For several months I've been thinking about and planning my approach to teaching MOD CIV - long name is "Civilization in the West 1850-2000." This is a required Core Curriculum course for the second year students in our university. It's taught across the curriculum, with professors teaching the history with a focus on their area.
This is my first semester of teaching this course; as a literature person, I've been trying to plan with that focus.
I want to teach some of the poetry of that period during the 75 minute classes, along with the history. But I also want the class to consider the prose --- how the world looked through the eyes of the people who lived through those times. So I've decided to give the students a list of books, have each student sign up for one book, read it, and present it to the class. The books are both fiction and nonfiction.

This is my list:
1859 England The Origin of the Species Darwin (NF)
1886 London The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad

1900-present Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times ~ Arno Karlen (NF)


1911 France Madame Curie by Eve Curie (NF)


1914 England The Thirty-nine Steps John Buchan

1917 Germany All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque

1918 – present The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug by Thomas Hager (NF)


1930 Russia Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
1937 Spain For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
1938 Holland The Hiding Place Corrie Ten Boom (NF)
1939 Germany The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
1939 Soviet Union The Good Republic William Palmer
1940 Poland Night Elie Wiesel ( NF)
1940s Italy A Kiss from Maddalena Christopher Castellani

1940 Russia A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch Solzhenitsyn

1940 South Africa Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton

1940 Hungary Fateless Imre Kertész

1945 Japan Hiroshima John Hersey (NF)

1948 Israel Exodus Leon Uris

1950 Nigeria Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

1960 Egypt Wedding Song Naguib Mahfouz
1965-90 Prague Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990, by Vaclav Havel


1965 South Africa African Stories Doris Lessing

1970 Moscow Gorky Park Martin Cruz Smith

1970 Ireland In The Province of Saints Thomas O’Malley

1978 Albania Broken April, Ismail Kadare




1980s England/France Black Dogs Ian McEwan
1980s Turkey Snow Orhan Pamuk


1980s Milan The Metal Green Mercedes Timothy Williams



1980’s Czechoslovakia My Merry Mornings (1986) or My First Loves (1986), by Ivan Klima
1989 Berlin The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of 89 witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague Timothy Garton Ash (NF)


1989 Cuba Havana Bay Martin Cruz Smith

1989 Germany “Revolution 1989”, by Victor Sebestyen, (NF)

1990 South Africa Boyhood Scenes from Provincial Life by J. M. Coetzee ( 1998) (NF)

1990 Kenya The Constant Gardener John LeCarre

1990s Eastern Europe Café Europa: Life After Communism Slavenka Drakulic (NF)

1990s Romania The Appointment Herta Muller




1993 Eastern Europe Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (Paperback)
~ Robert D. Kaplan



1996 Eastern Europe *Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey, by Isabel Fonseca


1996 Russia Wolves Eat Dogs Martin Cruz Smith

2000 Turkey Istanbul: Memories of a City by Orhan Pamuk (NF)

2000 Kosovo The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley (NF)

2003 England Saturday Ian McEwan

2003 London Londongrad: From Russia with Cash Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley (NF)

Europe 2008 A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World ( Princeton Economic History of the Western World) (NF) by Gregory Clark



I'd be happy for any comments: additions or deletions.