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READINGS for WESTERN CIVILIZATION

• “A Sense of History: Some Components” by Gerald Schlabach and
• Why Study History Through Primary Sources?

• Excerpts from Hammurabi's Law Code

• “The Roots of War”

WORKSHEET 1

• Excerpts from the Old Testament: read either the more modern 
• New International Version or
• the older King James Version

• The Polity of the Athenians

• Women in Greek Society
• Euphiletus: A Husband Speaks in His Own Defense

• Lysistrata by Aristophanes

• Selections on Alexander the Great;
• Optional: A Letter from Alexander to Aristotle?

• “From the Classical to the Hellenistic World, c. 400-30 BCE”
• “Runaway Slaves in Alexandria: Reward Offered!”

• Roman Legends

• Graffiti on the walls of Pompeii;
• A Strike by the Women of Rome and
• Slavery in Roman Republic

WORKSHEET 2

• Perpetua's Diary

• Excerpts from Sermons against the Jews by John Chrysostom;
• “The Last Vexation of Mel”: an article about Mel Gibson's film The Passion

• Anti-Semitism in Europe

• Excerpts from the Quran

• Islam According to Oprah by Rod Dreher;
• Terrorism and Islam from "Submission: Your Best Source on Islam"

• The Christianization of Russia
• Optional: The Conversion of King Clovis
  

• Eyewitness Accounts of the Crusader's Capture of Jerusalem;
• “The Story of a Story: Legacy of the Crusades” by Muhammad Asad

WORKSHEET 3

• Optional: Excerpt from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

• The Famine of 1315

• Documents on the Plague;
• The Black Death; and
• Reviews of Herlihy’s The Black Death &Transformation of the West

• Readings on the Reformation; and
• “The Struggle for Reformation Europe, 1500-1650”
  

• The Truth About the First Thanksgiving from James Loewen, Lies My History Teacher Told Me, which analyzes High School history textbooks

• Readings on Witch Trials ;
• The “Malleus Maleficarium” (“The Witches' Hammer”); and
• Witchcraft Documents

WORKSHEET 4