Honors World History Book List

Pre-1000's - 1680's = The Development of the European Identity, the Age of Monarchs, and the Age of Exploration

  • The Prince (Renaissance)
  • Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Reformation)
  • John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (Reformation)
  • The Three-Inch Golden Lotus (Ancient China)
  • Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (Middle Ages)
  • In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (The Black Death)
  • Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai (Feudal Japan)
  • Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi (African Slave Trade)
  • When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne (Age of Exploration)
  • My Name is Red (Ottoman Empire)
  • Middle Passage (Africa – Slave Trade)
  • Sacred Hunger (African Slave Trade)
  • The Adventures of Ibn Battuta : A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century (Islam / Age of Exploration)
  • Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History (Age of Exploration)
  • Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan (Feudal Japan)
  • The Travels of Marco Polo (Age of Exploration)
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel (Age of Exploration)
  • The Colombian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Age of Exploration)

1680's - 1810's = The Age of Enlightenment, Political Revolution, and Democratic Changes within World Societies

  • Galileo’s Daughter (Scientific Revolution)
  • The Social Contract (Enlightenment)
  • Two Treaties of Government (Enlightenment)
  • On Crime and Punishment (Enlightenment)
  • The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus (Scientific Revolution)
  • Ines of My Soul: A Novel (Colonial Latin America)
  • All Souls’ Rising (Haitian Revolution)
  • The Glass-Blowers (French Revolution)
  • Island Beneath the Sea: A Novel (Haitian Revolution)

1810's - 1940's = The Industrialization of the Globe, European Imperialism, and Attempted Reforms / New Ideas

  • Forgotten Fire (Armenian Genocide)
  • Things Fall Apart (Africa / Imperialism)
  • Heart of Darkness (Africa / Imperialism)
  • King Leopold’s Ghost (Africa – Imperialism)
  • A Grain of Wheat (Africa – Imperialism)
  • Burmese Days (British Imperialism)
  • Women of the Silk (China prior to the Revolution)
  • Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (Imperialism)
  • The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Colonial India)
  • The Desert Road to Turkestan (Imperialism)
  • The Communist Manifesto (Industrial Reformers)
  • The White Nile (Africa – Imperialism)
  • Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the War (World War I)

1940's - 1990's = The Age of Global Conflicts and Political Change

  • Mao’s Last Dancer (Communist China / Cultural Revolution)
  • Kaffir Boy (Apartheid)
  • The God of Small Things (India / Cold War)
  • Cry, The Beloved Country (Apartheid)
  • Son of the Revolution (Communist China / Cultural Revolution)
  • The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (Chinese Civil War)
  • In the Time of Butterflies (Latin America – Dominican Republic)
  • The Marines of Autumn (Asia – Korean War)
  • The Tree of Red Stars (Latin America – Cold War)
  • Clear Light of Day (Asia – Partitioning of India)
  • The Shadow Lines (India – Independence / Partition)
  • Snow County (Imperial Japan)
  • Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood (Imperial Japan)
  • The Painted Bird (The Holocaust)
  • The Feast of the Goat (Latin America – Dominican Republic)
  • In Country (Vietnam War)
  • The Journey of Tao Kim Nam (Vietnam War)
  • The Quiet American (Vietnam War)
  • Paradise of the Blind (Vietnam War)
  • To the End of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer Rouge (Khmer Rouge)
  • First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Khmer Rouge)
  • To Swim Across the World (Korea)
  • Cracking India (Partitioning of India)
  • Imagining Argentina (Latin America – Cold War)
  • Mornings in Jenin (Israeli-Palestinian Conflict)
  • Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook (Imperial Japan)
  • Red Scarf Girl (Communist China – Cultural Revolution)
  • Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (Chinese Civil War)
  • The Good Earth (Chinese Civil War)
  • Falling Leaves (Communist China)
  • Red Azalea (Communist China)
  • Darkness at Noon (Russian Revolution)
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Life in the USSR)
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns (Afghanistan under USSR)
  • Shallow Graves in Siberia (USSR in WWII)

1990's - present = Unresolved Problems and Global Issues

  • Three Cups of Tea (Islam / War in Afghanistan)
  • Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women (Islam)
  • Child of the Dark: The Diary of Caroline Maria de Jesus (Modern Latin America – Poverty)
  • What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Middle East – Islam)
  • A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier (Modern-Day Africa)
  • Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom (Modern-Day Afghanistan)
  • We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families (Rwandan Genocide)
  • Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Modern World History)
  • Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq’s 7,000-year History of War, Profit, and Conflict (Iraq Conflicts)