American Studies generates more questions than it answers. Below are lists of books, films, and other materials I have found particularly interesting as I continue to read about our country.
Books
Colonial:
1776 by David McCullough
In the Devil's Snare by Mary Beth Norton
Civil War:
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
The West
The Winning of Barbara Worth by Harold Bell Wright
Lonesome Dove Series by Larry McMurtry
The Call of the Wilde by Jack London
Sons of the Profits by William Spiedel
Progressive Era:
Mark Twain Himself: a pictorial biography by Milton Meltzer
Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain
The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
Christy by Catharine Marshall
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Harlem Renaissance:
There Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Modernism:
1929 by Frederick Turner
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Post-Modernism:
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Unbrokem by Lauren Hillebrand
Contemporary Literature:
Another Country by James Baldwin
Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Political Theory
Generations by Strauss and Howe
The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe
The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey Sachs
Articles
"One Document, Under Seige" by Richard Stengel, featured in Time
[http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2079445,00.html]
Films
Colonial:
The Patriot
Civil War:
Cold Mountain
Gone with the Wind
Westward Expansion
White Fang
Tombstone
Progressive Era/Urbanization/Modernism
Changeling (with Angelina Jolie)
The Artist (2011)
Leatherheads
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Depression Era
The Grapes of Wrath
World War II and the Cold War
Goodnight and Good Luck
"Barefoot Gen" -Anime of the bombing of Hiroshima, can find on YouTube
[http://www.originalchildbomb.com]
[http://www.butoh.net/Butoh_Net/Home.html]
Civil Rights (Broad)
A Raisin in the Sun
Iron Jawed Angels
Contemporary War
Patton
Saving Private Ryan
