🐻 Cornell American Studies unofficial reading list, fall 2026
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Freshman level
African American History from 1865 AMST 1595
- Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction & Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 by Manning Marable
U.S. History through Literature AMST 1770
- Quicksand by Nella Larsen
- ✔️ Hiroshima by John Hersey
- ✔️ The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (my highlights)
- Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
- The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
American History from 1500 to 1800 AMST 1985
- American Colonies: The Settling of North America by Alan Taylor
Sophomore level
From the New Deal to the Age of Reagan AMST 2220
- The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945-2000 by Story & Laurie
- Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
- The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics by Jefferson Cowie
- My Soul is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South by Howell Raines
- Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line by Ben Hamper
- Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism by Bruce Schulman
- Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right by Lisa McGirr
Controversies About Inequality AMST 2225
- The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight: How Place Still Matters for the Rich by Cristobal Young
- How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America by Priya Fielding-Singh
- The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America by Oren Cass
- Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity by Joseph Fishkin
- Friends and Fortunes: Social Capital Inequality in America by Cornwell et al.
From Terra Incognita to Territories of Nation-States: Early American History in Two Dozen Maps AMST 2391
- Mapping the Nation: History & Cartography in 19th-Century America by Susan Schulten
- How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier
The American Revolutionary Era AMST 2665
- American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 by Alan Taylor
American Political Thought AMST 2669
- The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
- The Federalist by Hamilton et al.
- American Political Thought by Kramnick & Lowi
- Lincoln: Political Writings & Speeches
Sex, Drugs & Experimenting with Democracy in 1960s & 1970s America AMST 2682
- America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s by Isserman & Kazin
Junior level
American Theatre Stage & Screen I AMST 3360
- The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
- Waiting for Lefty & Other Plays by Clifford Odets
- Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
- The American Dream, The Sandbox, The Death of Bessie Smith, FAM and YAM by Edward Albee
- The Crucible by Arthur Miller
- A Raisin in the Sun & The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window by Lorraine Hansberry
- At Home at the Zoo by Edward Albee
Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes AMST 3503
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
- Mules & Men by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
- Mule Bone by Hurston & Hughes
- Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
- Recyclopedia by Harryette Mullen
Diasporas, Disasters & Dissent: Re-Thinking Puerto Rican Studies in the 20th & 21st Centuries AMST 3679
- Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quiñonez
- The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Senior level
Contesting Votes: Democracy & Citizenship Throughout U.S. History AMST 4203
- The Second Founding: How the Civil War & Reconstruction Remade the Constitution by Eric Foner
Environmental Justice: Past, Present, Future AMST 4262
- Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire
- The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors & the Legacy of DES by Nancy Langston
- As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
- The Commons in History: Culture, Conflict & Ecology by Derek Wall
- The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water & the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
- Climate Futures: Reimagining Global Climate Justice by Bhavnani et al.
The Harlem Renaissance, 1919-1937 AMST 4506
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- Passing by Nella Larsen
- The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance by Alain Locke
- The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes
- Cane by Jean Toomer
- Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay
- Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral by Jessi Redmon Fauset
- Black No More by George S. Schuyler
- Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman
Funny Business: Stand Up Comedy & Its Social, Political & Cultural Importance AMST 4692
- The History of Stand-Up: From Mark Twain to Dave Chappelle by Wayne Federman
- Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America by John Limon
- Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble by Judy Gold
Queer Archives & Archiving Queerness AMST 4695/6695
- ✔️ Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
- Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women & Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman
- Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman
- My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties & Beyond by Hugh Ryan
- Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg