HOME: AP/IB History

Strayer and Nelson, Ways of the World for the AP® World History Modern Course Since 1200 C.E.: A Global History with Sources. Published in 2023. 

This is the AP World History textbook. It is a good starting point for a lot of historical research. It can help provide background information and how your topic of study fits into a larger global context. 


 

Ben Walsh, IGCSE History, History in Focus, published in 2006

I used this book in US History, AP World Unit 7 (20th century conflict) Unit 8 (Cold War and Decolonization), and for some background information in IB History for the Cold War. It focuses on World War I, World War II, the Cold War, as well as the US, USSR and Germany between World War I and World War II. 

Todd and Waller, Authoritarian States (20th century) 2nd edition, published in 2015. 

This is a good starting place if you are looking at Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Mao in China or Castro in Cuba. It can be used for IB History Paper 2: Authoritarian States, and I have used it for IB History HL Paper 3: The People’s Republic of China, 1949-2005. 
 

Histories of specific areas: 

Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, first published in 1991, with the fourth edition soon to be published. This book is especially useful for understanding Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Unlike other sources I referred to, this one explains the role of workers (“proletariat”) in the Cultural Revolution. Two copies available in the Social Studies office. 

Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History. First published in 1983. This book has been helpful in understanding the war from the perspective of diverse groups of Vietnamese people, as well the experiences of US soldiers and policy-makers. One copy available in the Social Studies Office.

Other general history books

Akira Iriye (ed.) Global Interdependence: The World after 1945. Published in 2014. Part of the “History of the World” series published by Harvard University. A good starting point for seeing the many struggles of the late 20th century in a global and historical context. On order for the Social Studies Department.

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. Published in 2017. Frankopan is a historian trying to correct for traditional Euro-centric accounts of world history by looking at history from the perspective of someone living in the Middle East. In the introduction he names the cities of Samarkand, Merv, Kabul, Kashgar, Baghdad as examples of cities that rose through international trade 1000 years ago. 

In AP World, this book is usual in studying Unit 2: Networks of Exchange, as well as decolonization and post-World War II struggles in Iran and Afghanistan.

Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Berny Sèbem and Gabrielle Maas, Echoes of Empire: Memory, Identity and Colonial Legacies. Published in 2015. On reserve at the Upper School Library. This book has potential for 20th century Turkey, Ghana and many other cases for AP World Unit 8. 

Robert C Young, Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction. First edition published in 2003. 2020 edition available at Upper School Library

Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. 5th edition published in 2020 and available in the Upper School Library. AP World Unit 9, Globalization, refers to this book’s definition of globalization and the issues that historians debate about globalization. 

Destiny - for searching ASP’s books in print and online resources. 

Yale Law School’s Avalon Project - Can be useful for Cold War documents. 

Internet History Sourcebook - A project by Fordham University to collect primary sources of history and make the available for research. A good place to start for projects in Vietnam. 

Library of Congress - books and other historical resources

Old Maps - If you want to get the perspective of what people knew and did not know about geography in the time period you are studying, try using the maps that were available in the past. 

David Rumsey Map Collection - The collection focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. 

Gallica - Bibliothèque Nationale de France - could be useful for researching France’s relationship with its former colonies. 

JSTOR - This is a database of academic publications. You can modify searches based on time period, area, dates of publication, discipline (history, sociology, economics) and more. JSTOR can also cite your sources for you in the format of your choice. 

Conflict and Compromise: The Vietnam War. Smithsonian Learning Lab - The Smithsonian is looking to update its database and collections so that they can even be more useful in high school classrooms. Here is one of their resources on Vietnam.

Asia for Educators - Columbia University’s database.