AP US HISTORY
READING LIST
This is a compilation by Dr. Robert S. Divine, a Pulitzer Prize winner and Professor of History at the University of Texas
* - denotes recommended
As an alternative to 2 tests you may read one of these books and make a 15 minute presentation
General
*The Tragedy of American Diplomacy – William A. Williams
Peace Reform in American History – Charles DeBenedetti
*Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy – Michael Hunt
A Covenant with Power – Lloyd Gardner
Spreading the American Dream 1890-1945 – Emily S. Rosenberg
Latin American Policy
The Latin American Policy of the U.S. – Samuel F. Bemis
*A History of the Monroe Doctrine – Dexter Perkins
The U.S. and Inter-American Security 1889-1960 – Lloyd Meacham
The Inter American System – Gordon Connell-Smith
The U.S. in Cuba 1898-1902 – David Healy
*Drive to Hegemony: The U.S. in the Caribbean– David Healy
Gunboat Diplomacy in the Wilson Era (Haiti) – David Healy
Cuba under the Platt Amendment – Louis A. Perez
*Intervention, Revolution and Politics in Cuba – Louis Perez
Constraint of Empire – Whitney T. Perkins
Roosevelt and the Caribbean – H.C. Hill
Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean – D. C. Miner
*The Panama Canal – Walter LeFeber
Yanqui Politics and the Isthmian Canal – Lawrence Ealy
Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean– Dana Munro
The U.S. and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century – Lester Langley
*The Banana Wars 1900-1934 – Lester Langley
*The Mexican Revolution – 1910-1914 – Peter Calvert
Revolution and Intervention (Mexico) – Edward P. Haley
*The U.S. and Pancho Villa – Clarence Clendenen
An Affair of Honor – Robert Quirk
The United States and Huerta – Kenneth J. Grieb
The United States Revolutionary Nationalism in Mexico – Robert Smith
Josephus Daniels in Mexico – E. David Cronon
Pan-American Visions – Mark Gilderhus
The Impact of Intervention (Dominican Rep) – Bruce Calder
The United States and Cuba – Jules Benjamin
*The United States and Cuba 1917-1960 – Robert Smith
Roosevelt and Batista – Irwin Gellman
Good Neighbor Diplomacy – Irwin Gellman
The United States Occupation of Haiti – Hans Schmidt
The Aftermath of War: WWI and US Policy in Latin America-Tulchin
A Search for Stability (Nicaragua) – William Kammen
Herbert Hoover’s Latin American Policy – Alexander DeConde
The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy – Bryce Wood
Are We Good Neighbors? – Donald Dozer
Trade and Hemisphere – Dick Steward
The Containment of Latin America – David Green
The Roosevelt Foreign Policy Establishment and the Good Neighbor: US and Argentina 1941-1945 – Randall Woods
Far Eastern Policy
*Sentimental Imperialists – Thompson, Stanley and Perry
Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion-Akira Iriye
Across the Pacific: an Inner History of American Asian Relations - Iriye
America’s Response to China – Warren Cohen
The Far Eastern Policy of the US – A. Whitney Griswold
*John Hay: the Gentleman as Diplomat – Kenton Clymer
John Hay – Tyler Dennett
Roosevelt and the Russo Japanese War – Tyler Dennett
The Rhetoric of Empire: American China Policy -Warren Young
Imperialism and Idealism: American Diplomacy – David Anderson
*Response to Imperialism: the US and the Philippine War – Welch
China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire – McCormick
The Treaty of Portsmouth – Eugene Trani
Roosevelt and Japan – Raymond Esthus
*The Double Eagle and the Rising Sun – Raymond Esthus
From Enmity to Alliance – Raymond Esthus
An Uncertain Friendship: Roosevelt and Japan – Charles Neu
Roosevelt and Japanese American Crises – Thomas Bailey
*The Great White Fleet – Robert Hart
The U.S. Navy in the Pacific – William Braisted
The U.S. and China 1906-1913 – Charles Vevier
*Missionaries, Chinese and Diplomats – Paul Varg
*The Making of Myth: US and China 1887-1914 – Paul Varg
The Closing of the Door: Sino-American Relations – Paul Varg
Frontier Defense and the Open Door – Michael Hunt
Woodrow Wilson and the Chinese Revolution – Roy Curry
American Policy and the Chinese Revolution – Dorothy Borg
The US and the Far Eastern Crisis 1933-38 – Dorothy Borg
The Manchurian Crisis – Sara Smith
Henry L. Stimson and Japan – Armin Rappaport
Secretary Stimson, a Study in Statecraft – Richard Current
Turmoil and Tradition – Elting Morrison
The Colonel: Life and Wars of Henry Stimson – Godfrey Hodgson
*The Chinese Connection – Warren Cohen
American and Chinese Communists 1927-45 – Kenneth Shewmaker
While China Faced West – James Thompson
Nelson Johnson and American China Policy – Russell Buhite
The US and the Washington Conference – Thomas Buckley
Power in the Pacific – Roger Dingman
The Road to Pearl Harbor – Herbert Feis
The China Tangle – Herbert Feis
This is Pearl – Walter Millis
Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision – Robert Wohlstetter
*At Dawn We Slept – Gordon Prange
*Infamy – John Toland
Betrayal at Pearl Harbor – James Rusbridger
*The Broken Seal – Ladislas Farago
Going to War with Japan 1937-41 – Jonathan Utley
The Shadow of Pearl Harbor – Martin Melosi
*The Axis Alliance and Japanese American Relations – Paul Schroeder
America’s Failure in China – Tang Tsou
Wedemeyer’s Reports – Albert Wedemeyer
The US Crusade in China – Michael Schaller
The Standard-Vacuum Oil Co. and US Asian Policy – Irvine Anderson
The Spanish American War
*The New Empire – Walter LaFeber
The Expansionists of 1898 – Julius Pratt
US Expansionism – David Heal
*The Imperial Years – Foster Dulles
Imperial Democracy – Ernest May
*American Imperialism – Ernest May
Reticent Expansionism: the Foreign Policy of McKinley – John Dobson
America’s Ascent – John Dobson
Admiral of the New Empire: Life of Dewey – Ronald Spector
Yellow Journalists – Joyce Dobson
America’s Road to Empire – H. Wayne Morgan
An Unwanted War – John L. Offner
The War with Spain in 1898 – David Trask
The Martial Spirit – Walter Millis
Roosevelt and the International Rivalries – Raymond Esthus
Velvet on Iron: the Diplomacy of T. Roosevelt – Frederick Marks
Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power – Howard Beale
*Anti Imperialists in the US 1800-1920 – Berkeley Tompkins
*Bound to Empire: the US and the Philippines – H.W. Brand
The Politics of War 1800-1920 – Walter Karp
Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for American Policy – Widenor
Anglo-American Understanding 1890-1903 – Charles Campbell
Britain and US Expansion 1898-1903 – R.C. Neal
Great Britain and the US (pts I, IV) – H.L. Allen
The Reapprochment – Bradford Perkins
The Transformation of American Foreign Policy – Charles Campbell
Toward a Warless World: The Travail of the American Peace Movement 1887-1914 - David Patterson
*Eleven against War – Sandra Herman
The American Peace Movement and Social Reform – Roland Marchand
World War I and the Peace Settlement
The Lusitania Disaster – Thomas Bailey and Paul Ryan
America Goes to War – Charles Tansill
Too Proud to Fight – Patrick Devlin
The End of Neutrality – John Coogan
Road to War – Walter Millis
World War I and the American Isolation – Ernest May
Woodrow Wilson and World Politics – Gordon Levin
The Vanity of Power: the US and World War I – John Milton Cooper
American Neutrality 1914-1917 – Charles Seymour
The Origins of Foreign Policy of Wilson – Harley Notter
Robert Lansing and American Neutrality – Daniel Smith
Wilson: Confusion and Crisis 1915-1916 – Arthur Link
The Great Departure – Daniel Smith
Woodrow Wilson and the Balance of Power – Edward Buehrig
The Inquiry – Lawrence Gelfand
Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace / Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal – both by Thomas Bailey
Versailles Twenty Years after – Paul Birdsall
Anglo American Diplomatic Relations at the Paris Peace Conference 1919 – Seth Tillman
Seeking World Order – Warren Kuehl
The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson – Herbert Hoover
The League to Enforce Peace – Ruhl Bartlett
Safe for Democracy – Lloyd Gardner
Woodrow Wilson and World War I – Robert Ferrell
Reform and Revolution: the Life and Times of Raymond Robins – Neil Salzman
America’s Siberian Expedition 1918-1920 – Betty Unterberger
Woodrow Wilson, Revolutionary Germany and Peacemaking – Klaus Schwabe
America’s Moment 1918/ Wilson and His Peacemakers – both by Arthur Walworth
Russia Leaves the War/ the Decision to Intervene – both by George Kennan
The 1920’s
Empire without Tears – Warren Cohen
Republican Foreign Policy 1921 – 1933 – Ethan Ellis
The Isolationist Impulse – Selig Adler
The US and World Organization 1920-33 – D.F. Fleming
Charles Evans Hughes the Illusions of Innocence – Glad
Peace in Their Time/American Diplomacy in the Great Depression/ Frank Kellogg and Henry Stimson – all by Robert Ferrell
American Business and Foreign Policy 1920-33 – Joan Wilson
For Peace and Justice: Pacifism in America – Charles Chatfield
William Bullitt and the Soviet Union – Beatrice Farnsworth
Americans and the Soviet Experiment – Peter Filene
The Origins of Soviet American Diplomacy – R.F. Browder
Recognition of Russia – Edward Bennett
Heir to Empire: American Economic Diplomacy 1916-23 – Parrini
The Elusive Quest: America’s Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919-1933 – Melvin Leffler
Informal Entente – Michael Hogan
Pre-World War II
American Diplomacy and the Spanish Civil War – Richard Traina
The United States and the Spanish Civil War – Jay Taylor
Malevolent Neutrality – Douglas Little
Cordell Hull – Julius Pratt
The US and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis – Brice Harris
