1

THE BEST SOURCES ON HISTORY AND SOCIAL

STUDIES EVER FOUND
Collected by David C. Jones
1. Superb books on the nature of war:
Trojan War:
Homer, translated by E.V. Rieu, The Iliad (1950, 1966)
First World War:
Guy Chapman, A Passionate Prodigality (1933, 1966)
Ernst Junger, The Storm of Steel (1929, 1996)
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory
Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That (1929, 1957)
John Keegan, The First World War (1998)
Siegfried Sassoon, (1930, 1933) Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
Ken Tingley, ed., The Path of Duty: The Wartime Letters of Alwyn Bramley-Moore
(1997) (Alberta)
Second World War:
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad--The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 (1998)
Linda Deutschmann, Triumph of the Will (1991)
Viktor E. Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning (1963)
G.M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (1947, 1995)
D.M. Glantz & H.S.Orenstein, The Battle for Kursk 1943: The Soviet General Staff
Study (1999)
D.M./ Glantz andJ.M. House, The Battle of Kursk (1999).
Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler (1979, 1995)

2
Ernst Hanfstaengel, Hitler: The Missing Years (1994)
John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946, 1985)
Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russia Remembers Stalin (1994)
Brian Hodgkinson, Spitfire Down (2000)
Peter Hoffman, The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945
Judith Kerr, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971, 1998)
Joy Kogawa, Obasan (1981)
Joy Kogawa, Naomis Road (1986)
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-45 (2007)
Dean F. Oliver and Laura Brandon, Canvas of War: Painting the Canadian Experience,
1914 to 1945 (2000)
Robert Morgan, The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle (2001)
R.A.C. Parkin, The Second World War (1997)
Edvard Radzinsky, Stalin (1996)
Herman Rauschning, Hitler Speaks (alternate title: The Voice of Destruction) (1942)
Leni Riefenstahl, Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir (1993)
Guy Sajer, The Forgotten Soldier (1967, 1990, 2000)
Rosemarie and Karl Schutt, Posters from Three Wars (1970)
Ralph Sirianni & Patricia Brown, POW #3959: Memoir of a World War 11 Airman Shot
Down over Germany (2006)
Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place (1984)
Robert Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalins Russia, 1934-1941 (1996)
D. Wulffson, Soldier X (2001)
Vietnam War:

3
Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (1977, 1996)
Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (1983, 1991)
George Herring, Americas Longest War (1996)
Iraqi-Kuwait War:
Deborah Amos, Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Re-Making of the Arab
World (1992)
T.M. Hawley, Against the Fires of Hell (1992)

China War: Communists vs. Nationalists:

Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China (1961, 1968, 1973, 1978, or other edition)
2. Books on the 1920s:
Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (1931)
Roderick Nash, The Nervous Generation: American Thought, 1917-1930 (1970, 1990)
3. Books on Africa:
John Iliffe, Africans--The History of a Continent (1995)
4. Books on Civil Rights:
Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (1876)
Michael S. Durham, (text), Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles
Moore (1991)
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me (1962, 1996)
Ann Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968, 1976)
Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard, Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of
Quilts and the Underground Railroad (2000)

4
C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1966)
5. Books on Plagues:
William H. McNeil, Plagues and Peoples (1976, 1989)
6. Books on Penitentiaries:
Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain (1978)
7. Books on Imperialism:
Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism (1986, 1997)
Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993, 1994)
8. Books on Gandhi:
Mohandas Gandhi, Gandhi: An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with
Truth (1940; 1957)
Homer A. Jack, ed., The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings (1956;
1994)
9. Books on Archeology:
J. Dixon, Quest for the Origins of the First Americans (1993)
J. Dixon, Bones, Boats and Bison: Archaeology and the First Colonization of Western
North America (1999)
B. Fagan, Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent (2000)

10. Books on Western Canada:

David C. Jones, Empire of DustSettling and Abandoning the Prairie Dry Belt
(Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2003)

