Counter-History

Counter-History refers to accounts that go against the standard narrative.

Counterfactual:

Almost History also video talk.

Examples

Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States ****

Lies my teacher told me : everything your American history textbook got wrong Loewen, James W. New York : New Press, c1995 McH Stacks E175.85 .L64 1995 ***

A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millenium by Chris Harman

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick (also a TV series).

Collapse by Jared Diamond, (celebrated author of Guns, Germs and Steel) seeks to understand why so many civilizations have been unable to avoid destroying the environment they depended upon. In this selection he summaries the reasons, which may also be involved in your issue. TEDtalk video. ****

Late Victorian Holocausts By Mike Davis.

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler looks at how gender has structured culture of domination. Her new book rethinks the economy: The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics Link

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City By Greg Grandin. (Includes excerpt and audio interview with author).

Ned Ludd & Queen Mab: Machine-Breaking, Romanticism, and the Several Commons of 1811-12 Peter Linebaugh audio interview 2012. 1/27/14 audio interview

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard White at Stanford video)

Changes in the Land by William Cronon was long the central text in the Core course, a pioneering work in eco-history, and it it still the best explanation of how we got where we are. These excerpts (requires course login) documents how Native Americans related to nature, and what happened when the market was introduced. Ch. 8 is the summary/conclusion. He was also wrote "Trouble with Wilderness," which set off a lively debate, which concludes here.

Atomic America by Todd Tucker. On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men: John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg. The Army blamed "human error" and a sordid love triangle. Though it has been overshadowed by the accident at Three Mile Island, SL-1 is the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history, and it holds serious lessons for a nation poised to embrace nuclear energy once again. See also Schlosser's Command and Control.

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Brian Fagan.

Jeffrey Parker's Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century (2013) *** also audio interview (starts 16 mins in). short text Q&A interview.

== Counter-Culture == (see also Networks

UCSC Cruzcat books

Dynamic visual online six degree map includes UCSC and Buckminster Fuller, Beat Poets who were into Zen Buddhism and other forms of altering consciousness.

R. U Sirius Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. (2004) **** highly recommended. Google book. UCSC McHenry HM647 .S57 2004

What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (summary) by John Markoff Google book. ***

Pete Seeger

Thoreua's Walden (the game).

From Counterculture to Cyberculture : Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of digital utopianism. Author: Fred Turner, University of Chicago Press, 2006. QA76.9.C66 T875 2006 Google book. See also Environmental History.

Counterculture Green : the Whole earth catalog and American environmentalism Author: Andrew G Kirk, University Press of Kansas, 2007. S&Engr Library GE197 .K58 2007.

The Steampunk Bible : an illustrated guide to the world of imaginary airships, corsets and goggles, mad scientists, and strange literature by Jeff VanderMeer; S J Chambers (ILL via UCB).

== Labor == (see also Labor History)

McHenry Library CruzCat search

See Zinn People's History

There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America by Philip Dray. Highly recommended **** McH Stacks HD6508 .D73 2010

Good overview (audio), citing Rebel Voices anthology on IWW/Wobblies, which may well hold good lessons for Occupy.

The Battle of Blair Mountain by Chris Hedges. This an effort to halt companies from extracting coal by blasting apart the mountain, the site in the early 1920s of the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.

Ruler and Rebels: A People’s History of Early California, 1769 – 1901, by Larry Shoup, focuses on the dramatic but little known stories of early California history, written from the point of view of rank and file working people.

California

McHenry Library Search

The Elusive Eden : a new history of California / Richard B. Rice, William A. Bullough, Richard J. Orsi. McH Stacks F861.R49 1988

Trees in Paradise: A California History By Jared Farmer review audio interview.

Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath by Rick Wartzman.

Assembling California by John McPhee "takes readers on an intensive geological tour of California... looks at the conjectural science of earthquake prediction and gives an account of a recent San Francisco quake. His leisurely excavation meanders from Mexican explorer Juan Bautista de Anza's settlement of San Francisco in 1776 to 1850s gold-mining camps to the summit of Mount Everest, made of marine limestone lifted from a shelf that once divided India and Tibet. With this volume McPhee concludes his Annals of the Former World series, which he began with Basin and Range (1980).

"Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century" is a story of the largest public works project in US history. audio interview.

Ruler and Rebels: A People’s History of Early California, 1769 – 1901, by Larry Shoup, focuses on the dramatic but little known stories of early California history, written from the point of view of rank and file working people.

== Native Americans == (see also Native American page)

McHenry Library search

Charles Mann, author of 1491(book exploration on how Native Americans used the land) has also written about interactions between colonists and Native peoples.

Another account of megafauna extinctions.

The extraordinary book of Native American lists / Arlene Hirschfelder, Paulette F. Molin, 2012 McH Stacks E77 .H586 2012.

African-American/Latino

CruzCat search: African-American history, Latino/Hispanic history

Late Victorian Holocausts By Mike Davis.

The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New Press People's History) by Vijay Prashad.

'Latino Americans,' a Six-Hour PBS Documentary - NYTimes.com www.nytimes.com/.../latino-americans-a-six-hour-pbs-documentary.html

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (Book) McH E184.S75 G655 2000 . By Juan Gonzalez. 2011. 416 pages. DVD DVD9539 in McHenry Media Ctr (bottom floor). review also video interview

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States (video interview). Order via ILL.

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City By Greg Grandin. (Includes excerpt and audio interview with author).

NAFTA effect on worker safety in Mexico. Overall effect (video) 12/13 20th anniversary report (which could have lessons for current TPP). NAFTA sparked Zapatista uprising in Mexico.

Women

(see also Green contemporary women)

Cruzcat book search, women in history, Women biography US, Political activity also by century.

Herstory : women who changed the world Author: Ruth Ashby; Deborah Gore Ohrn. New York : Viking, 1995. (order via ILL).

Herstory : a record of the American woman's past. Author June Sochen (ILL, online?).

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts (written for young people, but good for ideas for topics?) McHenry E176 .R63 2004 video talks.

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler looks at how gender has structured culture of domination. Her new book rethinks the economy: The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics Link