Bernstein, Carl and Woodward, Robert.  The Final Days

    Bill, J. A. The Eagle and the Lion

    Brodie, Fawn.  Richard Nixon:  The Shaping of His Character

    Burns, James MacGregor.  Crosswinds of Freedom

    Crile, George.  Charlie Wilson’s War

    Draper, T.  A Very Thin Line:  The Iran-Contra Affair

    Hargraves, Robert.  Superpower – America in the 1970s

    Hartman, R. T.  Palace Politics:  An Inside Account of the Ford Years

    Hirsch, E. D. Cultural Literacy

    Levy, P.  Dollars and Dreams: The Changing American Income Distribution

    Mayer, Jane and McManus, Doyle.  Landslide:  The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988

    Nixon, Richard.  RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

    Rakove, Jack.  The Unfinished Election of 2000

    Shilts, Randy.  And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic*

    Smith, J. E. George Bush’s War

    Stewart, James.  Blood Sport

    U. S. News and World Report.  Triumph Without Victory

    Udall, S.  To the Inland Empire

    White, Theodore H.  Breach of Faith
Last Modified on September 9, 2013