Comp Lists: American History

[thepoorstockinger]

So I am a Canadian and I am at a school right now doing my undergrad where there isn't and hasn't been for a long time, a good modern US scholar (the one modern US historian does history of foreign policy exclusively to the point where no one has taught the US since 1865 survey in at least half a decade) and I plan on switching from mostly Canadian history to modern US history by the time I do my PhD. (I'm doing a two year MA planning on writing on a US topic)

Basically I am wondering if anyone doing a PhD now is willing to share their comprehensive reading list with me so I can get a feel for what I should be reading between now and then to close the knowledge gap. I am looking for Modern US history but anyone doing a field in African American or US Urban history would get extra virtual high fives from me. Obviously I have no plan to read whole comp lists worth of books and articles but I'd love to get an idea for what people are reading right now to at least have an idea of what I need to bone up on.

(If for whatever reason, like being outed to supervisors/fellow students who may reading or whatever, you don't feel like posting the list here but are willing to PM it to me I would also be super appreciative)

[StrangeLight]

i don't know if this is "okay" to do or not, but i don't think most professors would complain if a student helped someone who wanted to learn more, so...

here's a truncated reading list for a course on african-american history from a high-quality, thoroughly fantastic historian who does US labour and african american history, mostly 19th and 20th centuries.

Nell Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol

Nicholas Lemann, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Richard Wright, Black Boy/American Hunger

Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality

Richard Hofstadter,

[misterpat]

While I was looking for books to read earlier this year, I stumbled upon Jane Dailey's (of UChicago) Orals Reading List for 20th Century America: http://history.uchicago.edu/graduate/orals/Dailey-US-20thCentury.pdf

This should serve you well.

[fortiesgirl]

You should check out the reading lists on Rutgers University's history page. The lists are very comprehensive.

[thepoorstockinger]

Awesome. Thanks for all the help. It turns out I am not way off track with my reading as I've covered some of that stuff on my own but it's good to have a better idea of what is currently being read. There is some stuff on those lists I'd never heard of that looks pretty awesome.