What do you choose to read?

Professors always urge you to read. Sara Saleh gets a professor to choose four favourites and picks what she thought was the best.

Professor's pick
Richard Gassan, assistant professor of history, American University of Sharjah

He received his PhD from the University of Massachusetts. His researchs focus on the cultural impact of consumerism — with emphasis on how these forces shaped American culture before the Civil War. These are reflected in Richard's first book, The Birth of American Tourism: New York, the Hudson Valley, and American Culture, 1790–1830. He has also published articles in Book History and the Journal of Social History
(Source: www.aus.edu)

Editor's Choice

The Story of American Freedom, Eric Foner
"A riveting narrative of America's freedom and the way in which it has been constructed as a complex set of values, rather than that universal ideal many believe it to be, giving access to some and simultaneously denying entry to many of its own people, whether from the revolution or our own time today."

Author of the week

Eric Foner
Born February 7, 1943

American historian Eric Foner has been a faculty member of Columbia University's prestigious history department since 1982; he was also appointed Dewitt Clinton Professor of History at the university. Having written extensively on issues of race, slavery and the American Civil War, Foner has been featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post, among many other publications as well as appearing on radio and TV for historical documentaries on The History Channel and PBS. He is also the best-selling author of Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World.
Foner served as the president of the Organisation of American Historians (1993-94) and president of the American Historical Association in 2000.

The writer is an International Student Correspondent for NOTES, studying at the University of Sydney, Australia.


We review

Four books on American History:

The Founders of America, Francis Jennings, W.W. Norton, 1993
The story of America before the European settlemen.

The Known World, Edward P. Jones. Amistad, 2003
A gripping, inspirational and weird work of fiction, it explores the complex American race relations just before the civil war in the country.

The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq, George Packer, Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
Packer's book explains the bizarre mix of idealism, American mythology, and chain of events that led to Iraq.

The Story of American Freedom, Eric Foner, W.W. Norton, 1998
It is a view of America's notions of freedom.