Recommends using fictional works about modern Asian and African history as supplementary reading in history courses to enhance student understanding of culture. Provides an annotated list of novels that have been used successfully in these courses. Outlines useful strategies for using fiction in college level history courses. (BSR)

Inner and Central Asia extends as far east as central China and as far west as areas in the Middle East. The changing empires over time (as well as the "shifting sands" of the geographic landmass) made it difficult to consider this as a single area. Moreover, the cultural exchanges which took place across this landmass, the transport of…

Cartoons, text, questions, and activities encourage students to link the present with the past, to look at colonialism from the perspective of the colonized, and to see how the global economy perpetuates the trade structures begun during the colonial era. After exploring colonialism in the past, early contacts by Europeans with other cultures, the…

This unit introduces students to the diversity of rice culture and rice-based farming systems in Asia and the Pacific. Students examine issues related to the needs of the future global population. Six rice-producing countries are under study: Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, and Thailand. The lessons include: (1) "Rice in…

This curriculum outline introduces the components of a course which explores the genre of short novels, including works by twentieth-century Japanese and Chinese authors. First, the catalogue course description and required texts are presented, highlighting the instructor's historical introduction to the development of Western, Japanese, and…

The music of the peoples who inhabit either Central Asia or the Volga-Ural region of Asia is explored in this document, which provides information that can be incorporated into secondary or higher education courses. The Central Asian music cultures of the Kirghiz, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Karakalpaks, Uighurs, Tajiks, and Uzbeks are described and…

In this grade 6 interdisciplinary language arts and social studies unit, students are required to assume the role of a team and describe their country's participation in trade along the Silk Road. Countries represented in the unit include Egypt, Italy, Iraq, India, Israel, and China. The team is asked to create a display showing artifacts, journal…

This resource represents a virtual library of still and moving images, documents, maps, sound clips and text which make up the history of the non-European world from prehistoric times to the early 1990s. The interdisciplinary range of materials included is compatible with standard textbooks in middle and high school social science, social studies,…