Bibliography: American History in International Perspective

1. Overviews & Pedagogy
2. Colonial & Revolutionary Eras
3. Religion
4. Immigration & Immigrants
5. Africans & African Americans
6. World War II, Cold War & Later
7. Web Resources
8. Video

Many items in this bibliography are available in the Primary Source Library, Watertown, Mass.  Items currently available in the library are marked with an *

I. Overviews & Pedagogy

Readings for Teachers

* Bender, Thomas, ed. Rethinking American History in a Global Age. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)

* Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. 2nd Edition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

* Guarneri, Carl. America Compared: American History in International Perspective, Vols. I & II. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997).

A college (or advanced H.S.) reader that presents U.S. history in a global context, and pairs comparative readings on such key issues as slavery, immigration, imperialism, civil rights, and western expansion. Introductions to the paired selections provide historical context on the issue at hand, background information on the country being compared, and discussion of ideas or arguments contained in the selections.

Kaplan, Amy and Donald Pease, eds. Cultures of United States Imperialism. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994).

Begins to fill the gaping lacuna of imperialism in the standard histories of the U.S. by exploring how U.S. expansion has influenced people of other cultures. The 26 essays focus mostly on Africa and African Americans, but also consider the Philippines, Native Americans, Cuba, Latin America, and Disneyworld in Tokyo. They explore the racial and gender dimensions, the ideologies that buttress imperialism, resistance, and other facets.

Kent, Noel. Hawaii: Islands under the Influence. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983).

An overview of the history of Hawaii from the early 1700s to about 1980, focusing on the most thoroughly "international" region of the United States. Provides an incisive look at severe depredations on native Hawaiian population, culture, and economic power, as well as the important role of Japanese, Filipino, and other international populations. Lively and absorbing reading.

* Lindaman, Dana. History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History. (New York: New Press, 2004). In an alternative and eye-opening version of American history, History Lessons provides an enormous range of conflicting takes on seemingly straightforward events. Readers accustomed to a single view of American history will find British, Canadian, and Native American views of the War of 1812; Cuban and Russian views of the Bay of Pigs debacle; and Iranian views of the hostage crisis, among many other astonishing and enlightening examples.

Meinig, D. W. Global America, 1915-2000. The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. Vol. 4 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004)

D.W. Meinig, in these four volumes, has created a masterful overview of American historical geography. Each of the (many) maps in this series tells a unique story, and are different in concept and design from what we are used to seeing in historical atlases. Although the focus is on the United States, Meinig makes good use of comparative geography to put U.S. history and geography into a global perspective.

* _________. Transcontinental America, 1850-1950, Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Vol. 3 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

* _________. Continental America, 1800-1867. The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Vol. 2. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

_________. Atlantic America, 1492-1800. The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Vol. 1. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).

Russo, David J, ed. American History from a Global Perspective. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000). A series of essays by scholars each addressing a specific period or subject in American history and evaluating new approaches that reflect an international perspective.

* Watts, Sheldon. Epidemics and History: Disease, Power, and Imperialism. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997)

Looks at epidemics around the world from the 1400s through the 1970s, looking at them as more than a purely biological phenomenon, in that they have been exploited and even shaped by humans for political, cultural and social ends.

Readings for Students

* Demko, George J. Why in the World: Adventures in Geography. (New York: Doubleday, 1992).

"a multifaceted look at the... give and take between humankind and the planet, raising questions of population and immigration, cultural patterns, politics, sociology, history, geology, biology, economics and agriculture." Latter half of book looks at specific countries and areas. HS/Adult.

II. Colonial & Revolutionary Eras

Readings for Teachers

* Armitage, David. The British Atlantic World 1500-1800. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

This book gathers an international team of historians to present the first comprehensive account of the central themes in the histories of Britain, British America, and the British Caribbean seen in Atlantic perspective: the state, empire, migration, the economy, religion, race, class, gender, politics, and slavery.

