B-Level Objective: Analytical Book Review
To make a B in this course you must either make a 24 or better ON EACH TEST, or you must have an test AVERAGE of 24 AND write a critical book review.
Rationale: This analytical book review will critically examine an important scholarly book covering some aspect of United States History since 1877. The purpose of the review is twofold: first, to acquaint the student with a classic volume of historical scholarship and second, to allow the student to think critically about an important facet of American history and then to organize your thoughts in clear, cogent prose. You should not view this simply as a hurdle which you must overcome in order to earn a grade of "B" (Option #1) in this course, but rather approach it as an opportunity to expand your creativity in thinking and writing, two very important aspects of any individual's necessary life skills. Therefore, be advised that I consider this a VERY important aspect of this course and your reviews will be read and graded VERY carefully.
Form: Each book review should be double spaced and approximately 1200 words long. The main objective of this analytical book review should be to comprehensively cover the three sections of the following book review outline:
Part I: This is a brief outline of the contents of the book. In the space of one or two paragraphs you should be able to convey the parameters of the book's contents. DO NOT simply reproduce the book's table of contents.
Part II: Here is the place for a careful summary of the author's thesis. The thesis is the primary idea the author is trying to prove and convince the reader to accept as valid. You must first identify the thesis and then show how the author either substantiates or fails to substantiate this thesis. You should quote portions of the book in order to answer this part of the review, and you will need to cite page numbers for these quotations. This will undoubtedly take you a page or two to do a good job.
Part III: This is your
personal evaluation of the book and is the most important part of
your analytical book review. Here is where you describe your
reaction to the book and put its contents in a comparative
perspective with your textbook. Some of the questions you must
answer include: Do you agree or disagree with the book's
conclusions? Why or why not? Did the book support or contradict
what you read in your textbook on the same subject? (You MUST
quote some of the relevant passages from both books, citing page
numbers.) Did you detect any biases on the part of the
author? What was the author's background and why did he or she
write the book? How in your opinion could the book have been
improved? You must be specific and keep in mind there are NO
perfect books. Did you enjoy reading this book? Why or why not?
Would you recommend it to others?
Scholastic Dishonesty: Any form of scholastic dishonesty, especially plagiarism, in the production of this paper or in any other part of the course WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! Any student committing any form of scholastic dishonesty in this course will automatically receive the grade of "F" in the course and be reported to ACC authorities for further disciplinary action. The college policy states: "Acts prohibited by the College for which discipline may be administered include scholastic dishonesty. including but not limited to cheating on an exam or quiz, plagiarizing, and unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing outside work. Academic work submitted by students shall be the result of their thought, research, or self-expression. Academic work is defined as, but not limited to tests, quizzes, whether taken electronically or on paper; projects, either individual or group; classroom presentations, and homework." Help understanding plagiarism can be found at the ACC Library website and accreditedschoolsonline.org.
Proofread
your
paper. Recognize
that a paper rife with misspellings and grammatical errors WILL
NOT be considered acceptable. Make sure that you use Kate
Turabian's, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses,
and Dissertations for your footnotes/endnotes. You will
submit two copies of your paper. One copy will be sent to
SafeAssign via Blackboard and the other will be sent to me as an
email attachment. In the attachment you send to me make sure that
you
1.) include your name and course number (History 1301-098
for example) on the paper.
2.) Name your attachment, "your name."
3.) Make sure your paper is a doc, docx or pdf format. Other
formats WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
4.) Make sure you send your paper to me and to SafeAssign
via Blackboard before the deadline because papers sent in after
the deadline WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED!
5.) Make sure that I respond indicating that I have it.
Failure to meet these instruction will mean that your paper will
be graded UNACCEPTABLE.
Grading: The book review will be graded "ACCEPTED"or "NOT ACCEPTED." Failure to meet any of the above requirements will mean that your paper will not be accepted. If you submit your book review two weeks BEFORE the deadline date in the syllabus and it is graded "NOT ACCEPTED" you may revise it and resubmit it prior to the deadline date.
Books: The following books, all of which are found in the ACC libraries and most are available in the UT and Austin Public libraries, may be read for the analytical book review. If you wish to substitute another book for one of these titles, YOU MUST RECEIVE THE INSTRUCTOR'S PRIOR APPROVAL.
