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Anthony’s NotesA personal field guide
From the notebook

Curriculum Map (Kanban)

Supplementary

Stage 0 — Orientation

  • A Patriot’s History of the United States — Larry Schweikart
  • From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 — George C. Herring anchor
  • The Rise and Fall of American Growth — Robert J. Gordon anchor
  • These Truths: A History of the United States — Jill Lepore added anchor

Stage 1 — Origins to Founding (Pre-1492 – 1790s)

  • Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent — Ted Morgan added environment
  • 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus — Charles C. Mann
  • The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 — Robert Middlekauff anchor
  • Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution — Richard Beeman
  • The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 — Gordon S. Wood
  • Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution — Pauline Maier
  • The Constitution of hte United States - Gregg Jarrett
  • The Federalist Papers — Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
  • The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
  • First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country
  • Founding Partisans — H.W. Brands
  • Washington: A Life — Ron Chernow biography
  • Benjamin Franklin: An American Life — Walter Isaacson biography
  • American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson — Joseph Ellis biography
  • Rush by Stephen Fried
  • Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Stage 2 — Early Republic & Market/Party Revolutions (1790s–1848)

  • Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
  • What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 — Daniel Walker Howe anchor
  • The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788–1800 — Jay Winik
  • The Pursuit of Happiness — Jeffrey Rosen

Stage 3 — Expansion, Slavery, and the Coming of War (1848–1861)

  • How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America — Clint Smith
  • A. Lincoln — Ronald C. White biography

Stage 4 — The Civil War & Reconstruction (1861–1877)

  • Battle Cry of Freedom — James McPherson anchor
  • This Republic of Suffering — Drew Gilpin Faust
  • Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 — Eric Foner anchor
  • Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction — Eric Foner added
  • The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution — Eric Foner
  • Lincoln at Gettysburg — Garry Wills
  • Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory — David W. Blight added memory

Stage 5 — Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877–1917)

  • Morgan: American Financier — Jean Strouse
  • Empire of the Summer Moon — S.C. Gwynne
  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee — Dee Brown added indigenous
  • The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge — David McCullough added industrialization
  • The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York — Robert A. Caro
  • Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America — John M. Barry

Stage 6 — World War I & the 1920s (1914–1929)

  • The First World War — John Keegan
  • Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World — Margaret MacMillan
  • The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald fiction
  • The Fifties — David Halberstam

Stage 7 — Depression, WWII, and Home Front (1929–1945)

  • Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 — David M. Kennedy anchor
  • No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt — Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • The Longest Day — Cornelius Ryan

Stage 8 — Early Cold War & Civil Rights (1945–1960s)

  • Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 — James T. Patterson anchor
  • George Marshall: Defender of the Republic — David L. Roll biography
  • G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century — Beverly Gage
  • The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War — David Halberstam
  • Parting the Waters: America in the King Years — Taylor Branch civilrights
  • The Children — David Halberstam civilrights

Stage 9 — The Long 1960s to 1970s Realignment

  • Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America — Rick Perlstein
  • Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976–1980 — Rick Perlstein
  • The Wright Brothers — David McCullough innovation

Stage 10 — Late Cold War & Endgame (1980s)

  • The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink — William Inboden
  • The Power Broker (if not read earlier) — Robert A. Caro government

Stage 11 — Post-Cold War to 9/11 & War on Terror (1990s–2010s)

  • The American Century and Beyond: U.S. Foreign Relations, 1893–2014 — George C. Herring
  • How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States — Daniel Immerwahr
  • The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq — George Packer
  • Presidents of War — Michael Beschloss synthesis

Stage 12 — Biographical Masterclass (Thread Throughout)

  • John Adams — David McCullough biography
  • Truman — David McCullough biography
  • Hamilton — Ron Chernow biography
  • Grant — Ron Chernow biography
  • The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt — Edmund Morris biography
  • Theodore Rex — Edmund Morris biography
  • Colonel Roosevelt — Edmund Morris biography
  • The Path to Power — Robert A. Caro biography
  • Master of the Senate — Robert A. Caro biography
  • The Passage of Power — Robert A. Caro biography
  • Kissinger: The Idealist — Niall Ferguson biography
  • William Howard Adams, Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life
  • Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution

Stage 13 — Thematic & Reflective Works

  • The Story of American Freedom — Eric Foner added theme-freedom
  • The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea — Jack E. Davis environment
  • Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild — Lee Sandlin regional
  • Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans — T.R. Fehrenbach regional
  • A People’s History of the United States — Howard Zinn optional contrast

Misc

Videos