* Breen, T. H. Colonial America in an Atlantic World. (New York: Longman, 2003).

* Buel, Richard Jr. In Irons: Britain's Naval Supremacy and the American Revolutionary Economy. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) Looks at the U.S. economy during and after the Revolution, focusing on the problems Great Britain was able to impose on the new nation by controlling world trade--especially disastrous for a country that was over-dependent on trade. Draws on British and French as well as American primary sources.

* Calloway, Colin G. The American Revolution in Indian Country. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Presents a different view of the American Revolution, a conflict in which Native Americans were by and large losers, being pushed far to the north and west in its aftermath. Native Americans are revealed as soldiers, generals, politicians, diplomats, businessmen, and also human beings with sophisticated cultures and societies.

__________. New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)

Begins with the premise that Early America already existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. From coast to coast, Native Americans had created enduring cultures, and the subsequent European invasion remade much of the existing land and culture. Calloway explores the unique and vibrant new cultures that Indians and Europeans forged together. The journey toward this hybrid society kept Europeans' and Indians' lives tightly entwined: living, working, worshiping, traveling, and trading together--as well as fearing, avoiding, despising, and killing one another. In the West, settlers lived in Indian towns, eating Indian food. In Mohawk Valley, New York, Europeans tattooed their faces; Indians drank tea. And, a unique American identity emerged.

* Kupperman, Karen O. America in European Consciousness, 1493-1750. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

* Palmer, Colin A., ed. The Worlds of Unfree Labour: From Indentured Servitude to Slavery. An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800, Vol. 16 (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 1998) Offers a broad, comparative overview of slavery, zeroing in on slave communities and forced migrations in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Classical Athens.

Nash, Gary. Red White and Black: The Peoples of Early North America. 4th ed. (Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994).

Written by highly acclaimed historian Gary B. Nash, this book presents an interpretive account of the interactions between Native Americans, African Americans, and Euroamericans during the colonial and revolutionary eras. It reveals the crucial interconnections between North America's many peoples-illustrating the ease of their interactions in the first two centuries of European and African presence-to develop a fuller, deeper understanding of the nation's underpinnings.

* Richards, John F. The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003)

Looks at the "frontier" in a global context from roughly 1400-1800.

* Royster, Charles. The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company: A Story of George Washington's Times. (New York: Knopf, 1999).

The story of one of eighteenth-century America's most fantastic land speculation deals: William Byrd's scheme to develop 900 square miles of swamp on the Virginia-North Carolina border and create fabulous wealth for himself and other shareholders, including George Washington. The book scrupulously follows the paper trail through the byways of transatlantic deal-cutting, providing a rare view of early American economic culture. The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company is an eye-opening account of greed, folly, and venture capitalism in the revolutionary era.

See also:

* Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900.

* Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida.

* Manning, Patrick, ed. Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of Forced Labour.

Readings for Students

Maestro, Betsy. Struggle for a Continent: The French and Indian Wars 1689-1763. The American Story. (New York: HarperCollins, 2000)

Grade 3-6. In this richly illustrated title, the Maestros bring an important part of our country's history to life. Seventy-four years of events are chronicled in a running narrative that begins by explaining how four European nations fought over trade, borders, and religion, and competed for the North American continent. ES/MS

* Marrin, Albert. Empires Lost and Won : The Spanish Heritage in the Southwest. (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1997).

Discusses the history of the southwestern region of the United States from the sixteenth century to the Mexican War, examining the interactions between the Spanish, Indians, and Anglos. MS/HS

Wills, John E., Jr. 1688: A Global History. (New York: Norton, 2002).

This book merges cultural anthropology and history to reflect through the prism of a single year the shape of the world poised on the edge of modernity. Wills draws on sources as diverse as the correspondence of far-flung Jesuit missionaries, the records of the Dutch and English trading companies, contemporary poetry, diaries and even a ketubah (a Jewish marriage contract). The world of 1688 is filled with terrifying violence, frightening diseases and religious and political persecution, but also with comfortingly familiar human kindnesses, familial affections and the scientific and intellectual achievements of Leibniz, Locke and Newton, among others. MS/HS

III. Religion

Readings for Teachers

* Diouf, Sylviane A. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. (New York: New York University Press, 1998).

