1450–1648
Machiavelli, “La Mandragola,” (“The Mandrake Root”). This play is the source of the line
“the end justifies the means.”
Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy
Michelangelo and Petrarch, various poems
Boccaccio, Decameron (excerpts)
1648–1815
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman
Any of the Romantic poets, but especially Shelley’s “To a Skylark,” Byron’s “Childe Harold”
and “Don Juan,” and Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”
A stunning film is A Season of Giants, put out by the BBC—if you can find it.
For satire, look at the works of William Hogarth (1697–1764) and James Gilray (1792–
1810), caricaturists who specialized in political and social satire. Later, but perhaps better
known, is Honoré Daumier (1808–1879). All gave rise to political and editorial cartooning.
1815–1914
Dickens, Oliver Twist
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Novels about imperialism/colonialism:
Africa: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, and be sure to read the Yeats poem “The Second
Coming”
India: Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve, and J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur
1914–Present
J. L. Carr, A Month in the Country
Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun
Pat Barker, Regeneration
Ken Follett, The Fall of Giants
John Hersey, Hiroshima
Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin (the book, not the movie)
Lawrence of Arabia (the film) (1962)
A. J. Liebling, World War II Writings and The Road Back to Paris (journalism at its best)
Resources by Historical Period
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