Books: The following books, all of which are found in the
ACC libraries and most are available in the UT and Austin Public
libraries, may be read for the analytical book review. If you
wish to substitute another book for one of these titles, YOU
MUST RECEIVE THE INSTRUCTOR'S PRIOR APPROVAL.
Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations and the Status of Women During World War II
Ralph Andrist, The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indians.
Desmond Ball, Politics and Force Levels
James Barrett, Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922.
Robert Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900
John Berry, Those Gallant Men: On Trial in Vietnam
Ruth Borden, Francis Willard: A Biography
Arnold Brackman, Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial
Henry Brands, Cold Warriors
Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression
David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War
Robert Burk, Dwight Eisenhower: Hero and Politican
J.W. Chambers, To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America
Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972.
N.H. Clark, Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition
Paul Conkin, Big Daddy from the Pedernales: Lyndon B. Johnson
M.W. Davis, Woman's Place is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870-1930
Robert Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War
R. David Edmunds, American Indian Leaders: Studies in Diversity
Carol Felsenthal, Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Jean Friedman, The Enclosed Garden: Women and Community in the Evangelical South, 1830-1900
John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace
Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontaton
Ray Ginger, Six Days of Forever? Tennessee vs. John Scopes
Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Movement
Dewey Grantham, Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South
Richard Griswold del Castillo, La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest,1848 to Present
David Haberstram, The Best and the Brightest
Max Hastings, The Korean War
B. Hobson, Uneasy Virtue: The Politics of Prostitution and the American Reform Tradition
Nathan Huggins, Harlem Renaissance
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Times to Remember
Thomas Kessner, The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York City, 1880-1915
Warren Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act: Lend Lease, 1939-1940
Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy
Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: A History of Brown vs. Board of Education
Juanita Kreps, Sex in the Marketplace: American Women at Work
Mark Landis, Joseph McCarthy: The Politics of Chaos
Judithh Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in American, 1750-1950
William Leuchtenburg, In the Shadow of FDR
Arthur Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era
Robert Litwak, Detente and the Nixon Doctrine
Harold Livesay, Samuel Gompers and Organized Labor in America
C.A. MacDonald, Korea: The War Before Vietnam
William Manchester, The American Caesar
Michael Mandlebaum, The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976
Manning Marable, W.E.B. Dubois: Black Radical Democrat
Thomas Marquis, Keeping the Last Bullet for Yourself: Custer's Last Stand
Elaine May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
Robert MacElvaine, The Great Depression
Joel Meyerson, The United States Army in Vietnam: Images of a Lengthy War
K.B. Morello, The Invisible Bar: The Woman Lawyer in American, 1638 to Present
Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Robert Murray, The Harding Era
Donald Neff, Warriors At Suez
Humbert Nelli, The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the US
John Newhourse, Cold Dawn
Daniel Novak, The Wheel of Servitude: Black Forced Labor After Emancipation
Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto
G.J.A. O'Toole, The Spanish War
F.D. Pasley, Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-Made Man
Geoffrey Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph
E.B. Potter, Bull Halsey
Stephen Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America
E.M, Rudwick, W.E. B. DuBois: Propoganist of Negro Protest
Edward and Frederick Schapmeier, Dirksen of Illinois
Lois Scharf, Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of American Liberalism
Robert Schulzinger, Henry Kissinger: Doctor of Diplomacy
Glenn Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Test Ban Treaty
David Shannon, Between Wars
Neil Shehhan, A Bright, Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America inVietnam
Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1980
Douglas Smith, The New Deal in the Urban South
Donald Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies
John Stilgoe, Borderland: The Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1930
Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States, 1900-1930
Kathleen Turner, Lyndon Johnson's Dual War: Vietnam and the Press
Irwin Unger, The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959-1972
Adam Ulam, The Rivals: America and Russia Since World War II
Robert Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian
Lynda Van Devanter, Home Before Morning: A Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam
Susan Ware, Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Feminism and New Deal Politcs
Arthur and Lila Weinberg, Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental Rebel
Theodore White, The Making of the President, 1964
Gary Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment
William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days
David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust
Nancy Zarroulis and G. Sullivan, Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, 1963-1975
Robert Ziegler, American Workers, American Unions, 1920-1985