Visco Shares Top Five History Books

Park yourself on the second floor of the Campus Center, near the professors' cramped offices and you're bound to hear History Professor Michelle Visco hauling her rolling luggage down the hall.

Visco's historical passions, both now and in college, include religious and cultural history.

This semester the youthful professor teaches History of Western Civilization I and II, World Religions and Religion in America. Even with a full schedule of classes, Visco took a moment to share her preferred history reads.

1. "The Origins of Freemasonry" by David Stevenson. As the title suggests, Stevenson details the labyrinthine account of Freemasons from the Middle Ages through to the Modern Era. Freemasonry excites great interest thanks to a renewed attention on the subject due in large part to the popularity of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Despite the ostensibly dry topic, Visco insists it's a "fun read."

2. "The Universe, the Gods and Men: Ancient Greek Myths" by Jean-Pierre Vernant. He tackles ambitious issues such as the origin of the universe and the Trojan war. In addition, Vernant provides "interpretations of Greek myths [and] gives their historical context."

3. "Boys from Brazil" by Ira Levin. In this work of fiction, Levin employs a horrifying historical counterfactual; following the culmination of World War II, Nazis migrated to Latin America in the hopes of escaping war crime charges. Levin explores their nefarious attempt to reincarnate Germany's Chancellor, Adolph Hitler.

4. "Longitude" by Dava Sobel. This New York Times Bestseller, which Visco admits rarely occurs for history books, "documents the race among scientists in 17th and 18th century Europe" during the Scientific Revolution.

5. "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 2" by Fernand Braudel. A French historian, Braudel receives praise as the "father of modern cultural history, pioneering the inchoate discipline." Visco described this book as the most "academically influential" for her during graduate school, crystallizing her affinity for cultural history. It's only fitting, then, that "Mediterranean" served as Visco's "Bible of cultural history."