In November, we asked our alumni: "What was the book that you read as a history student at Rochester that has stuck with you most? Tell us about it!" Here's what they said:
Adam Carman (MA '08): "Urban Crucible by Gary Nash. Widened my appreciation of urban issues and the American Revolution. Definitely informed my scholarship."
Kurt Eyrich (BA '74): "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S Kuhn. I have gone back to this book many times during my academic and business career to help understand the changes we face."
Douglas Flowe (PhD '14): "Talk With You Like a Woman, [Cheryl D.] Hicks."
Terry Gillen (BA '77): "Roll, Jordan, Roll by Eugene Genovese—beautifully written and one of the first books to fully discuss the political and social world of slaves in the South."
Jack Hurley (BA '67): "Virgin Land by Henry Nash Smith opened a new way of looking at history for me. It was the history of an idea, The West, and how that idea influenced the outlook and behavior of many Americans, even those who did not 'Go West.'"
Michael Lee Jacobs (BA '66): "Norman O. Brown’s Love’s Body. Along with Prof. [Norman] Brown’s Life Against Death, these writings radically changed my philosophical and psychological view of humankind. A student of Brown, Clarence Karier, Hadyen White, and Loren Baritz, I developed a love of radical inquiry and a penchant for challenging the typical, the conventional, and the status quo. Their beliefs, attitudes, and values represented a strong foundation for my own during my careers; first as a professor of education, philosophy, and psychology, and then as a professional psychotherapist."
Donald Messina (BA '56, MA '57): "A. Hitler’s Mein Kampf."
James Oberly (MA '77, PhD '82): "3 books dominated my time at Roch in the mid-1970s: Fogel & Engerman, Time on the Cross; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll; Gutman, Black Family in Slavery & Freedom."
Ben Ojala (BA '95): "Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. It was a really interesting way of thinking about time and what society might have been (and maybe has, in some regard). I was also lucky enough to find a copy in a bookstore with a foreword written by Dr. Dan Borus, who taught the book in his course. I still have my copy."
Leslie Kardon Pugach (BA '69): "The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. This was the summer reading assignment for freshmen entering in 1965. It gave me insights into a world that I did not know, coming from a white, suburban area and a high school that was predominantly white, upper middle class. My move into urban education and additional degrees in this area was influenced by having a door opened by Baldwin's book."
Bill Robinson (BA '72): "It’s difficult as I went through every book from UR in my stored collection but these two I read together back then and again currently are The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (David Brion Davis) and White Over Black (Winthrop D. Jordan), both from Eugene Genovese’s Slavery in the New World course in Fall 1970. The perverse cancer of the condemnation of humans into non human status solely based on race defies any rational understanding for me then and now. These books remain worthwhile. I am finding great enjoyment currently re-reading my UR History books; to my delight, they have all survived their 50+ year storage."
Catherine Russ-Breen (BA '96): "Prof. McGrath included Fin de Siecle Vienna as recommended reading for his European Cultural and Intellectual History class. I had learned Weiner Deutsch (rather than Hoch Deutsch) in high school, so I was already hooked on Austrian history and culture. Fifteen years after graduating I had an opportunity to work in Vienna. The book was my pocket guide as I toured as much of the city as I could in two months. I've worn out one copy and I'm sure my replacement will be as battered as the first in an another decade."
Michael S. Speziale (BA '62): "Oscar Handlin's The Uprooted—a moving, almost novel-like account of the trials and tribulations of southern and eastern European immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries."
Peter Susko (BA '73): "White Over Black by Winthrop Jordan for Eugene Genovese's History of the Old South class. A great history of the origins and development of slavery in the US."
Melanie Yolles (BA '76): "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music by Friedrich Nietzsche from William J. McGrath's European Intellectual History course."
We'll be back in January with a new question, so stay tuned!