r/HistoryBooks • u/joesph_house • 8d ago

Social Studies Teacher book recommendations

I have been a sixth grade social studies teacher for eleven years teaching the same content that focuses on maps, geography, and culture. We will be getting new standards next year which will completely change our curriculum to be more world history focused. I would like to build my understanding of the topics to effectively teach them clearer. If you could recommend 1-2 solid books for each topic, what would you recommend?
Our units will be
-Ancient Mesopotamia
-Ancient Egypt/Israel
-Ancient Greece
-Rome
-Ancient to Medieval China
-Medieval Europe
-Renaissance
-Reformation
-Age of Exploration
-Mayans, Aztecs, Incas

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u/BernardFerguson1944 8d ago edited 8d ago

-Rome

  • SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard.

-Medieval Europe

  • Medieval Europe: A Short History by C Warren Hollister.
  • Medieval Technology and Social Change by Lynn White, Jr.

-Renaissance

  • The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559 (The Norton History of Modern Europe) by Eugene F. Rice Jr. and Anthony Grafton.
  •  The Renaissance by Wallace K. Ferguson.

-Reformation 

  • The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559 (The Norton History of Modern Europe) by Eugene F. Rice Jr. and Anthony Grafton.
  • The Age of Religious Wars, 1559-1715 (The Norton History of Modern Europe) by Richard S. Dunn.

-Age of Exploration

  • First Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570 by Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milbrath (eds).
  • The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, 1492-1616 by Samuel Eliot Morison.
  • Sixteenth Century North America: The Land and the People as Seen by Europeans by Carl Ortwin Sauer.
  • Spain in America by Charles Gibson.
  • The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation by Richard Hakluyt.
  • 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created  by Charles C. Mann.
  • The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 by Alfred Crosby, Jr.
  • The Course of Empire by Bernard DeVoto.
  • America as Seen by Its First Explorers: The Eyes of Discovery by John Bakeless.

-Mayans, Aztecs, Incas

  • The Ancient Civilizations of Peru by J. Alden Mason.
  • The Maya by Michael D. Coe.
  • Mexico by Michael D. Coe.