5
Janice Dickin McGinnis, Suitable for the WildsLetters from Northern Alberta, 19291931 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995)
Paul Voisey, ed., A Preachers FrontierThe Castor, Alberta Letters of Rev. Martin W.
Holdom, 1909-1912 (Calgary: Historical Society of Alberta, 1996)
Arthur Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade. This looks at the positive role that the First
Nations played in the fur trade to dispel the old image of the fur trade as being dominated
by the Europeans of which the Natives were victims.
Gerhard Ens, Homeland to Hinterland: The changing Worlds of the Red River Metis in
the 19th C. This book looks at the buffalo fur trade and how it transformed itself into a
capitalistic enterprise, and is an economic interpretation.
Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670 - 1870 looks at
the role that Native women played in the fur trade.
George Colpitts, North America's Indian Trade in European Commerce and
Imagination, 1580-1850. A recent book by a member of our history department which
looks at the attitude and ideas underlying the fur trade.

Others:
Charles and Cynthia How, The Art of Decoding Political Cartoons (1998)
Glenn Sujo, Legacies of SilenceThe Visual Arts and Holocaust Memory (2001)
A.J. P. Taylor, Bismarck, the Man and the Statesman (1955)
John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America, 1994)
Stephen Jay Gould, The Flamingos SmileReflections on Natural History (1985)
C. Phillips, The Lost History of Aztec & Maya (2005)
D.R. Van Tuerenhout, The Aztecs: New Perspectives (2005)
Joseph Roquemore, History Goes to the Movies (1999)
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (1994)
Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies (1999)

6
R. Serge Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson, eds., Sounds of Social Change: Studies in
Popular Culture (1972)
Laurel Holliday, Children of The Troubles: Our Lives in the Crossfire of Northern
Ireland (1997)
Marc Mulholland, The Longest War: Northern Irelands Troubled History (2002).

Valuable Internet Sources for History

Comprehensive History Internet Links for Teachers and Students (UK
Focus):
www.schoolhistory.co.uk/sitemap.html

Comprehensive History Internet Links (US Focus), US National

Archives and Records Administration
www.archives.gov

Canadas Digital Collections

http://collections.ic.gc.ca
More Canadian Collections: maps, art, medals, photos, text, including western Canadiana
www.collectionscanada.ca

Civil Rights Internet Links:

http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org This site contains a brief description of some of the early figures in the movement
for black peoples equality from 1800 on as well as a photographic tour of the civil rights exhibits which touch on the major events of
the civil rights movementfrom the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 under President Abraham Lincoln to the Jim Crow Laws of
segregation, to the March on Washington and ending with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/ This site provides an in depth look at the life and accomplishments of
Martin Luther King Jr. through timelines, a linked biography, a photo gallery, links to audio clips of Kings most famous speeches and
reproductions of some of his famous papers, speeches and letters, including the text of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

http://www.abbeville.com/civilrights/index.asp This is the site for the book The Civil Rights Movement: A
Photographic History 1954-1968 by Stephen Kasher and includes the text of the books forward, written by Myrlie Evers-Williams
NAACP worker and widow of civil rights worker Medger Evers.It includes a detailed time line of the major events of these pivotal
years. Also included is an excellent bibliography of internet, print, video and music resources about the civil rights movement.

http://www.viscom.ohiou.edu/moore.site/Pages/index2.html This site, Powerful Days, The Civil Rights

Photography of Charles Moore contains some of the famous pictures of the civil rights movement as well as an in depth article about
the life and work of Moore during this period which was credited, by the dramatic and often shocking nature of the photographs, with
changing the mood of America and hastening the passage of the civil rights act in 1964.

7
Rosa Parks Sites:
"Back then," Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, "we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one
day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house
would burn down." In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in
deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said. "It was more of a relief to know
that I wasn't alone."
From the online Biography Rosa Parks: Pioneer of Civil Rights at The Hall of Public Service, www.achievement.org

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAparksR.htm This site includes a brief biography of Rosa Parks, some photos, an excerpt
from an interview with Parks by Howell Raines for the book My Soul is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered
(1977), and a portion of a Martin Luther King Jr speech that speaks about Parks actions.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/rosa/ This Scholastic site includes a Teachers section on Rosa Parks as part of their
Culture and Change: Black History in America
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0pro-1 The Academy of Achievement site provides a profile, biography
and interview with Parks as part of their Hall of Public Service exhibit.
http://e-portals.org/Parks/ The Rosa Parks Portal- a guide to all online resources about Rosa Parks as well as links to
books about Parks (including her own autobiography Rosa Parks, My Story) awards given to Parks and newspaper
articles written about her.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/parks01.html Time Magazines piece on Rosa Parks in their series
Heroes and Icons.

