Good Reads for AP World History
AP World history tackles an enormous amount of content. Get started learning some of the people, places, and events through some fascinating works of history. Check out our list below!
Kate Brown, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
This fascinating study compares two towns, which are at once very similar and completely at odds. These two cities are Richland, Washington and Ozersk, in what was the Soviet Union. These cities—the first in the world to produce plutonium—give a glimpse into the differences in priorities of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and the often unexpected similarities they sometimes shared.
William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
This book tells the story of the formation of the city of Chicago and the vast network of farms and factories that spread out around the city that fueled its growth. In some sense, this book is about the growth of one city in the middle of the US in the 19th century, but in another sense this book is about the connections between cities, towns, and farms that fuel life and support societies around the world.
Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World: A Global Ecological History
This book tells a fascinating global environmental history, centered around one of the more unusual of natural resources: bird droppings. This book shows how guano—and a growing demand for it following the Industrial Revolution—transformed the Pacific and its relationships with the wider world.
William Doyle, Oxford History of the French Revolution
This book provides an excellent and compelling introduction to the history of the French Revolution.
Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
This book takes a new look at international history: through the story of commerce, trade, and international financial entanglements. In this book, changes in trade and commerce force political, social, and cultural upheavals that transform international history. Its emphasis on international connections is a great starting point for the perspective of the AP exam.
Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost
During the late nineteenth century, as Europe’s great powers divided territories across the entirety of Africa among themselves, Belgium’s King Leopold lay claim to a huge territory around the Congo River. What would follow would be some of the most violent and brutal colonial experiences across the continent. This story tells the story of Leopold, those who worked to uphold his brutal regime in the Congo, and the many people who worked to bring his crimes to light.
Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World
Want to know how a simple fish shaped international relationships, large-scale population movements, and even politics? Check out this famous book that shows how the simple cod has shaped the course of human history.
David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present
This book follows a central question: how did the almost unbelievable changes in technology in the industrial revolution happen at all? And how did these changes transform politics, economics, and society forever?
Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
This book uses history, science, and archaeology to study the world of the Americas before the large-scale arrival of Europeans in the 1500s. Learn about city planning, landscaping, and even the genetic engineering feats achieved in these years (which align with the start of the AP course).
Erika Rappaport, A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World
In the United States, we are familiar with how tea can shape world history, at least in respect to the Boston Tea Party. This history tells the much wider story of how tea has shaped economies, countries, and lives across the modern world.
William Rosen, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
This sweeping historical study tells the story of how a single invention—the steam engine—changed the course of world history. The book shows how innovations from the Industrial Revolution reverberated to have wider consequences across cultures and countries.
Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
This thrilling read (which spent several weeks atop the New York Times Best Seller list), shows how Genghis Khan and the Mongols forever changed the course of modern history. Weatherford argues that the transformation from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (the change that is discussed in the opening lessons of AP World ) in part started with Genghis Khan himself.
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