Rising Sophomore Book (Class of 2027)

The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World by Tim Marshall (2018) 288 pages

Tim Marshall, the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography, analyzes the most urgent and tenacious topics in global politics and international relations by examining the borders, walls, and boundaries that divide countries and their populations .

The globe has always been a world of walls, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrian’s Wall to the Berlin Wall. But a new age of isolationism and economic nationalism is upon us, visible not just in Trump’s obsession with building a wall on the Mexico border or in Britain’s Brexit vote but in many other places as well. China has the great Firewall, holding back Western culture. Europe’s countries are walling themselves against immigrants, terrorism, and currency issues. South Africa has heavily gated communities, and massive walls or fences separate people in the Middle East, Korea, Sudan, India, and other places around the world .

In fact, at least sixty-five countries, more than a third of the world’s nation-states, have barriers along their borders. There are many reasons why walls go up, because we are divided in many ways: wealth, race, religion, and politics, to name a few. Understanding what is behind these divisions is essential to understanding much of what’s going on in the world today.

As with Marshall’s first two books, The Age of Walls is a brisk read, divided by geographic region. He provides an engaging context that is often missing from political discussion and draws on his real life experiences as a reporter from hotspots around the globe . He examines how walls (which Marshall calls “monuments to the failure of politics”), borders, and barriers have been shaping our political landscape for hundreds of years, and especially since 2001, and how they figure in the diplomatic relations and geo-political events of today.

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: Sophomore Epistemology, World History, AP World History, English 3-4, English 3-4 (H), and Scripture. (Also, if applicable: Islamic History, Latin American History, East Asian History, African History, Perspective on Diversity, Public Policy, American Government, Economics)

Course Name: Nationalism & Geopolitics (2.5 Credits)              
Textbook: Tim Marshall, The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World (2018)
This course examines the roles nationalism and isolationism play in contemporary politics, both domestic and foreign. While the world has been shaped by globalization and technological change, recent years have witnessed a nationalist and isolationist backlash across the globe. Mass immigration, political terrorism, poverty, and growing economic inequality are four major factors that will be explored. The course will examine how nationalism and isolationism have influenced the political landscape for centuries. A particular emphasis will be placed on how they influence diplomatic relations and geo-political events today.
Methods of Assessment: (1) A reading journal, entering responses to questions from each chapter; (2) Two assessments—a combination of multiple-choice items and free-response (short essay) questions—will be administered in September.

To download study guides for “The Age of Walls” click on the links below:

Rising Junior Book (Class of 2026)

These Truths: A History of the United States (Only  Part 1, “The Idea, 1492-1799) by Jill Lepore (2018)

In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history .

Lepore’s groundbreaking investigation places truth itself―a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence―at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas―"these truths," Jefferson called them―political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?

These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. Along the way, Lepore’s chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues’ gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism.

Americans are descended from enslaved people and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. "A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can’t be shirked. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it."

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: United States History, AP U.S . History, Junior Epistemology, American Literature, and AP English Language. (Also, if applicable: Islamic History, Latin American History, East Asian History, African History, Perspective on Diversity, Public Policy, American Government, Economics)

Course Name: The American Idea, 1492-1799 (2.5 Credits)              
Textbook: Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (2018)
This course examines the origins and the rise of the United States, a nation born out of division. It will examine the United States’ commitment to three main ideas—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people—while exploring the extent to which it realized, and was committed to, the meaning of that promise. Beginning with the first European incursions in the Americas and concluding with the end of George Washington’s terms as President, this course asks students to consider the question asked by the nation’s founders: Can a political society be governed by reflection, election, reason, and truth, rather than by accident, violence, prejudice, and deceit? As recent history has shown, ideology separates contemporary Americans. Are Americans so clearly divided that they no longer agree about the core ideas the United States was founded upon? This course will explore those two essential questions.
Methods of Assessment: (1) A reading journal, entering responses to questions from each chapter; (2) Two assessments—a combination of multiple-choice items and free-response (short essay) questions—will be administered in September.

Rising Senior Book (Class of 2025)

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall (2021) 305 pages

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: Government and Law, Economics, Odyssey of Youth, Short Story, AP English Literature, Physics, AP Environmental Science, Physiology, Chemistry, Islamic History, Latin American History, East Asian History, African History, Perspective on Diversity, Public Policy, Philosophy, Psychology, Statistics,  Math Analysis, Intro to Calculus and AP Calculus