Contents: Introduction: an understudied presence and legacy -- African Muslims, Christian Europeans, and the Atlantic slave trade -- Upholding the Five Pillars of Islam in a hostile world -- The Muslim community -- Literacy: a distinction and a danger -- Resistance, revolts, and returns to Africa -- The Muslim legacy.

* Eck, Diana. A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" has Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002)

Eck focuses here on the explosion of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist communities in America, particularly since 1965. How has the growth of these religions changed the American landscape? And just as important, how are the religions themselves changing because of America? Eck's travels take her (and us) to major cities, but also to places such as Greenville, S.C.; Portland, Maine; and Toledo, Ohio. Eck is a highly skilled ethnographer who delicately balances the challenge of interpreting events while also participating in them.

* Fisher, Robert B. West African Religious Traditions : Focus on the Akan of Ghana. Faith meets Faith. (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1998).

This books examines the religion of the Akan as reflected in their day-to-day lives, song, language, and other cultural phenomena. He makes extensive use of examples from Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart; reading both books together is an excellent idea.

* Gaustad, Edwin. A Documentary History of Religion in America to 1877. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003).

__________. A Documentary History of Religion in America since 1877. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003).

Both volumes in this landmark work here appear in an updated and expanded third edition. Carefully refurbished by renowned historian of American religion Mark Noll, these rich sourcebooks contain original documents - letters, sermons, court records, personal narratives, and more - that chronicle the drama of American religious history. This third edition updates all of the bibliographical essays, brings the second volume up to the present, and incorporates other documents that reflect recent scholarly concerns, such as the religious dimensions of the Civil War and religious developments among women and people of color.

* Hall, David. Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).

Noted colonial historian Hall has written an excellent treatment of 17th-century New England religion as it was practiced by the vast majority of the population, not by the clergy.

Accepting the current view that the laity absorbed much clerical teaching while adding elements of popular culture to religious practice, he stresses the literacy of ordinary New Englanders and the importance of printers as agents of cultural transmission.

* Haynes, Charles C., et al. A Teacher's Guide to Religion in American Life : With Lesson Plans. (Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center Oxford University Press, 2002).

* Hutchison, William R. Religious Pluralism in America: The Contentious History of a Founding Ideal. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2003).

In this ambitious reappraisal of American religious history, William Hutchison chronicles the country's struggle to fulfill the promise of its founding ideals. In 1800 the United States was an overwhelmingly Protestant nation. Over the next two centuries, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others would emerge to challenge the Protestant mainstream. Although their demands were often met with resistance, Hutchison demonstrates that as a result of these conflicts we have expanded our understanding of what it means to be a religiously diverse country.

* Tweed, Thomas A. and Stephen Prothero. Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999).

This book presents the American encounter with Asian religions through a wide range of documents -- written and visual from elite and popular culture -- dating from 1788 to the present. Coverage of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam predominate, though selections from other religions are included -- Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, Sikhism. The entries are divided into four chronological periods. The first section traces the initial attempts to map the earliest contracts, up to 1840; the second section, from 1840 to 1924, presents the first real passages -- from east to west and west to east; the third, from 1924 to 1965, sketches a drifting period when immigration has stopped and Euro-American interest in Asian religions was minimal; and the final section, which takes us to the present, covers a time when the encounter intensifies greatly.

See also:

* Baum, Robert Martin. Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia.

* Kennedy, Pagan. Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo.

Readings for Students

* Gaustad Edwin S., and Leigh Schmidt. Religious History of America: The Heart of the American Story from Colonial Times to Today. Revised ed.

