=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 1 Nov 2001 11:14:02 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Thomas Bender 
Subject:      Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender

Welcome to History Matters and our discussion of transnational
dimensions of American history.  While most of the previous topics
considered in History Matters have been established fields with
considerable literatures, what I hope to discuss is not so much a field
as an emerging orientation to the teaching and writing of American
history.  Recently historians have been recognizing the permeability of
national boundaries; they have been using a rather simple and quite
empirical formula to practice this history:  reject the assumption of the
nation as container and follow the people, the money, the
knowledges, and the things wherever they go. It is the challenge of
such an approach to American history that we will explore.

Today's students, whether in high school or college, are increasingly
aware of living within a plenitude of histories--some smaller than the
nation (the neighborhood, for example), some larger (a global kinship
network, for example). A transnational approach to American history
resonates with their experience. Does it then make sense to try to
persuade students that American history is singular and wholly
contained within the territorial boundaries of the formal sovereignty of
the United States.

American history has always been embedded in histories larger than
itself.  And this has become all too clear, and tragically so, with the
events of September 11, 2001.  It is time, I think, to work toward an
opening of American history (and American political and cultural
discourse) out toward the world. Only that way can we educate our
students to recognize our place within and in relation to the histories
of that world.

At the K-12 level, particularly, it is important to rethink the relation of
American history to world history. One of the important developments
in history teaching in the United States has been the decisions by
various state and local school authorities to require world history.  If
the intention is to produce a more cosmopolitan and tolerant citizenry,
the characteristic segregation of world history from American history
undermines that goal.  Too often they are mutually exclusive curricula,
thus re-enforcing the very isolation and sense of self-containment that
the reform is designed to overcome. U.S. history is seldom included in
world history courses, at least until the twentieth century.  And
Americanists tend to exclude the world, save for a lecture or chapter
on immigration or foreign affairs. World history, like the international,
is always "over there."  The point is to practice and teach a history that
recognizes that we are a part of the abroad and vice versa.

At the heart of this enterprise for me is a particular conception of
historical knowledge: I believe that the special contribution of our
discipline to knowledge derives from our capacity to place human
experience and meanings into contexts, contexts of space and time.
Treating the nation as the natural or sufficient container of history
unnecessarily truncates that context and limits that work.

It should be clear that my position on the matter is a moderate one.
There are those who wish to move beyond the nation, to postnational
histories. That time may come; for myself, however, it seems likely that
for a while yet the nation will be with us and important for the lives of
Americans. For me, then, the move to transnational themes is to better
explain the ideas and events that constitute the experience of
Americans (including those aspects that extend beyond the formal
territory of the United States, whether in practice or in the imagination
of Americans and others).

Transnational, comparative, and global perspectives seem useful for
two reasons: first, such a history better fits the actual lived experience
of those we identify as Americans; second, it will better prepare us for
the global experience of our own times.

Toward this end, I call to your attention the joint NYU-OAH "Project on
Internationalizing the Study of American History."  This project, which
involved both U.S. based historians of the United States and scholars
from abroad, sought to identify the issues and possibilities of such
histories. Two  products emerged from that work.  The first is a "report
to the profession," called The La Pietra Report (2000). It "makes the
case" for widening the "territory" of American history, and it explores
curricular changes that seem to be implied by such an approach to
American history. The Report was mailed to all members of the
Organization of American Historians last spring, but those who do not
have it at hand may see it (as well as the three annual reports that
preceded it) at two websites:
www.oah.org/activities/lapietra/index.html and
www.nyu.edu/gsas/icas/past.htm.

In addition, a partial collection of the papers written for the project are
being published in book form:  Thomas Bender, ed. Rethinking
American History in a Global Age (University of California Press,
forthcoming, March 2002).

Of course, U.S. historians cannot and should not suddenly become
global historians.   But they should recognize the globe as a context
and domain of relations that partially explain American history.  The
conversations we have here will enable us, I hope, to explore different
and more limited ways of making the point that all aspects and
periods of American history have a transnational dimension to them.
Particular events or themes may lend themselves better than others to
illustrate this point, and we may want to identify those events or
themes that clarify the transnational aspects of American history.

