All graduate students must take comprehensive exams. To help them prepare, the department has put together several reading lists that cover the basic material on the exams. Please note that these are suggested readings. Students will work with their advisor for more specific guidelines.
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U.S. History Reading List
Colonial and Early National:
- Alan Taylor, American Colonies
- Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789
- Peter S. Onuf and Leonard J. Sadosky, Jeffersonian America
- Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Towards the Negro, 1750-1812
- Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
- Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800
- Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
- Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism
- Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region 1650-1815
Early Nineteenth Century and Civil War:
- Marshall Smelser, The Democratic Republic, 1801-1815
- George Dangerfield, The Awakening of American Nationalism, 1815-1828
- Glyndon G. Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era, 1828-1848
- David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861
- James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction
- Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War
- William J. Cooper, Jr., and Thomas E. Terrill, The American South
- Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution
- Brenda Stevenson, Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South
Diplomatic:
Howard Jones, The Course of American Diplomacy
Military:
Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense, A Military History of the United States
Gilded Age:
- Paul Kleppner, The Third Electoral System
- Thomas Schlereth, Victorian America
- Sean Cashman, America in the Gilded Age
- Frank Friedel, The Splendid Little War
- Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America
- Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons
- Frederick Jackson Turner, "Impact of the Frontier on American History"
Progressive Era:
- Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920
- John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest
- Lewis Gould, America in the Progressive Era, 1890 - 1914
- Arthur Link, Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace
- David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society
Immigration:
- John Higham, Strangers in the Land
- Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore
Interwar:
- Isabel Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age: 1919-1941
- William Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity
- Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal
- Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval
- Anthony Badger., The New Deal
World War II:
- Lee Kennett, G.I. The American Soldier in World War II
- D. Clayton James and Anne Sharpe Wells, From Pearl Harbor to V-J Day
- John M. Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II
Postwar:
- Kenneth Jackson, The Crabgrass Frontier
- Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were
- Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound
- Stephen Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound
- Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War 1945-1990
- James Sundquist, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years
- George Herring, America's Longest War
- Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men
- John Morton Blum, Years of Discord: American Politics and Society 1961-1974
- Eric Foner, The New American History