Annotated Bibliography
Bower, Bert, Jim Lobdell, Terry Coburn, Anne Maloney, Sharon Hootnick, Kelley
Mathews, and Marci Shore. Europe After the Fall of the Roman Empire. Palo
Alto, CA: Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 1993.
This is a Teachers Curriculum Institute (TCI) curriculum binder and the precursor
to the San Francisco Unified School District's (SFUSD) recently adopted history
curriculum called "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond". Their
activity, "Exploring the Reasons for Rome's Fall" served as the basis and inspiration for this unit.
"LEAD." Environmental Protection Agency.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/OWCM.NSF/lead/lead1pg (accessed July 30, 2008).
The EPA website provides extensive information about current environmental
issues in the United States. This particular article provides statistics and facts
about lead poisoning today.
Fears, Ph.D., J. Rufus. "The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today."
The Heritage Foundation. http://www.heritage.org/research/politicalphilosophy/hl917.cfm (accessed June 25, 2008).
This article provides a thorough overview for why Rome fell and highlights a few lessons that the United States can learn from our predecessor.
Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.
New York: Picador/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
This book makes the argument that globalization creates a more interconnected
world and we that need to embrace this inevitable evolution. This book was
mentioned in the "Inferior Technology" section to help make the point that the United States is struggling to remain competitive and innovative in our increasingly "flat world".
Hamilton, Alexander, John Jay, James Madison, and Clinton Rossiter. The Federalist
Papers (Signet Classics). New York: Signet Classics, 2003.
This book's article No. 9, "The Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction
and Insurrection" was used in the "Political Corruption" section as evidence that our American founding fathers were in favor of a strong Union when they point to examples of the republics of Greece and Italy as lessons to learn from and avoid within their new, budding republic.
Heather, Peter J. The fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Heather reminds us that in our inquiry the "barbarians" should not be overlooked.
He advocates for us to not only avoid underestimating the strength and strategy of the barbarians, but to also be aware of the many instances of barbarian-Roman cooperation and nonviolent interaction. Historians like Heather help broaden our perspective of the complex relationship between Romans and barbarians while still considering Rome's internal weaknesses as also viable causes for Rome's ultimate end.
Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House, 1987.
In the "Excessive Military Spending to Defend the Empire" Kennedy helps explain a popular contemporary economic theory for why empires fall; That when empires abroad disproportionately finance large amounts of international public goods, like international institutions and law enforcement, these powers can become so financially over-extended that this, along with other factors, leads to their inevitable decline.
Murphy, Cullen. Are we Rome? : The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007.
Murphy's book argues that the United States has much to learn from our predecessor, Rome. Many of his arguments are aligned with (TCI) curriculum binder's activity; "Exploring the Reasons for Rome's Fall", therefore Murphy's ideas were cited multiple times throughout this unit.
Plato. Republic, The (Plato) (Penguin Classics). London: Penguin Classics, 2007.
Plato is mentioned in the "Political Corruption" section as he warned that anytime
power meets greed, political corruption is inevitable.
Tolson, Jay. "Nation & World: Rome and Us - US News and World Report." US News &
World Report - USNews.com.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070430/30murphyqa.htm (accessed June 25, 2008).
In this article Tolson draws many comparisons between Rome then and the United States today. His comparisons include a wide range of topics, from acknowledging that our American government was inspired by the Roman republic model to highlighting similarities between our foreign policies and our corrupt governments.
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