Category: History

Book: History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History Has Changed in the Telling over the Last 200 Years

February 24, 2015

“In this ‘thought-provoking study’ (Library Journal ), historian Kyle Ward—the widely acclaimed co-author of History Lessons—gives us another fascinating look at the biases inherent in the way we learn about our history. Juxtaposing passages from U.S. history textbooks from different eras, History in the Makingprovides us with intriguing new perspectives on familiar historical events and the ways in which they have been represented over time.”

http://www.amazon.com/History-Making-Absorbing-American-Changed/dp/1595582150/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424789029&sr=8-1&keywords=history+in+the+making

Hollywood at War: An unrepentant whitewash of murder and occupation, American Sniper shouldn’t be up for any Oscars tonight.

February 23, 2015

“Great art is always ambiguous. Rather than giving us answers, it forces us to ask new questions; complexity is its hallmark. None of this applies to American Sniper, a truly abhorrent film that cannot be confused with art, much less great art.”

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/american-sniper-war-violence-oscars/

Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Voted to Ban AP U.S. History

February 20, 2015

This is a story that pops up in the United States periodically but also around the world. Because public education is funded by various governments, elected officials have a say in what gets funded and what does not and by extension, what gets taught and what does not. History is an interpretation of past events and not simply a summary of all things that ever happened. What happens when a curriculum does not suit your interpretation of past events? What happens when you believe history serves one agenda and not your own?

Some further questions to consider:

  • How should we decide what gets taught in schools?
  • What makes one historical interpretation more “correct” than another?
  • What is the purpose of learning history? Should it be to promote patriotism?

From the article:

“The new AP U.S. History framework emphasizes ‘what is bad about America’ and doesn’t teach ‘American exceptionalism.’ It’s a complaint that’s been spreading among mostly conservative state legislatures in recent months and has some calling for a ban on all AP courses.”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/why-oklahoma-lawmakers-want-to-ban-ap-us-history.html?wpsrc=nymag

Why Study History?

February 12, 2015

“Why should anyone bother learning about things that happened far away and long ago? Who cares about Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Montezuma or Confucius? And why worry about George Washington, or how democratic government and industrial society arose? Isn’t there quite enough to learn about the world today? Why add to the burden by looking at the past? Historians ought to try to answer such questions by saying what the study of history is good for, and what it cannot do. But since no one can speak for the historical profession as a whole, this essay is no more than a personal statement, commissioned by the American Historical Association in the hope of convincing all concerned that the study of history is indeed worthwhile and necessary for the education of effective citizens and worthy human beings. Historical knowledge is no more and no less than carefully and critically constructed collective memory. As such it can both make us wiser in our public choices and more richly human in our private lives.”

http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/archives/why-study-history-(1985)

Tomorrow Never Knows: The Challenge of Making Predictions

February 10, 2015

How then to assess the accuracy of predictions of things to come? Any serious assessment of P.C. (prediction correctness) ought to look at the record of the past, which is what we did, beginning with science, a domain where logic, experimentation and empirical evidence prevail. An exemplar in this field was William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, the celebrated British physicist, inventor and president of the Royal Society at the end of the 19th century. In 1895 Lord Kelvin observed that ”heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” In 1897 he found that ”radio has no future” and in 1900 he assured his scientific colleagues that ”X-rays are a hoax.”

Japan rejects calls to change history textbooks

February 10, 2015

China and South Korea contend that Japanese history textbooks misrepresent Japan’s wartime activities and colonization of the early 20th century and should be revised. But Japan’s new leader has stated firmly that there will be no changes. Officials within Japan’s education ministry said revisions would occur only if books contain factual errors.

http://www.internationalschooltoulouse.net/ibhistory/tok/Japan%20rejects%20calls%20to%20change%20history%20textbooks.htm

Arguing That Historians Can Be Scientists, Too

February 10, 2015

“In recent decades new challenges have been mounted to the supposedly objective study of the past. Most conspicuously, perhaps, postmodernist theory has raised its ultra-skeptical head to allege that objectivity being impossible, there is no truth. Or to apply the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to this matter, history is like a rabbit in the garden at night, running away as soon as it is caught in a beam of light. If that is the case, isn’t the task of trying to determine objectively, scientifically even, what happened in the past an act of arrogant futility?”

Historiography: How historians DO history

January 29, 2015

“When doing history, it helps to keep in mind that there are many different ways of determining how history happens. One of the key things to remember is that historians disagree very much over why almost any event happened. In the search for how things happen, we get ideas about how to understand our present world’s events and what to do about them, if anything.”

http://ibatpv.org/ib/histo.html