Emmett Till Sites:

In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old black boy whistled at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi.
Emmett Till, a teen from Chicago, didn't understand that he had broken the unwritten laws of the Jim Crow South until
three days later, when two white men dragged him from his bed in the dead of night, beat him brutally and then shot
him in the head. Although his killers were arrested and charged with murder, they were both acquitted quickly by an
all-white, all-male jury. Shortly afterwards, the defendants sold their story, including a detailed account of how they
murdered Till, to a journalist. The murder and the trial horrified the nation and the world. Till's death was a spark that
helped mobilize the civil rights movement. Three months after his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, the
Montgomery bus boycott began. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/

Have you ever sent a loved son on vacation and had him returned to you in a pine box,
so horribly battered and water-logged that someone needs to tell you this sickening sight
is your son -- lynched?"
-- Mamie Bradley, mother of Emmett Till
Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1987) 44

Martin Luther King Sites:

Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the fight
fire with fire method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of love is the reconciliation and creation
of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot organize anything
permanent; only love can do that. Yes, lovewhich means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for
ones enemiesis the solution to the race problem. 1957
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm

Henry D. Thoreau, 1817-1862 "Civil Disobedience

8
"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with
good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David
Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest." Martin Luther King, Jr, from his Autobiography, Chapter 2
http://eserver.org/thoreau/thoreau.html see this site for the text of the complete works of Thoreau.

Murder of Three Civil Rights Workers Sites:

Rita Schwerner, in a statement to newspapers are the discovery of her husband's body on 4th
August, 1964.
My husband, Michael Schwerner, did not die in vain. If he and Andrew Goodman had been Negroes, the
world would have taken little notice of their deaths. After all, the slaying of a Negro in Mississippi is not
news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm had been
sounded.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAschwerner.htm

Aboriginal (First Nations) History Sites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMTwxxT3j2k
Aboriginal History: Did you Know? Part 1 of 4 (Indian Act). See also parts 2-4.
Genocide Sites:
The Jewish Virtual Library: www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
Holocaust survivors: www.holocaustsurvivors.org
Simon Wiesenthal Centre: www.wiesenthal.com
US Holocaust Memorial Museum: www.ushmm.org
Crimes of War Project: www.crimesofwar.org
Genocide Watch: www.genocidewatch.org
International Court of Justice: www.icj-cij.org
Yale University Genocide Studies Program: www.yale.edu/gsp/index.html
Pledge Peace Union-Genocide: www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_genocide_intro.html
Enough Project: www.enoughproject.org
(Note: If you present on any of these sites, please inquire into the most effective ways of
preventing a recurrence of genocide. Consult the Sayings books, for example, Sayings of
Sathya Sai Baba, for the steps to self-realization which automatically prevents the
harming of others.)

A Skit comedy show that explores what if TV had been around for the past
5000 years
www.Historybites.com

War Posters:
http://content.lib.washington.edu/warposters/index.html
Posters Related to Health, Labor, the former Soviet Union, Cuba and China. Etc.
www.iisg.nl/exhibitions

History, Heart, Mind, Spirit and Inspiration:

www.dailycelebrations.com
Promoting Tolerance:
www.tolerance.org
Nazi Propaganda, 1933-1945:
www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ww2era.htm
British War Propaganda Bureau:
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
Twentieth Century history
http://history1900s.about.com
Eyewitness to History
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com

10

Canadian Dictionary of Biography

www.biographi.ca
Alberta Heritage digitization Project of newspapers, statutes, local histories, art, aerial
photographs
www.ourfutureourpast.ca
Glenbow Photo Archives on Western and Alberta Canadiana
www.glenbow.org/lasearch/photo.htm
Archival Records of Alberta Database, including photos, diaries, links to Canadian North
West Archival Network and Archives CanadaCanadian Archival Information Network
www.archivesalberta.org/general/database.htm
Interesting and revealing lesson plans, simulation games, teaching activities
http://members.aol.com/MrDonnHistory/World.html
Doukhobor Children: Caught in the Middleexcellent video on internment of
Doukhobor children in 1950s.
www.cbc.ca/national/news/doukhobors
Archives in the Classroomexcellent video on settlement in western Canada.
http://www.ataoc.ca/archives/main.html
Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Centuryexcellent interactive atlas.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm

11
Lewis W. Hines unforgettable photos of child laborers in the U.S. 1908-1912.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/
Judge John Reilly - My Aboriginal Education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq3a5CgBgqE
Posted by TEDx. This talk addresses how he had his eyes opened to the inequities faced
by aboriginal people in our justice system here in Alberta.
How Wolves Change Rivers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
Posted by Sustainable Human. Documents what happens when wolves are reintroduced
to Yellowstone National Park.
http://engagingstudents.blackgold.ca/
Excellent re "My Symbol, Our Story".

Movies:
The Last Harvest (XMV 5962301), 46 min.
Mississippi Burning (XMV 56369), 127 min.
Gandhi (XMV 564451), 188 min.
Breaker Morant (XMV 60934-02), 107 min.
Judgment at Nuremberg (XMV 609201), 187 min.
The Mission (XMV 60800), 125 min.
Wanted! Doctor on Horseback (XMV 5817801), 49 min.
Freedom Had a Price (POW)
The Kings Speech, 119 minutes
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (lst nations experience)

12

Elementary Social Studies Books:

Bercuson, David J. Maple leaf against the axis. (Markham: Red Deer Press. 2004).
Bercuson, David J. The fighting Canadians. (Toronto: Harper Perennial Canada. 2009).
Berton, Pierre. Marching as to war: Canada's turbulent years, 1899-1953. (Toronto:
Doubleday Canada. 2002).
French. Gary E. (trans.). Good bye for the present: The war letters of Harry Rumney 76th
and 20th Battalions, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1915-1916. (Elmvale: East Georgian
Bay Historical Foundation. 2006).
McBride, Sam. The bravest Canadian: Fritz Peters, VC- The making of a hero of two
world wars. (Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing Ltd. 2012).
Morton, Desmond. When your number's up: The Canadian soldier in the first world war.
(Toronto: Random House of Canada Ltd. 1993)
Waiser, Bill. All hell can't stop us: The on-to-Ottawa trek and Regina riot. (Allston:
Fitzhenry & Whiteside. 2003).
Weintraub, Stanely. Silent night: The story of the World War I Christmas truce. (New
York City: Plume. 2002).
A set of books, largely dealing with Canada's involvement in World War I, World War II,
and the inter-war period. Goodbye for the present is a collection of letters from Harry
Rumney, and The bravest canadian is a collection of letters from Peter Frtiz along with
some added commentary and contextual information.
Berger, Carin, The Little Yellow Leaf (New York: Harper Collins, 2008).
Story about a little leaf who is not ready to let go. With the help of others, the leaf finds
the courage to face the unknown.
Bouchard, David and Vickers, Henry Roy, The Elders are Watching (Vancouver:
Raincoast Books, 2003.)
This is a beautiful book that incorporates Indigenous values, imagery, and poetry. This
book would fit well into the grade four social studies curriculum integrating the
aboriginal perspective, environmental issues, art, and the environment. Here is the
narrated video of the book which is also really great. https://youtu.be/9pQftknij8k
Bouchard, D., & Willier, S. The Drum Calls Softly (Calgary: Red Deer Press, 2008).

