The cover of the second edition of Why Study History : Reflecting on the Importance of the Past is here! The book will be available in early 2024.
#whystudyhistory
Studying history with nuance and context: some advice to graduate students
Last weekend I gave a keynote address at a graduate history conference on power and struggle that was organized by students at the University of Alabama. I encouraged the graduate students to embrace complexity and nuance in their historical study, […]
What I love about James Sweet’s piece on presentism
I wanted to get these tweets on record here at the blog. Also, some readers of the blog are not Twitter. I’m not going to go into background, but I encourage you to get up to speed here. Again, I […]
The James Sweet/AHA blowup
I commented on Sweet’s piece here and here (including a long comment below the post). I thought it was well-done and a necessary reminder that the American Historical Association is made up of many historians, including those who are not […]
A guy on TikTok explains why history degrees aren’t useless
He goes by the handle @Scootcork and his TikTok post is apparently going viral. Watch: @scootcork #stitch with @education.forum dude is just salty that there isn’t an NFT major #history #usa #college #teacher #ushistory ♬ Love You So – The […]
The House select committee on January 6th would do well to have some historians on its staff
Earlier this week the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s request to stop the January 6th committee from obtaining access to White House records related to the insurrection. The National Archives has sent the material to the House and the committee […]
The editors of The Christian Century ask: “Why do we need to teach history?”
The Christian Century tackles a Texas bill that forbids the teaching of critical race theory and the 1619 Project. Here is a taste of its editorial: How should the story of our country be told? It says that schools should […]
The “Umbrella Man” is back
Tonight is the first night of content in my “Introduction to History” course. I love using this video to teach historical thinking, especially causality, complexity, and contingency: I discuss how I use this video on page 10-11 in Why Study […]
Is the world getting more dangerous?
Jonathan Last, the editor of the The Bulwark, thinks so. In his recent piece he focuses on anti-mask violence and a potential coup in Brazil. Is Last right? Is the world indeed getting more dangerous? I am not sure how […]
Erin Bartram does history
Longtime listeners of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast may remember our interview with historian Erin Bartram in Episode 37: “Should You Go Grad School?” In that episode we discussed Bartram’s February 2018 blog post “The Sublimated Grief of […]
Why do we HAVE to study history?
I love this:
Snyder: “The war on history is a war on democracy”
Yale historian Timothy Snyder sees a lot of similarities between the discussion of race happening right now in American schools and the 20th-century European totalitarianism regimes thought about the past. Here is a taste of his piece The New York […]
Marjorie Taylor Greene apologizes for comparing mask mandates to Holocaust
Watch: I don’t know what is really going on here, but I will give Greene the benefit of the doubt. I am encouraged that she changed her mind after visiting the Holocaust Museum. She learned some history today, and that […]
Historian Steven Mintz reimagines the U.S. survey
There is a lot in this piece at Inside Higher Ed. Here is a small taste: What should we do? The first step is to clarify, in our own minds, what students ought to get out of these survey courses. […]
Jim Grossman: “If people are fighting about history, that shows that it’s important.”
Over at NBC News, Kelly Fields wonders if critical race theory and patriotism can co-exist in classrooms. I would argue that they can co-exist. But the piece also makes a good case for the study of history and civics. Here […]