Counter-History
Counter-History refers to accounts that go against the standard narrative.
Counterfactual:
Examples
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States ****
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
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.
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (summary) by John Markoff Google book. ***
Thoreua's Walden (the game).
California
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)
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.
African-American/Latino
The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New Press People's History) [Paperback] Vijay Prashad http://www.amazon.com/The-Darker-Nations-Peoples-History/dp/1595583424/ref=pd_sim_b_6
'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) Book - Non-fiction. By Juan Gonzalez. 2011. 416 pages. review
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States (video interview)