This book uses imagery and stories to show the beauty of Native culture. This book is a

13
resource that students can read to learn about this rich culture. One reason that this book
is a great resource for children is because it tells the stories in both English and the Cree
language. This is a great way to open up students minds and teach them about the culture
and the importance of storytelling.
Bourgeois, Paulette, Omas Quilt (Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2001).
Story of the quilted pieces of a life made of love.
Coerr, Eleanor & Young, Ed, Sadako (New York: Puffin Books, 1993).
Story of a Japanese child in Hiroshima who has leukemia, and who died in 1955, a
tribute to the Hiroshima victims of the atomic blast.
Coles, Robert, The Story of Ruby Bridges (New York: Scholastic Inc, 1995)
Story about a brave black girl who attends an all white school.
Fox, Mem, Wilfrid Gordon, McDonald Partridge (New York: Penguin, 1987).
Story about a young boy (and a constructive citizen) helping oldsters regain their
memory.
Nelson, Kadir, Henry's Freedom Box (New York: Scholastic Inc, 2007)
Story about a young slave who risks everything for what he knows is right.
Lucado, Max, You Are Special (Wheaton, Il: Crossway Books, 1997).
Story of the preciousness of each child.
Massey, Don and Patricia Shields, Canada: It's Land and People (Edmonton: Reidmore
Books Inc., 1995).
Detailed textbook on Canada's geographical regions; designed to be read by students.
Miles, Tiya. Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and
Freedom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
This source is a story about a Afro-Cherokee Family in the US.
Milligan, Dustin, and Cory Tibbits, The Greyest Tale on the Yukon Trail: The Right to Be
Treated Fairly No Matter What Colour You Are.
Milligan, Dustin, and Meredith Luce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lobster: The
Right to Speak, Sing, and Laugh (Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2012).
Milligan, Dustin, and Jasmine Vicente. Anne of Green Tomatoes: The Right to Be Safe
and Secure (Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2012).
Milligan, Dustin, and Cory Tibbits. The Plight beneath the Northern Light: The Right to
Meet and Form Groups (Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2012).

14
Milligan, Dustin, and Jasmine Vicente, The Golden Hook: The Right to Believe and
Have Faith (Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2012).
Milligan, Dustin, and Cory Tibbits, A Large Jaw in Moose Jaw: The Right to Participate
and Be Included (Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2012).
Milligan, Dustin, and Meredith Luce, The Case of the Missing Montreal Bagel: The
Right to Privacy and Security ( Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2012).
Milligan, Dustin, and Meredith Luce, Alexander the Grape: The Right to Be Treated
Fairly Whether You Are Young or Old (Ottawa: DC Canada Education, 2013).
Excellent sources for teaching the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to kids. It's a series
of stories by a lawyer turned children's author named Dustin Milligan.
Moses, D., & Goldie, T. eds. An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English.
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2005).
This book is a compilation of stories written by a number of different Native American
Authors. There is a variety of folk tales that have been passed down, stories about the earths
creation, and many more. This would be a great resource for any teacher to have in their
collection. This book would allow you to share so many different stories with their students
that help them to understand and learn about the Native Culture. They are able to become a
part of the Native culture and its history through these tales.

Pattou, Edith, Mrs. Spitzers Garden (Orlando: Harcourt, 2001).

Story about a teacher as a garden tiller. Love is the seed, courage is the blossom and
peace is the fruit that sages grow in the garden of their hearts. (Sai Baba).
Richter, Daniel K. Facing East From Indian Country: A Native History of
Early America (Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press, 2001).
This source, looks at different colonization through the eyes of the
First Nations/Native American culture. Changes perspective, from the
traditional narrative that we are accustomed to hearing.
Sen, Amartya, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
A study of comparative justice and the role of public reason in what can make societies
less unjust.
Silverstein, Shel, The Giving Tree (New York: HarperCollins, 1964)
Silversteins masterpiece on giving.
Watt, Melanie, Scaredy Squirrel (Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2008).
Story of a squirrel with many fears, a squirrel afraid of leaving his nut tree.

15
Wood, Douglas, Old Turtle (New York: Scolastic, 2001).
Story of the human race, war, wisdom and peace.
Wood, Douglas, Old Turtle and the Broken Truth (New York: Scolastic, 2003).
Story about the full expansion of love.
Woodson, Jacqueline, Show Way (New York: G.P. Putnam, 2005)
Story about a slave family.
Young, Ed, What About Me? (New York: Philomel Books, 2001).
Story of a boy in search of knowledge and the Grand Masters messages.
March 18, 15