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Summer (2015) Reading List for Those Registered for AP World History
Welcome to the course and to your first assignment, which is due the second Friday of actual class.
In AP World History we will be covering world history, broken into the following time periods:
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Foundations to 600 BCE
600 BCE – 600 CE
600 CE – 1450 CE
1450 CE – 1750 CE
1750 CE – 1900 CE
1900 to Present
We will be emphasizing the following themes:
Theme 1: Interaction Between Humans and the Environment
(Demography and disease, Migration, Patterns of settlement, Technology)
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
(Religions, Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies, Science and technology, the
arts and architecture)
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
(Political structures and forms of governance, Empires, Nations and nationalism,
Revolts and revolutions, Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and
organizations)
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
(Agricultural and pastoral production, Trade and commerce, Labor systems,
Industrialization, Capitalism and socialism)
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
(Gender roles and relations, Family and kinship, Racial and ethnic constructions,
Social and economic classes)
These Themes will apply to this assignment
Assignment:
▪ You will need to select one book to read from the list below, due on the second Friday of class.
Once you have chosen and acquired your books, please email your teacher
([email protected]) your name and their titles together so that we can know
what you are reading. Your first assignment is to make sure that you have emailed your
choice to your teacher by August 1st.
▪
BOOK REVIEWS
READ THESE DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY:
You are required to do a book review on any book you read for credit in our class.
These book reviews are intended to serve two purposes:
● To show us that you have indeed read the book and understood its message.
● To evaluate your writing and analytical skills. We will be grading the summer assignment
more leniently than we will the semester assignments. The summer assignments will help us
get a sense of the level of your writing skills; improving these skills will be a major focus of our
class.
1. Tone: Write your review as though the reader had not read the book in question. The
reviewer must, as efficiently as possible, inform the readers about the general contents of
the work:
➢ its time period,
➢ subjects,
➢ general organization of the material,
➢ structure of the argument, and so on.
2. Length: No longer than 5-7 pages, double-spaced, 1” margins, 12 pt. font
3. Format: These should be written in a more formal manner, i.e. a basic essay format with a
thesis, introduction and some sort of conclusion. This essay should address the following:
● Summary: The summary should be no more than 3 out of the 5-7 pages. This also
should include some mention about how the book is structured, not just what it says.
That means that you should explain how it is organized.
● AP World Themes: Explain how the book demonstrates the themes for World
History AP (see above). Be as specific as possible
● Are there other questions that you wish the author had answered? If so, what are
they?
● Assessment: Does the author betray a point of view or political bias that is helpful or
harmful to his or her purpose? How did you like the book overall? Would you
recommend this book for next year’s summer reading list? Why or why not?
Note: You will be required to use proper citations, if necessary. The Social Studies
Department at DHS uses the Chicago Manual of Style for Citations, which can
be found using EasyBib (if you sign up for it while at school) or by visiting
Purdue OWL’s Chicago Manual of Style page. Just Google “Purdue Owl Chicago”
and it will be the first result. If you have questions feel free to write,
[email protected]
Recommended and Approved Reading List for AP World History
Please note that we may not be available at all times during the summer but we will try to email
you back as quickly as possible, however please note that the end of August is a busy time for
everyone so plan accordingly!
Many of the books in this list are available through your local library, the LMC (which may be open
over the summer at various times), bookstores and/or Amazon.com (used or new). Don’t leave it
up to the last minute to find these books; in some cases the one you want to read will require a
wait. If you can afford to buy them, by all means do so, and if you want share the book with
classmates. Some of these books are very valuable and informative books worth having in your
personal libraries. That said, as patrons of the library, we are aware of the financial burden of
buying books.
Reminder: You must email us your choices, one from each list BY AUGUST 1st, 2014.
Before you select your books
Go to the following website:
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/AP_WorldHistoryCED_Effective_Fall_2011.pdf
(You may have to go to the general website first and then register with AP central) and read the
course description of World History so that you have an idea about the course. This will be very
helpful, as it will allow you to have a framework for your summer reading and the reading of the
course in general.
You must choose one book from the list below:
● Anderson, Scott, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and Making of the Modern
Middle East
● Ansary, Tamim, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes
● Armstrong, Karen, Islam: A Short History
● Beah, Ishmael, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
● Boo, Catherine, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
● Brooks, Geraldine Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women
● Crawford, Dorothy H., Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History
● Demick, Barbara, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
● Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
– List Continues on Reverse –
● Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
● Diamond, Jared, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
● Easterly, William, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So
Much Ill and So Little Good
● Esposito, John L. Islam: The Straight Path
● Gannon, Kathy, “I” is for Infidel – From Holy War to Holy Terror in Afghanistan
● Gombrich, E.H. and Clifford Harper, A Little History of the World
● Goodwin, Jan, Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World
● Kristof, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity For
Women Worldwide
● Kurlansky, Mark, Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World
● Kurlansky, Mark, Salt: A World History
● Lewis, Bernard, Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople
● Levitt, Steven D. and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden
Side of Everything
● Mann, Charles C., 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
● Mann, Charles C., 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
● Robinson, James A. and Daron Acemoglu Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and
Poverty
● Sandage, Tom, A History of the World in 6 Glasses
● Turner, Jack, Spice: The History of Temptation
● Weatherford, Jack, Genghis Khan and Making of the Modern World
Before you pick one of these, we would HIGHLY recommend doing some research on Amazon or
something to read some reviews and get a sense of what you are getting into before you buy the
book (if you are purchasing it). It may well be worth requesting them at the library and/or sharing
one with a friend to make sure that’s what you want to read.