While no means comprehensive, as there are thousands of reliable and interesting reads to be discovered, below you will find literature, organized by period, that one might find interesting. All literature recommended here has been discovered via academic education or during research, therefore are considered scholarly source material for viewing authors and budding historians. Should you find a section lacking, viewers are always welcome to submit literature for recommendation to add to this list.
JAPANESE HISTORY
Ancient & Medieval Japan
+ Japan Emerging- Karl Friday
+ The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 1- Delmer Brown
+ A History of Japan to 1334- George Sansom
+ Heian Japan- Mikael Adolphson et al.
+ The World Turned Upside Down- Pierre Souyri
+ Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan- Karl Friday
+ State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan- Ronald Toby
Early Modern Japan (Tokugawa Period)
+ Early Modern Japan- Mary Elizabeth Berry
+ Japan Before Perry- Conrad Totman
+ The Making of Modern Japan- Marius Jansen
+ Inventing Japan- Ian Buruma
Meiji Restoration & State Formation
+ The Meiji Restoration- W. G. Beasley
+ Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World- Donald Keene
+ Japan’s Modern Myths- Carol Gluck
Imperial Japan & Expansion (1895-1945)
+ The Japanese Empire- Ramon H. Myers & Mark Peattie
+ Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan- Herbert P. Bix
+ Japan’s Total Empire- Louise Young
+ War Without Mercy- John Dower
COLONIAL HISTORY
Foundational/Interpretive Works
+ Empires of the Atlantic World- John H. Elliott
+ Atlantic History: Concept and Contours- Bernard Bailyn
+ The Columbian Exchange- Alfred Crosby
+ Guns, Germs, and Steel- Jared Diamond
+ Colonialism in Question- Frederick Cooper
Colonial Encounters/Indigenous Perspectives
+ The Middle Ground- Richard White
+ Facing East from Indian Country- Daniel K. Richter
+ The Invasion Within- James Axtell
+ Encounters at the Heart of the World- Elizabeth Fenn
+ The Comanche Empire- Pekka Hämäläine
Slavery, Labor, and Race
+ American Slavery, American Freedom- Edmund S. Morgan
+ The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas- David Eltis
+ Soul by Soul- Walter Johnson
+ Black Majority- Peter H. Wood
Empire (British, Spanish, French, etc)
+ Pursuits of Happiness- Jack P. Greene
+ Empires in World History- Jane Burbank, Frederick Cooper
+ The British Empire- Philippa Levine
+ A Mission to Civilize- Alice Conklin
Settler Colonialism & Theory
+ Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical
+ Overview- Lorenzo Veracini
+ Colonialism/Postcolonialism- Ania Loomba
+ Orientalism- Edward Said
+ The Wretched of the Earth- Frantz Fanon
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Official Documents
Common Sense- Thomas Paine
The Federalist Papers- Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
The American Crisis- Thomas Paine
The Declaration of Independence- Thomas Jefferson
Narrative and Revisionist Histories
+ 1776- David McCullough
+ The Glorious Cause- Robert Middlekauff
+ Washington’s Crossing- David Hackett Fischer
+ The Counter-Revolution of 1776- Gerald Horne
+ Liberty’s Exiles- Maya Jasanoff
+ The Internal Enemy- Alan Taylor
THE CIVIL WAR/RECONSTRUCTION
list here