San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004

Grade Level: 9-12. In this revised edition of a standard text on American religious history, the authors examine religion from Puritan New England to the 2000 Presidential election. Specific chapters look at immigration and diversity and politics and pluralism. The book's four sections end with suggestions for further reading. HS

Pollock, Robert. Everything World's Religions Book: Discover the Beliefs, Traditions, and Cultures of Ancient and Modern Religions. (New York: Adams Media, 2002).

After a brief first chapter that discusses religion in general terms, this introductory text presents capsule descriptions of Christianity and its many forms, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism and Baha'i, Sikhism, Shinto, and many other ancient, indigenous, and new age faiths. ES/MS

Scopino, A.J., Jr., ed. The Struggle for Religious Freedom in America. (Carlisle Mass.: Discovery Enterprises Ltd, 1997).

Collection of documents showing some of the key efforts on the part of Americans over 350 years to practice and observe their religious beliefs, as well as the writings of those who oppose that right. MS/HS

IV. Immigration & Immigrants

Readings for Teachers

* Chang, Iris. The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. (New York: Viking, 2003).

A good balanced view of Chinese Americans from the nineteenth century to the present, Well-written, with a very contemporary voice.

Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish became White. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Presents a colorful look at Irish immigrants up to the Civil War, and examines the concept of "whiteness" and how it was applied in changing ways to different social and ethnic groups in the nineteenth century.

* Odo, Franklin, ed. The Columbia Documentary History of the Asian American Experience. (New York: Columbia U.P., 2002).

A collection of letters, diaries, government documents, news reports, and other short materials that provides thorough chronological coverage of the Asian-American experience, and covers a wide range of ethnic groups.

Organization of American Historians. "Special issue on Labor History"

Magazine of History. (Volume 11, no 2, Winter 1997). available on line at http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/labor/.

Good articles on teaching labor history; in particular, an article about using the Lowell National Park to teach about the immigrant experience in the mills. Also, lesson plans on specific labor topics.

* Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. (Boston: Little Brown, 1993).

Beginning with the colonization of the "New World" , to Los Angeles in 1992, the book recounts the history of America in the voices of non-Anglo peoples.

Readings for Students

Blumberg, Rhoda. Shipwrecked: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy.(New York: Harper, 2001).

In 1841, Manjiro was 14 when he and four other fishermen were shipwrecked and marooned on a small island 300 miles from shore. Rescued by an American whaler, Manjiro was the first Japanese to visit the U.S., breaking Japanese law and risking death. This biography of a young boy who became a hero in Japan and played an important role in opening Japan to the West is for readers 9-12. ES/MS

* Daniels, Roger. American Immigration: A Student Companion. Oxford Student Companions to American History. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

A reference work with articles, illustrations, timelines, covering major immigrant groups. HS.

* Deitch, JoAnne Weisman. Immigration. (Carlisle, Mass.: Discovery Enterprises Ltd., 2000.)

Anthology of documents relating to immigrants who came to America at the turn of the 20th century. Includes research activities for middle school students. MS

* Freedman, Russell. Immigrant Kids. (New York: Puffin Books, 1980). ES/MS

Text and period photographs chronicle the lives of immigrant children at home, school, work and play during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

* Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America (Detroit: Gale Group, 2000). HS

Granfield Linda, and Arlene Alda. 97 Orchard Street, New York: Stories of Immigrant Life. (Missisauga, Ontario: Tundra Books: 2001).

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8

America may have seemed a golden opportunity for thousands of immigrants, but life here wasn't easy. This book examines the lives of four families who lived in one Lower east side tenement; it also explores Ellis Island, early immigration, and the origin of the house that became the tenement at 97 Orchard Street (now the New York City Tenement Museum). This personal account of a major American phenomenon is filled with contemporary photographs. ES/MS

Griswold Del Castillo, Richard and Richard A. Garcia. Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit. Oklahoma Western Biographies. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997).

