Great American Bestsellers: The Books That Shaped America

Overview

Course No. 2527
Get a unique literary perspective on our nation in this course that covers best-selling American books from colonial times to today.

Best-selling books have played a critical role in influencing American culture for more than 100 years. In these 24 lectures, you’ll explore key best-selling works and their places within the greater fabric of American cultural history. Guided by an award-winning teacher, you’ll examine representative bestsellers at various stages of American history, from colonial times to modern blockbusters.

Video Lectures

1. Why Do Bestsellers Matter? (31 min)
   Explore what makes a book a “bestseller” and how these works reflect American cultural history.
2. “The Bay Psalm Book” (32 min)
   Investigate the English-speaking New World’s first bestseller and its Puritan context.
3. “Common Sense” (30 min)
   Examine Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet that sold over 500,000 copies.
4. “The Last of the Mohicans” (31 min)
   Discover James Fenimore Cooper’s formula for adventure stories and themes of settlers vs. nature.
5. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (32 min)
   Analyze Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery narrative that sold 300,000 copies in its first year.
6. “Ragged Dick” (30 min)
   Study Horatio Alger Jr.’s “rags to riches” tale of self-improvement.
7. “Little Women” (30 min)
   Explore Louisa May Alcott’s quintessential girls’ book of the 19th century.
8. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (30 min)
   Examine Mark Twain’s controversial novel that changed American literature.
9. “The Virginian” (30 min)
   Discover Owen Wister’s novel that ushered in the Western genre.
10. “The House of Mirth” (31 min)
    Investigate Edith Wharton’s critique of early 20th-century high society.
11. “The Jungle” (31 min)
    Explore Upton Sinclair’s exposé that led to meatpacking reforms.
12. “Main Street” (31 min)
    Analyze Sinclair Lewis’s satire of small-town America.
13. “The Maltese Falcon” (31 min)
    Delve into Dashiell Hammett’s detective fiction classic.
14. “The Good Earth” (32 min)
    Examine Pearl S. Buck’s groundbreaking portrait of China.
15. “Gone with the Wind” (30 min)
    Study Margaret Mitchell’s controversial Civil War epic.
16. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (31 min)
    Consider Dale Carnegie’s enduring success manual.
17. “The Grapes of Wrath” (31 min)
    Explore John Steinbeck’s Dust Bowl chronicle.
18. “Native Son” (31 min)
    Analyze Richard Wright’s groundbreaking African American novel.
19. “The Catcher in the Rye” (30 min)
    Examine J.D. Salinger’s teenage manifesto against conformity.
20. “To Kill a Mockingbird” (31 min)
    Study Harper Lee’s beloved novel of Southern life and civil rights.
21. “Catch-22” (31 min)
    Consider Joseph Heller’s absurdist war novel.
22. “The Woman Warrior” (30 min)
    Explore Maxine Hong Kingston’s experimental Asian American memoir.
23. “John Adams” (32 min)
    Examine David McCullough’s best-selling biography.
24. Recent Bestsellers (32 min)
    Analyze modern bestsellers by authors like John Grisham and their cultural impact.