SUMMER READING - 2005

AP US History
AP American Government
AP Art History
AP European History

AP EUROPEAN HISTORY:

Read chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16 of your textbook, A History of Western Society, Edition 7.

I would suggest that you keep a journal, and make a brief outline of the main events of each chapter and the important characters. We will have tests and essays on each chapter during AP week in August. You will be graded on this notebook.

Choose a 20-minute project on an important historical figure from this period and be ready to present this in class during AP week. Use maps, graphs, and illustrations to supplement your project. We meet daily for two hours and will review these chapters. I also urge you to re-read each chapter of the text.

AP US HISTORY:

Read chapters 1 – 6 in American’s History, 5th ed. By Henretta, Brody, Dumenil, and Ware.Answer thinking journal questions that will be distributed before the end of the current school year. Your responses should be written as though you were writing in a thinking journal, not an essay. Your responses should fill about a half to three-fourths of a sheet of binder paper. Remember, you are not writing a formal essay. These journals will be colleted on the first day of class during AP week.1. Summarize the motives, expectations, problems, and rewards associated with the age of European expansion.

2. Describe the impact of Europeans on Native American (Indian) cultures and the impact of native cultures on Europeans.

3. Select any combination of the three colonial settlement areas (South, New England, middle) and compare and contrast them. Focus on the motives of their founders, religious and social orientation, economic pursuits, and political developments.

4. In your opinion, which three of the twelve colonies founded in the seventeenth century, made the most significant contributions to the perennial American values of democratic self-government, educational opportunity, religious toleration, social plurality, and economic materialism? Explain your choice.

5. Compare and contrast the economies, geography, and climate, mortality rates, sex ratios, and family relationships of New England and the southern colonies.

6. Argue either that an “American” way of life had emerged by the end of the seventeenth century or that two wholly distinct ways of life, one New England and the other southern, had emerged by the end of the seventeenth century.

7. Summarize the key features of the American population in the early eighteenth century. Consider its sources, size, location, diversity, and mobility.

8. Explain how the Great Awakening, an intensely religious movement, contributed to the development of the separation of church and state in America.

9. Compare and contrast the French colonies in North America with their British and Spanish counterparts. Consider, for example, location, timing, economy, political organization, and religious influence.

10. It is sometimes observed that the roots of future wars lie in the results of past wars. In what ways does it appear that the French and Indian War helped to cause the American Revolutionary War?

11. Explain the relationship between mercantilism, the Navigation Laws, and British efforts to create an administrative structure for their empire after 1696.

12. What were the major advantages and disadvantages of the British and the colonists respectively as the American Revolutionary War began? What would Britain have to do to win? What would the colonists have to do to win?

13. Colonists had debated with Parliament and protested its actions since 1763. Why then, did the Declaration of Independence single out King George III as the tyrant threatening their liberties?

14. The Franco-American alliance was “not prompted by a love for America but by a realistic concern for the interests of France.” Assess the validity of this statement.

Happy reading and please don’t hesitate to call me at 292-3170 if you have any questions.

AP ART HISTORY:

Summer AssignmentsRead the entire World Views, Topics in Non-Western Art (pp. 1-139) and do the accompanying xerox study guide. In addition, pick one work of non-Western art or architecture not included in the book (look at the Gardner non-western chapters or visit the Asian Art Museum) and prepare a presentation on it (either using slides or powerpoint), including information about the work itself and what it tells us about the people and culture that produced it. (Pick a work that is an important representative of its culture (representative of the culture’s style of representation – of the human form, landscape, or narrative) and email me with your choice by August 10th so that I can be sure that we have the necessary slides: (evers@sacredsf.org)

We will be meeting during AP Week, August 15-19. We will begin the week with a review of non-western art on Monday and Tuesday; your presentations will be on Wednesday August 17. On Friday we will visit the Asian Art Museum to broaden our knowledge of Asian art.
On Thursday we will cover Paleolithic and ancient Near Eastern art and architecture.
During the first week of regular classes there will be a test on non-Western and Paleolithic.
Finally, if you travel this summer, in the US or outside, take the time to visit museum collections; meet great art face to face – it might change your life!

Here are some fun books to read that relate to the history of art! Not required, just suggested.
Colleen McCullough, First Man in Rome, Grass Crown, Fortune’s Favorites, Caesar’s Wives
Umberto Eco Name of the Rose
Ken Follett The Pillars of the Earth
Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code
Sarah Dunant The Birth of Venus
Robert Hellenga The Sixteen Pleasures
Iain Pears The Bernini Bust, The Raphael Affair, The Titian Committee
Arturo Perez-Reverte The Flanders Panel
Irving Stone The Agony and the Ecstasy
David Hockney Secret Knowledge
Ross King Brunelleschi’s Dome, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling
Tracy Chevalier Girl with a Pearl Earring
Michael Frayn Headlong
Michael Kernan The Lost Diaries of Frans Hals
Deborah Moggach Tulip Fever
Susan Vreeland Girl in Hyacinth Blue, The Passion of Artemesia
Sarah Bayliss Utrillo’s Mother
Eunice Lipton Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious
Model and Her Own Desire
W. Somerset Maugham The Moon and Sixpence

AP AMERICAN GOVERNMENT:

Read the following books:

Hardball, by Chris Matthews

Politics by Other Means, by Benjamin Ginsberg and Martin Shefter

AP Government will not meet during AP Week. However, there will be and examination on both of these books on the first double class period. The exam will be both multiple choice and essay. Students who receive below a 75 on this exam will be advised to drop the course.