A biography that approaches the story of the farm worker and labor organizer in the context of Chicano and American history. It shows a shy and quiet man--thrust by events into the fight for social justice--whose life was touched by the major events in the Mexican-American chronology, from Mexican immigration in the 1920s, through forced repatriation in the 1930s to the Chicano movement of the '60s and '70s and, finally, the "new immigration" in the 1990s. HS/Adult

* Hoffman, Mary. The Color of Home. (New York: Phyllis Fogelman Books, 2002)

Hassan, newly-arrived in the United States and feeling homesick, paints a picture at school that shows his old home in Somalia as well as the reason his family had to leave. MS

* Kite, Lorien. We Came to North America: The Chinese. New York: Crabtee Publishing, 2000. (ES/MS)

An illustrated history of Chinese immigration from mid-nineteenth-century to the present, concentrating heavily on conditions and events in China that affected migration.

* Leathers, Noel L. The Japanese in America. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1991. (MS)

An overview of Japanese immigration and adaptation since the late 19th century, focusing on Japanese labor, business, and farming, as well as prejudice and World War II. Chronicles recent Japanese American leaders in government, business, sports, etc.

* Levine, Ellen. ...If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island. (New York : Scholastic, 1993).

Describes, in question and answer format, the great migration of immigrants to New York's Ellis Island, from the 1880s to 1914. Features quotes from children and adults who passed through the station. ES

* McCabe, Marsha L., ed. Portugese Spinner: An American story: Stories of History, Culture and Life from Portugese Americans in Southeastern New England. (New Bedford, Mass.: Spinner Publications, 1998)

Collection of oral history, folk tales, scholarly reports, popular journalism and photographs which portray the saga of Portugese migration and the people's struggle to build a new life in America. HS/Adult

* Nye, Naomi Shihab. Habibi. (New York: Simon Pulse, 1997)

When 14 year old Liyana moves with her younger brother and their parents from St. Louis to the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and must deal with tensions between Jews and Palestinians. MS/HS

Shea, Pegi Deitz. Tangled Threads : A Hmong Girl's Story. (New York: Clarion, 2003).

Mai Yang has lived with her grandmother in a Thai refugee camp for years waiting for a chance to join the rest of her family in the United States. When they finally move to Rhode Island, Mai Ying discovers that her new life presents many unexpected challenges. Her cousins tease her and her unhappy grandmother turns to her for guidance. Thirteen year old Mai Yang struggles to balance her Hmong traditions with American novelty. MS/HS

Thibaut, Amy Nelson. The Chinese Immigrant Experience in the United States: A Simulation. Denver, CO: Center for Teaching in the United States, University of Denver, 1992.

A simulation game to recognize the tools of racism and the effects it has on society; appropriate for grades 7 and up and useful to accompany a unit on the Transcontinental Railroad or any lesson on prejudice. MS/HS

* Wolf, Bernard. Coming to America: a Muslim Family's Story. (New York: Lee & Low Books, 2003).

Depicts the joys and hardships experienced by a Muslim family that immigrates to New York City from Alexandria, Egypt, in the hope of making a better life life for themselves. ES/MS

See also:

* Cooper, Michael L. Fighting For Honor: Japanese Americans and World War II.

V. Africans & African Americans

Readings for Teachers

* Baum, Robert Martin. Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia. (New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

* Kennedy, Pagan. Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo. (New York: Penguin, 2002).

The story of William Henry Sheppard, an African American missionary who spent over twenty years running a mission in the Belgian Congo, with a staff of black Americans. Her returned periodically to the U.S. to raise funds in the 1890s to raise funds, and became known as "the Black Livingstone." Sheppard was an anthropologist, photographer, big-game hunter, and art collector, who gathered testimony to help expose the atrocities against Africans that occurred under the reign of King Leopold.

* Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). A study of the African

American community under colonial Spanish rule, who lived in a much more varied and dynamic social situation than blacks in the Anglo-American South. Spanish slaves occupied an important middle ground, with many avenues out of slavery, and offering a haven for runaways from English colonies.

* Manning, Patrick, ed. Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of Forced Labour. An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800, Vol. 15. (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 1996).

