He is my lecture on Paradoxes of the American Experience, extrapolating on Michael Kammen’s masterpiece.
Category: USH: Introductory Materials
The 11 (5 Really) Declarations of War
Mike Huckabee Fixes American History
Don’t worry, American youth: Mike Huckabee has fixed American history. No longer will you suffer under what Huckabee calls “the ‘blame America first’ attitude prevalent in today’s teaching.”
Late Wednesday, Huckabee announced LearnOurHistory.com, a sort of BMG Music Club for what he calls “unbiased” historical lessons for kids. For around $15 each, the company will send you a new animated tale of American history each month, told through the eyes of a gang of time traveling kids.
Paranoid Style of American Politics
In this essay, originally published in Harper’s in 1964, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Richard Hofstadter offers an astute thematic analysis of paranoia in American politics. He examines the paranoid reactions to Masons, Catholics, Jesuits, Communists and others. Sadly, perhaps his perceptions are as timely as ever.
Kropotkin Essay
“Ask yourself what you need to know to make this the kind of world you would like to live in. Demand that your teachers teach you that.”
Reading and Learning Strategies
Teaching Against Idiocy
Contemplating the root of the word “idiocy” leads Dr. Walter
Parker to explore the challenge that democratic societies
face of developing public-minded citizens. The schools,
he argues, are the most likely institutions to succeed in
that task.