Literature Approach to U.S. and World History

This study guide features choice literature for this tremendous span of American and world history from the 1860's to the 1970's. Recommended as a two-year course, it is divided into four distinct periods. The study includes a multitude of essential events, political figures, inventions, technological advances, social climates and movements. The guide offers study notes, comprehensive questions, vocabulary and essay questions encouraging the mature student to evaluate and determine the lessons of history; it also includes teacher's notes for the essential literature used in the course.

Students will get to read award winning literature of such masters as Harper Lee, Stephen Crane, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Irene Hunt, Meindert Dejong, Harold Keith, Albert Marrin and others. Web sites, recommended movies and original source materials are also suggested. Three History of US titles by Joy Hakim and four of Clarence Carson's A Basic History of the U. S. volumes are used in the study as background texts or to fill in for the lack of literature.

Highly recommended for the "I love to read" inquisitive student! 

Because of the amount of literature used, we suggest checking the local library for availability. The majority of the books can also be bought separately.

Part I: Civil War, Reconstruction, & the Late 1880s

• Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Beecher Preachers
• Across Five Aprils
• Rifles for Watie
• Red Badge of Courage
• Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman?
• Virginia's General: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War
• Reconstruction: Binding the Wounds
• Up From Slavery
• Around the World in Eighty Days

Part II: Post Reconstruction to the Great War

• History of US: An Age of Extremes
• Jungle
• Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt
• Big Annie of Calumet, by Jerry Stanley (out of print)
• Stalin: Russia's Man of Steel
• Yanks are Coming
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• In Flanders Field, by John McRae (click on link to read the poem)
• History of US: War, Peace, and All That Jazz

Part III: The Great Depression through World War II

• To Kill a Mockingbird
• No Promises in the Wind
• History of US: War, Peace, and All That Jazz
• Hitler
• Story of D-Day
• Escape from Warsaw
• Hiding Place
• Story of the Trapp Family Singers
• Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
• Endless Steppe
• Victory in the Pacific
• Hiroshima
• Journey to Topaz
• So Far from the Bamboo Grove
• House of Sixty Fathers

Part IV: Cold War (Korean War to the Vietnam War)

• History of US: All the People
• Basic History of the U.S. Vol. 5: Welfare State
• Korean War, by Carter Smith (out of print)
• America and Vietnam: The Elephant and the Tiger
• Vietnam War: How the United States Became Involved