* Sanneh, Lamin. Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).

Narrates the story of freed slaves in the U.S. who led efforts to abolish the slave trade by attacking its base operation: the capture and sale of people by African chiefs. Beginning in 1792, these people set out for Africa to establish colonies that would be havens for ex-slaves and examples to the rest of Africa.

See also:

* Palmer, Colin A., ed. The Worlds of Unfree Labour: From Indentured Servitude to Slavery.

* Fisher, Robert B. West African Religious Traditions : Focus on the Akan of Ghana.

* Borstelmann, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena.

Readings for Students

Bok, Francis. Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America. (New York: St. Martin's, 2003).

The author's story begins at age seven, on a southern Sudan farm. One day in 1986, he was sent on errands to the marketplace. Swept up in a slave raid, he ended up sold to a northern Sudanese Arab. After he escaped at age 17, he became a U.N. refugee allowed to settle in the U.S. in 1999. The following year Bok decided to work with an American antislavery organization, and testified before Congress about the atrocities in Sudan. While this is a remarkable story, its power is conveyed most effectively through Bok's simple retelling. MS/HS

Clinton, Catherine. The Black Soldier: 1492 to the Present. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000)

Looks at black soldiers in French, Spanish, English, and American service in North America, with careful use of primary documents. MS & HS

Raven, Margot Theis, and E. B. Lewis. Circle Unbroken. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8. An African American grandmother tells her granddaughter how her ancestors came to the United States and how their tradition of basket making has been passed from generation to generation. An author's note provides more historical background on sweetgrass or Gullah baskets. ES/MS

* Watkins, Richard. Slavery: Bondage Throughout History. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001).

A well written treatment of an abhorrent topic. Clearly explains the concept of "a person [being] owned by another as a piece of property" as playing a significant role in many civilizations from Babylon and Brazil to Native Americans and the Nazis. Students' eyes will be opened by the facts that "slavery hasn't always been racially motivated" and that it still exists today. Short biographical sketches and first-person accounts prove this by highlighting many hideous experiences, including those of a Southern U.S. cotton plantation slave, a forced laborer under Stalin's regime, and a boy killed in 1995 after being owned by a Pakistani carpet maker since the age of four. MS

See also:

* Hoffman, Mary. The Color of Home.

VI. World War II, Cold War & Later

Readings for Teachers

Builbaut, Serge, Arthur Goldhammer, trans. How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War. (University of Chicago Press, 1983).

A look at New York's rise to preeminence in the world of post-WWII arts.

Borstelmann, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

A comprehensive examination of how the Cold War intersected with the final destruction of global white supremacy. Thomas Borstelmann pays close attention to the two Souths--Southern Africa and the American South--as the primary sites of white authority's last stand. He reveals America's efforts to contain the racial polarization that threatened to unravel the anticommunist western alliance. In so doing, he recasts the history of American race relations in its true international context, one that is meaningful and relevant for our own era of globalization.

* Choices Program. The U.S. Role in a Changing World. (Providence, R.I.: Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 2004).

A teaching package including a book for students and a teacher's manual, The student book poses articles on contemporary global political issues in a debate format, and encourages students to decide among competing points of view and support their decision. The teacher's guide outlines classroom activities to complement the book. MS/HS

* Daum, Andreas W., et al. eds. America, the Vietnam War, and the World: Comparative and International Perspectives. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Presents many different points of view on the Vietnam War, from Europe (mostly Germany) and Asia.

* Schwartz, Richard. Cold War Culture: Media and the Arts, 1945-1990. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000).

For more than 40 years, the Cold War defined our values and identity as Americans. Its influence pervaded every aspect of American life and can be seen clearly in popular culture, the arts, and literature. This easy-to-use reference chronicles the important themes, genres, and individuals that helped shape the Cold War era. More than simply a catalog, it illustrates how social and cultural values are embodied, reproduced, and reinforced in both popular and "high" culture.

