Reading+List

Students are expected to read at least one book during the summer as a lead in to the course and one during the semester. Students may read two during the summer in place of one during summer and one during the semester. You will have a choice of blogging your reflections on the readings or complete a book project/review assignment during the year. **Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor**  – by Anthony Everett ** The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians ** – by Peter Heather **The Haj**  by    Leon Uris **Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive That Changed the World** –  by Jack Kelly **Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies**  by Jared  Diamond **Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World**  by Jack Weatherford **I, Claudius** –  Robert Graves **Shogun**  by James Clavell **Plagues and Peoples** –  by William Hardy McNeill **Rats, Lice and History** –  by Hans Zinsser **In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made**  by  Norman Cantor ** 1421: The Year China Discovered America ** by Gavin Menzies ** 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus ** by Charles C. Mann
 * Reading List: **
 * Gates of Fire ** by Steven Pressfield
 * Pompeii ** by Robert Harris
 * Siddhartha ** by Herman Hesse
 * The King Must Die ** by Mary Renault
 * The Art of War ** by Sun Tzu
 * The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian ** – by Robin Lane Fox
 * Caesar: Life of a Colossus ** – by Adrian Goldsworthy
 * The Battle for Gaul ** by Julius Caesar
 * Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World ** by Paul Cartledge
 * Salt: A World History ** by Mark Kurlansky
 * The Prince ** by Niccolo Machiavelli
 * Sailing From Byzantium ** by Colin Wells
 * The World That Trade Created ** by Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik
 * Things Fall Apart ** by Chinua Achebe
 * This Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity ** by David Christian
 * The World in 6 Glasses ** by Tom Standage