American Appeasement – Arnold Offner
Roosevelt from Munich to Pearl Harbor – Basil Rauch
In Search of Peach – John Wiltz
Senator Gerald Nye and American Foreign Relations –
*America First - the Battle against Intervention -Walter Johnson, the Battle against Isolation – all by Wayne Cole
American Aid to France – John Haight
The Challenge to Isolation/The Undeclared War – Langer and Gleason
*The Illusion of Neutrality/Roosevelt and WWII – both by Robert Divine
Isolationism in America – Manfred Jonas
Back Door to War – C.C. Tansill
*The American Revisionists – Warren Cohn
Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy – Lloyd Gardner
Should America Go to War? – James Schneider
Latin America and the Transformation of US Strategic Thought – David Hagland
*Fifty Ships That Saved the World – Philip Goodhart
The Most Unsordid Act: Lend Lease – Warren Kimball
Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the US 1939-41 – Saul Friedlander
*The Swastika and the Eagle – James Compton
President Roosevelt and the Coming of War – Charles Beard
Roosevelt Confronts Hitler – Patrick Hearden
No Clear and Present Danger – Bruce Russett
The Decision to aid Russia, 1941 – Raymond Dawson
The First Summit – Theodore Wilson
America’s Second Crusade – William Chamberlain
Roosevelt and Churchill – Joseph Lash
Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy – Robert Dallek
Wind over Sand: Diplomacy of FDR – Frederick Marks
Hitler vs. Roosevelt – Bailey and Ryan
The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance – David Reynolds
Threshold of War – Waldo Heinrichs
Wartime Diplomacy
Roosevelt and Hopkins – Robert Sherwood
American-Russian Relations 1781-1947 – William Williams
*Russia, the Soviet Union and the United States: an Interpretive History – John L. Gaddis
The Strange Alliance – John R. Deane
The Roads to Russia – Robert Jones
The Uneasy Alliance – Robert Beitzell
Aid to Russia, 1941-1946 – George C. Herring
Unconditional Surrender – Anne Armstrong
A Changing of the Guard – Randall Woods
*Roosevelt and the Russians, the Yalta Conference – E.R. Stettinius
Power and Culture – Akira Iriye
War without Mercy – John Dower
American Diplomacy during the Second World War – Gaddis Smith
Yalta – Diane Clemens
Decision at Yalta – Russell Buhite
Hostile Allies: FDR and DeGaulle– Milton Viorst
Our Vichy Gamble – William Langer
America and the French Nation, 1939-45 – Julian Hurstfield
The United States and Italy – James Miller
Diplomat among Warriors – Robert Murphy
The Politics of War – Gabriel Kolko
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, Between War and Peace, Japan Subdued – all by Herbert Feis
Japan’s Decision to Surrender – Robert Butow
The Decision to Drop the Bomb – Giovannitti and Freed
A World Destroyed – Martin Sherwin
Second Chance – Robert Divine
Imperialism at Bay – William Louis
The Abandonment of the Jews – David Wyman
FDR and the Search for Victory – Edward Bennett
Diplomacy for Victory – Raymond O’Connor
American Opinion and the Russian Alliance – Ralph Levering
The Search for Solvency (Bretton Woods) – Alfred Eckes
Oil, War and National Security – Michael Stoff
Search for Security (Saudi Arabia) – Aaron Miller
Aramco, US and Saudi Arabia – Irvine Anderson
United States Oil Policy, 1919-48 – Stephen Randall
The Cold War
Strategies of Containment/The Long Peace/The US and the Origins of the Cold War – all by John L. Gaddis
America, Russia and the Cold War 1945-92 – Walter LeFeber
Rise to Globalism – Stephen Ambrose
American Foreign Policy Since WWII – John Spanier
Roots of American Foreign Policy – Gabriel Kolko
The United States in the World Arena – Walt Rostow
The Cold War as History – Louis Halle
Russia’s Road to the Cold War – Vojtech Mastny
The Rivals – Adam Ulam
Rebels Without War – Lawrence Wittner
The US and the Global Search for Minerals – Alfred Eckes
The Nuclear Question – Michael Mandelbaum
The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy – Lawrence Freedman
The CIA and American Democracy – Rhodri Jeffrey-Jones
Inside the Cold War/The Devil We Knew – both by H.W. Brand
The Faces of Power – Seyom Brown
East, West, North, South – Geir Lundestad
America’s Half Century – Thomas McCormick
The Shattered Peace – Daniel Yergin
On Every Front/Soviet American Confrontation – Thomas G. Paterson
Architects of Illusion – Lloyd Gardner
Atomic Diplomacy – Gar Alperowitz
Beginnings of the Cold War – Martin Herz
Ambiguous Partnership: US and Great Britain – Robert Hathaway
The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America and the Origins of the Cold War – Fraser Harburt
The End of an Alliance – Robert Messer
After Yalta – Lisle Rose
The Cold War Begins – Lynn Davis
The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East – Bruce Kuniholm
The Collapse of the Grand Alliance – James Gormly