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Suggested Reading . . .

      OK, if you'd rather see a movie, click here. 

• Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

• Barzun, Jacques.  From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (new!)

• Bullock, Alan.  Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (a classic study)

• Burke, Edmund.  Reflections on the Revolution in France.   (primary source)

• Chevalier, Tracy.  Girl With a Pearl Earring. (historical fiction about a Dutch maid working in Vermeer's household)

• Ferguson, Niall.  The House of Rothschild:  Money's Prophets (a biography of the Rothschild family, 19th-century Europe's immensely influential financiers and diplomats)

• Figes, Orlando.  A People's Tragedy.  (long, but beautifully written account of the Russian Revolution, with great pictures!)

• Freud, Sigmund.  Civilization and Its Discontents.   (primary source)

• Gaardner, Jostein.  Sophie's World, A Novel About the History of Philosophy.  (makes philosophy fun)

• Hughes, Robert.  The Shock of the New.  (a great survey of modern art)

• Huxley, Aldous.  Brave New World.   (primary source)

• Laquer, Walter, ed.  Fascism. (a general, well-written survey)

• Maass, Peter.  Love Thy Neighbor.  (a Washington Post correspondent's account of the war in Bosnia)

• Machiavelli.  The Prince.   (primary source)

• Manchester, William.  A World Lit Only By Fire.  (an interesting, if contested, account of Europe's transition from the Middle Ages)

• Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels.  The Communist Manifesto.  (primary source)

• Massie, Robert K.  Peter the Great: His Life and World (Pulitzer Prize winner!  actually, anything by Massie is worth reading)

• Mazower, Mark.  Dark Continent: Europe's 20th Century.  (a fun read!)

• More, Thomas.  Utopia.   (primary source)

• Nietzsche, Friedrich.  Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  (primary source)

• Remarque, Erich Maria.  All Quiet on the Western Front.  (a classic, anti-war novel)

• Remnick, David.  Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Union (an excellent account by an American journalist)

• Rosenberg, Tina.  Haunted Land:  Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism (winner of 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction)

• Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.  The Social Contract. (primary source)

• Rutherfurd, Edward.  Sarum:  The Novel of England (historical fiction about the history of England)

• Sartre, Jean-Paul.  Being and Nothingness.  (primary source)

• Smith, Adam.  An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. (primary source)

• Spiegelman, Art. Maus I or Maus II (comic books on the Holocaust; sounds weird, but both are much-acclaimed biographical accounts)

• Tolstoy, Leo.  War and Peace.

• Trotsky, Leon.  History of the Russian Revolution.  (obviously biased)

• Tuchman, Barbara.  The Guns of August.  (popular history on WWI)

• Tuchman, Barbara.  The Proud Tower.  (popular history on the late 19C)

• Voltaire.  Candide.   (primary source)

• Wright, Gordon.  The Ordeal of Total War, 1939-1945.  (a wide-ranging survey)

• Zola, Emile.  Germinal.  (primary source)