May, Lary, ed. Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. (New York: Basic Books, 1988).

This book seeks to reconcile two prevailing but contradictory images of the 1950s: the notion of domestic tranquility and happiness amidst the fears and tensions of the Cold War. It does so by locating American family life within the larger political culture and by arguing that the retreat to the privacy and security of the home was a response to the era's political insecurities.

* Winkler, Allan M. The Cold War: A History in Documents. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Uses contemporary documents to explore the development of the Cold War struggle, the consequences in the 1950s and 1960s, and the lasting effects on American social and cultural patterns.

Saunders, Frances S. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. (New York: New Press 1999).

The CIA funded right-wing intellectuals after World War II, but it also courted individuals from the center and the left in an effort to turn the intelligentsia away from communism and toward an acceptance of "the American way." This book centers on the career of Michael Josselson, the principal intellectual figure in the operation, and his eventual betrayal by people who scapegoated him. Sanders demonstrates that, in the early days, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the emergent CIA were less dominated by the far right than they later became, and that the idea of helping out progressive moderates--rather than being Machiavellian--actually appealed to the men at the top.

Whitfield, Stephen J.. The Culture of the Cold War. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

A review of the deeper effects of Cold War repression and conservatism, as reflected in literature, film, education and other aspects of American life.

See also:

Griswold Del Castillo, Richard and Richard A. Garcia. Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit.

Readings for Students

Cooper, Michael L. Fighting For Honor : Japanese Americans and World War II. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000)

An account of Japanese Americans in World War II, based mainly on diaries, autobiographies, and the military records of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, all people on the West Coast of Japanese heritage were forced to move into internment camps. But 1,200 young men from the camps, along with 10,000 other GIs of Japanese heritage, became some of the most decorated soldiers in the war as part of the 442nd. MS &HS

Wetterhahn, Ralph. The Last Battle: The Mayaquez Incident and the End of the Vietnam War. (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001.

Less than two weeks after the Amerrican evacuation of Saigon, Cambodian gunboats hijacked the merchant ship S.S. Mayaquez in international waters. Forty-one Americans died in subsequent military operations, including a helicopter assault on the wrong island after Cambodians had already agreed to peacefully release the hostages.. while examining the entire crisis, the author focuses on the fate of three Marines left behind. MS/HS

VIII. Video

*America and the Holocaust. PBS, WGBH. Videocassette, (60 min).

Demonstrates ways that American anti-semitism and immigration policy kept Jews from immigrating to the safety of the U.S. during the Nazi regime. HS/adult

*A Heritage Within. Turning Tide Productions: 1986. (55 min.).

A multicultural look at a New England milltown. Segments include labor history of the mills, family history of immigrants to Holyoke, discrimination faced by immigrants, and a celebration of cultures (Irish Amer., French-Amer. and Puerto-Rican).

*Carved in Silence. San Francisco, videocassette (46 min.). Calif.: Cross Current Media, 1992,

By means of historic footage plus dramatized reenactments, traces the history of Chinese immigration to the United States, especially the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 which resulted in the detention of Chinese immigrants at the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. Parts filmed at Angel Island State Park.

*Muslims. an Independent Production Fund film for Frontline. 2003 Videocassette (120 min.)

Looks at what it means to be a Muslim in the 21st century. Filmed in Egypt, Malaysia, Iran, Turkey, Nigeria and the United States, this program explores the influence of culture and politics on religion, looks at the political forces at work among Muslims around the world, emphasizes Islam's kinship with Christianity and Judaism, and examines the diverse interpretations of Islam among the Muslim people.

*People's Century. WGBH. BBC. (videocassette, 26 tapes.) 1998-2002.

This twenty-six part PBS television series offers new insight into the turbulent events of these hundred years through the revealing personal testimony of the people who lived them. The focus is mainly on the U.S. and Britain, but the episodes bring in a considerable amount of narrative and testimony from around the globe, giving new perspective to familiar events.