Recommended Reading and Viewing

Nevins, Alan; Ordeal of the Union (8-volume definitive history of the Civil War)

Tuchman, Barbara; A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (biography of Enguerrand de Coucy VII, who was apparently involved in just about everything that happened in the 14th century)

Cantor, Norman F. The Civilization of the Middle Ages (arguably the best medieval history book I've read, second only to the Tuchman book)

Huizinga, Johan; The Autumn of the Middle Ages (classic medieval history text, a little dry)

Fischer, David Hackett; The Great Wave: Price Fluctuations in History (long-term waves of price fluctuations of basic commodities, when,and why)

Toland, John; Adolf Hitler (biography)

Shirer, William L.; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (history of Nazi Germany)

Manchester, William; American Caesar (biography of Douglas MacArthur)

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (short novel about life in Stalin’s gulags – sort of “fiction,” but it belongs here)

Botting, Douglas; From the Ruins of the Reich (history of immediate postwar Germany. What are we going to use for money? Who's going to deliver the mail? Who's going to clean up this mess?)

Wills, Brian Steel; A Battle from the Start (biography of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest)

Hayek, Friedrich; The Road to Serfdom (why socialism always fails)

Hayek, Friedrich; The Constitution of Liberty

Paine, Thomas; Common Sense (pre-Revolutionary pamphlet)

Mann, Charles C.; 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Greene, Brian; The Fabric of the Cosmos (quantum physics made simple)

Genz, Henning; Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space (is "nothing" the same as empty space? Why is there something rather than nothing? As with Brian Greene's book, when I finished it I understood quantum physics and string theory. For about five minutes)

Cahill, Thomas; The Gifts of the Jews

Cahill, Thomas; How the Irish Saved Civilization

Plato; Republic

Kahn, David; The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communications from Ancient Times to the Internet

RECOMMENDED READING: Fiction

Cooper, James Fenimore; The Deerslayer (novel of the American frontier)

O’Brian, Patrick; the “Master and Commander” series (20 volumes, historical novels)

Rostand, Edmund; Cyrano de Bergerac (Brian Hooker translation preferred)

Smith, Alexander McCall; “Ladies’ No. 1 Detective Agency” series

Rand, Ayn; Atlas Shrugged (Other Rand works also recommended)

Heller, Joseph; Catch-22 (Why things are the way they are.)

RECOMMENDED FILMS

I used the following as a "Crime Film Festival" in my Introduction to Criminal Justice class in 2009:

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932): Paul Muni; wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him. This was one of my late father's favorite films. Not rated.

White Heat (1938): James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien; psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a payroll heist. Shortly after the plan takes place, events take a crazy turn. Not rated.

Rope (1948): James Stewart, Farley Granger; two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime. (directed by Alfred Hitchcock). Not rated.

Strangers on a Train (1949): Farley Granger, Ruth Roman; a psychotic socialite confronts a pro tennis star with a theory on how two complete strangers can get away with murder . . . a theory that he plans to implement. (Alfred Hitchcock directed). MPAA rating: PG (reissued 1996).

Anatomy of a Murder (1959): James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick. In a murder trial, the defendant claims he suffered temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. Excellent exposition of the “Irresistible Impulse” defense. Nominated for 7 academy awards. Not rated.

Cape Fear (1962): Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen; Ex-convict Max Cady re-enters the life of small-town lawyer Sam Bowden. Cady served 8 years in prison on Bowden’s testimony that he attacked a young woman. Now Cady has returned to terrorize Bowden and his family, using his newfound knowledge of the law (learned in prison). Ultimate Robert Mitchum bad-guy role; Polly Bergen does what is probably the best hysterical scene I’ve ever seen on film. This was the original version. Not rated.

Psycho (1967): Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins; a young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother. (Alfred Hitchcock directed). Not rated.

Serpico (1973): Al Pacino; the true story about an honest New York cop who blew the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him. MPAA rating: R.

The Onion Field (1979): John Savage, James Woods; true story of two LAPD officers kidnapped by a disturbed ex-con and his partner in crime, a petty thief. One officer is shot to death in a deserted onion field in Bakersfield, California; the other escapes to testify against the perpetrators. This film explores the devastating psychological effects of this event and the trial on the surviving officer, and the sometimes frustrating nature of the American justice system. Based on the book by Joseph Wambaugh. MPAA rating: R.

Other films I recommend:

David and Lisa (1962): Psychological drama involving Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Schizophrenia. Keir Dullea and Janet Margolin.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972): Fairly accurate depiction of the “Mountain Man” in American history.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976): Escapist post-Civil War potboiler but one of my favorites.

The Mission (1986): Spanish missionaries in South America, political pawns in the political struggle between Spain and Portugal in he New World that spawned the Treaty of Madrid in 1750.

Gods and Generals (2003): The beginning of the Civil War, concentrating especially on Lee and Jackson. Prequel to Gettysburg

Gettysburg (1993): Battle of Gettysburg, based on the historical novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.

Paths of Glory (1957): Classic Stanley Kubrick film; amoral WW I French General orders his troops on an impossible suicide mission, then has several shot for cowardice as examples when the mission fails.

Breaker Morant (1980): Australian soldiers, part of the British army in the Boer War, become political pawns and are executed as examples to assuage German ire; Harry Harbord (“Breaker”) Morant was a real person, a poet of some renown.

The Illustrated Man (1969): Trilogy of Ray Bradbury stories; Rod Steiger as the Illustrated Man, who is tattooed (“Don’t you ever call them tattoos, they are ‘skin illustrations’!”) all over his entire body – except for one blank spot on his back, which he cannot see. Others look into it and see their future; sometimes they don’t like what they see.

Doctor Zhivago (1965): Classic David Lean film, based on the Boris Pasternak novel about the Russian Revolution.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Classic David Lean film, World War I era in Arabia; enigmatic figure T. E. Lawrence.

Walker (1987): Strange, quirky film about 19th-century adventurer William Walker trying to take over Nicaragua for Cornelius Vanderbilt circa 1855. Every now and then they throw in some outrageous anachronism just to see if you’re paying attention. Ed Harris and Marlee Martin. Blockbuster describes it as a “hallucinatory bio-pic.”

The Spanish Prisoner (1997): Very convoluted mystery in which nothing is as it seems; Ben Gazzara, Steve Martin in a straight, serious dramatic role.

The Legend of 1900 (1998): Off-beat film about a pianist named “1900” who was born on a cruise ship on January 1, 1900, and never left it.

Fail-Safe (1964): Suspenseful Cold War drama, chillingly depicts what we all thought was going to happen eventually with accidental deployment of nuclear weapons.

Doctor Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy parody of Fail-Safe, Peter Sellers in several roles.

The Swimmer (1968): Middle-aged Neddy Merril conceives the idea of “swimming home” through his neighbors’ Connecticut suburban pools. As he drops in on his neighbors to swim the length of their pools, it becomes increasingly apparent that something is deeply wrong. Based on the John Cheever short story. Suburban America, affluence, happiness, self-deception and repression, remembering and forgetting, reality and illusion. Burt Lancaster, Janice Rule.

The Quiet Man (1952): Ireland as it ought to be, set in 1933. John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara.