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I am having a hard time selecting a book for the final essay of my first year of university. The brief is:
Quote:
focus on a single book and explain how it contributed to its field, adding to or even entirely transforming our understanding of its subject matter. The task will involve not merely appreciating or describing the quality of the work but addressing its significance. This will involve reading more widely around the subject so that you are able to identify more specifically where it has taken the debate forward and where it has built on previous work and particular historiographical debates.
I am really unsure what book to focus on. I was considering The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan but I don't know if that had enough of an impact on historiography to fulfil the brief and I would rather write something on a topic that interests me more, such as political history.
I was wondering if you could give me some suggestions of books that changed/influenced historical debate. Some topics I am interested in are the Cold War, JFK's assassination, and the Vietnam War, but I would like suggestions outside of these areas too.
The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell The Best And The Brightest by David Halberstam Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
I thought this work was Diamond taking unmerited credit for what was merely a rehash of the pre existing theories of geographical determination. What was at all original with that book?
"Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" is an excellent choice, it began a process of reorienting the public perception of the "winning of the west" and the fate of the tribes who were the losers. In a sense it was the bridge between the old time Hollywood shoot-em-up portrayals of ambushing savages, and the sort of depiction you got with "Dances With Wolves."
A Shopkeeper's Millennium by Paul Johnson, a case study of social and economic upheaval during the industrialization of the early 19th century.
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