Modern World History Guide

Premodern History Review

• Code of Hammurabi (Babylonian Laws) [EB entry]
• The Republic (Plato) [EB Plato]
• Politics (Aristotle) [EB Aristotle]
• De res publica (Cicero) [EB Cicero] 
• Edicts (Asoka) [EB Ashoka] [Worldhistory.org entry]
• Analects (Confucius) [Library book. 181 CON]
• First Letter to the Corinthians (Paul) [EB entry]
• The Quran [EB entry] [PG Three translations... Yusuf Ali]
• The Magna Carta [EB entry] [transcripts]
• Travels (Ibn Battuta) [EB Battuta] [UCB Orias tour+maps Ibn Battuta]
• The Prince (Machiavelli) [EB Machiavelli] [PG Ricci translation]
• The Destruction of the Indies (Bartolome de las Casas) [EB de las Casas] [PG transcript]
• Mayflower Compact [EB entry] [transcript] [PG transcript]

Enlightenment and Revolution

• English Petition of Right [EB entry]
• English Bill of Rights [EB entry] [transcript]
• Two Treatises of Government (Locke) [EB entry]
• The Spirit of Laws (Montesquieu) [EB entry]
• The social contract (Rousseau) [EB entry Rousseau] [social contract]
• The social contract (Locke) [EB entry Locke] [social contract]
• The social contract (Hobbes) [EB entry Hobbes] [social contract]
• Leviathan (Hobbes) [EB entry Leviathan]
• Encyclopedia of Diderot & D'Alembert [EB entry Diderot] [EB entry Encyclopedie] [U Michigan translation project searchable encyclopedia]
• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano [EB entry Olaudah Equiano] [PG transcript] [HathiTrust digitized]
• "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" (Henry) [Patrick Henry] [speech] [image]
• "Remember the Ladies" (Abigail Adams) [Abigail Adams] [letter]
• Common Sense (Paine) [Thomas Paine] [Text]
• Declaration of Independence [National Archives] [Transcript] [Dunlap broadside] [LOC Research Guide]
• Virginia Declaration of Rights [EB entry]
• "The Sphere of Religion" (Jefferson) [transcript]
• "To His Excellency, General Washington" (Wheatley) [EB entry Wheatley] [text] and Washington's response [text]
• Articles of Confederation [NARA entry and text]
• Anti-Federalist Papers [EB entry]
• Federalist Papers [EB entry]
• The Federalist No. 10 (Madison) [transcript]
• The Federalist No. 39 (Madison)  [transcript]
• The Federalist No. 51 [transcript]
• The Federalist No. 78 (Hamilton) [transcript]
• United States Constitution [National Archives] [transcript] 
• Amendments 1-10. The Bill of Rights. [National Archives] [transcript]
• Amendments 11-27. [transcript]
• Northwest Ordinance [transcript]
• Iroquois Constitution (Haudenosaunee Confederacy) [LOC blog] [Canadian Encyclopedia entry] [EB entry] [EB transcript] [Smithsonian]
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen [EB entry] [transcript]
• Farewell Address (Washington) [Mt. Vernon Archives] [transcript Senate 106-21)
• Mexican Federal Constitution of 1824
• State Colonization Law of 1825
• Law of April 6, 1830
• Debate Over Nullification (Webster and Calhoun)
• Turtle Bayou Resolutions [Texas State Library and Archives Commission]
• Democracy in America (de Tocqueville)
• 1836 Victory of Death Letter from the Alamo (Travis)
• Texas Declaration of Independence [Texas State Library and Archives Commission]
• Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
• "Ain't I a Woman?" (Sojourner Truth) [Text]
• Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe) [Library e-Book]
• "A House Divided" (Lincoln) [transcript]  [PQ eLibrary Bio Lincoln]
• Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861 [Texas State Library and Archives Commission]
• Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln) [NARA document] [PQ eLibrary Bio Lincoln] [Black Freedom Struggle entry] [PBS Forever Free]
• Harriet Tubman's Claim for compensation [document] 
• Harriet Tubman [PBS Visions of Freedom]
• Gettysburg Address (Lincoln)  [PQ eLibrary Bio Lincoln] [PBS Video The Address] [PBS Video The Universe of Battle]
• "I Will Fight No More Forever" (Chief Joseph)  [PQ eLibrary Bio Chief Joseph] [PBS Video Fight No More Forever]

Industrial Revolution, Nationalism, Spread of Democracy

• How the Other Half Lives (Jacob Riis) [PQ Guided Research topic Jacob Riis]
• The Pledge of Allegiance [PQ John Baer discusses the history of the pledge]
• Preamble to the Platform of the Populist Party [PQ eLibrary entry]
• Atlanta Exposition Address (Booker T. Washington) [Black Freedom Struggle entry] 
• The Jungle (Upton Sinclair) [Library e-Book] [Library book HIstorical FIC SIN]

Imperialism

• "The White Man's Burden" (Rudyard Kipling) [PQ/EB entry] [EB Kipling]
• Hind Swaraj (Mohandas Gandhi) [UCLA Social Studies entry]
• The Fourteen Points (Woodrow Wilson) [PQ entry]
• Poetry (Langston Hughes) [PQ Hughes entry] [PBS Video "Harlem"]
• Poetry (Zora Neal Hurston) [PBS Video "Claiming a Space"]

WWI and Russian Revolution

Nationalism, Great Depression, Fascism

WWII

• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank) [Library eBook] [Library book]
• Charter of the United Nations [United Nations]  [PQ entry]
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UN UDHR] [PQ entry]
• Autobiography (Kwame Nkrumah) [PQ entry]
• Silent Spring (Rachel Carson) [Library book] [EB entry Carson] [EB entry Silent Spring]
• "I Have a Dream" (Martin Luther King, Jr.)  [NPR on MLK day after Obama's inauguration; speech and transcript] [PQ entry MLK] [PBS video Out of the Shadows]
• "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (Martin Luther King, Jr.) in Why We Can't Wait [Library Book] [NPR Video Ain't Scared of Your Jails]
•  Black Power movement [Black Freedom Struggle MLK Jr. FBI files]

Cold War

• "Tear Down This Wall" (Reagan) [NARA entry]
• "Freedom from Fear" (Aung San Suu Kyi) [PQ entry]
• "Glory and Hope" (Nelson Mandela) [PQ entry]
• War on Terror [PQ entry] and September 11, 2001 attacks [PQ entry]

Resources

UCSB's American Presidency Project Inaugural Addresses.

Minerva's Kaleidescope Inaugurations

LOC's Research Guide on Inaugurations.

National Archives search for "Inaugural Address" or "Inauguration Speech"

Key Speeches

First Inaugural (Lincoln) [original and transcript]

Second Inaugural "With Malice Towards None" (Lincoln) [original and transcript]

First Inaugural Address (Franklin D. Roosevelt) [UCSB transcript and video] [PQ eLibrary entry FDR] 

Third Inaugural Address (Franklin D. Roosevelt) [UCSB transcript]

Four Freedoms (Franklin D. Roosevelt) [context]