Much of what I have written above is unfortunately fairly abstract. Yet
many experiments in teaching and writing in this new key have been
undertaken. Therefore, I hope those who have brought a transnational
dimension into their courses will share that information with us all. It
will help everyone to learn more about what is actually being done
and, perhaps, how it can be done.

Thomas Bender
Director
International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
and
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 3 Nov 2001 12:16:57 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Roy Rosenzweig 
Subject:      US History versus/and World History
Comments: cc: Thomas Bender 
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

        I had two questions provoked by Tom's very thoughtful
introductory statement

        1. U.S history *in* World History: I was recently working on
a world history  project and we consciously excluded the US on the
grounds that those who taught non-US would feel like US history was
pushing out those stories/histories. What is experience of those on
list on inclusion of US history in world history courses?

        2. World History v. US history: Tom takes, as he says, a
"moderate" position, rejecting the postnational argument against
nation-based history. Do people on list have experiences with campus
discussions in which the case *was* made to abandon the
nation-centric approach and, hence, courses like U.S. history survey?
Has this happened in places? Has the nation-state faired better in
teaching than in scholarship?

best,
Roy

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 3 Nov 2001 19:24:07 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         barbaracarroll 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello to everyone, I mustr say that I too found Tom's intro very thought
provoking. However, I'd like to add another spin to his perspective. Maybe,
just maybe American History has alienated itself from an international
bonding of inclusion in world history is because, in my opinion, there is so
much history "left out or omitted" from the history itself. It appears that
American historical facts are based on how much of the facts can or will be
told. A great deal of th e exclusion can be laid at the feet of  those who
have the responsiblity to tell the historical facts as they happened ,
leaving out nothing. But this selected few elect not to do so. Case in
point: just the other day President Bush "decided " that "he" would not make
ex- president Reagan's days in office a matter of public knowledge or used
as historical events. He cited that  "he" felt that there was information
within that should not or could not be viewed. History is history, whether
it is based on negative events or positive ones, the fact of the matter is ,
it is the story. The history of the US and/or the World cannot exist without
each including the other. It should be taught in school under the heading of
History, not World or American, just plain, simple history that examines
every culture, environment, religion, legal system, etc.Or is it that
American History is thought of in the same realm as the contest we are all
watching now " The World Series" baseball game, which as we all know is not
competing against another country, rather, two teams within the US. Why is
it called the "world Series" ? Barb Carroll
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Bender" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 11:14 AM
Subject: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender


> Welcome to History Matters and our discussion of transnational
> dimensions of American history.  While most of the previous topics
> considered in History Matters have been established fields with
> considerable literatures, what I hope to discuss is not so much a field
> as an emerging orientation to the teaching and writing of American
> history.  Recently historians have been recognizing the permeability of
> national boundaries; they have been using a rather simple and quite
> empirical formula to practice this history:  reject the assumption of the
> nation as container and follow the people, the money, the
> knowledges, and the things wherever they go. It is the challenge of
> such an approach to American history that we will explore.
>
> Today's students, whether in high school or college, are increasingly
> aware of living within a plenitude of histories--some smaller than the
> nation (the neighborhood, for example), some larger (a global kinship
> network, for example). A transnational approach to American history
> resonates with their experience. Does it then make sense to try to
> persuade students that American history is singular and wholly
> contained within the territorial boundaries of the formal sovereignty of
> the United States.
>
> American history has always been embedded in histories larger than
> itself.  And this has become all too clear, and tragically so, with the
> events of September 11, 2001.  It is time, I think, to work toward an
> opening of American history (and American political and cultural
> discourse) out toward the world. Only that way can we educate our
> students to recognize our place within and in relation to the histories
> of that world.
>
> At the K-12 level, particularly, it is important to rethink the relation
of
> American history to world history. One of the important developments
> in history teaching in the United States has been the decisions by
> various state and local school authorities to require world history.  If
> the intention is to produce a more cosmopolitan and tolerant citizenry,
> the characteristic segregation of world history from American history
> undermines that goal.  Too often they are mutually exclusive curricula,
> thus re-enforcing the very isolation and sense of self-containment that
> the reform is designed to overcome. U.S. history is seldom included in
> world history courses, at least until the twentieth century.  And
> Americanists tend to exclude the world, save for a lecture or chapter
> on immigration or foreign affairs. World history, like the international,
> is always "over there."  The point is to practice and teach a history that
> recognizes that we are a part of the abroad and vice versa.
>
> At the heart of this enterprise for me is a particular conception of
> historical knowledge: I believe that the special contribution of our
> discipline to knowledge derives from our capacity to place human
> experience and meanings into contexts, contexts of space and time.
> Treating the nation as the natural or sufficient container of history
> unnecessarily truncates that context and limits that work.
>
> It should be clear that my position on the matter is a moderate one.
> There are those who wish to move beyond the nation, to postnational
> histories. That time may come; for myself, however, it seems likely that
> for a while yet the nation will be with us and important for the lives of
> Americans. For me, then, the move to transnational themes is to better
> explain the ideas and events that constitute the experience of
> Americans (including those aspects that extend beyond the formal
> territory of the United States, whether in practice or in the imagination
> of Americans and others).
>
> Transnational, comparative, and global perspectives seem useful for
> two reasons: first, such a history better fits the actual lived experience
> of those we identify as Americans; second, it will better prepare us for
> the global experience of our own times.
>
> Toward this end, I call to your attention the joint NYU-OAH "Project on
> Internationalizing the Study of American History."  This project, which
> involved both U.S. based historians of the United States and scholars
> from abroad, sought to identify the issues and possibilities of such
> histories. Two  products emerged from that work.  The first is a "report
> to the profession," called The La Pietra Report (2000). It "makes the
> case" for widening the "territory" of American history, and it explores
> curricular changes that seem to be implied by such an approach to
> American history. The Report was mailed to all members of the
> Organization of American Historians last spring, but those who do not
> have it at hand may see it (as well as the three annual reports that
> preceded it) at two websites:
> www.oah.org/activities/lapietra/index.html and
> www.nyu.edu/gsas/icas/past.htm.
>
> In addition, a partial collection of the papers written for the project
are
> being published in book form:  Thomas Bender, ed. Rethinking
> American History in a Global Age (University of California Press,
> forthcoming, March 2002).
>
> Of course, U.S. historians cannot and should not suddenly become
> global historians.   But they should recognize the globe as a context
> and domain of relations that partially explain American history.  The
> conversations we have here will enable us, I hope, to explore different
> and more limited ways of making the point that all aspects and
> periods of American history have a transnational dimension to them.
> Particular events or themes may lend themselves better than others to
> illustrate this point, and we may want to identify those events or
> themes that clarify the transnational aspects of American history.
>
> Much of what I have written above is unfortunately fairly abstract. Yet
> many experiments in teaching and writing in this new key have been
> undertaken. Therefore, I hope those who have brought a transnational
> dimension into their courses will share that information with us all. It
> will help everyone to learn more about what is actually being done
> and, perhaps, how it can be done.
>
> Thomas Bender
> Director
> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
> and
> Department of History
> New York University
> 53 Washington Square South
> New York, NY 10012
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 4 Nov 2001 17:07:10 +0100
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         David Nye 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

One of the problems US history faces is that almost all of the
professionals in the field are Americans, and few foreigners are hired to
teach American history. While there is a large and growing pool of good
Ph.D. candidates in Europe, few of them spend more than a few years in the
US, typically during exchanges. Thus, the typical staff of an American
department does not have (m)any people who habitually think about the US in
comparative/international terms. Thus, the insularity is institutionalized.

By the same token, it is unusual for Americans to hold permanent positions
in the history departments in European universities. (I am one of the
exceptions, but I cannot think of too many others.) Indeed, a great many
departments abroad, including my own, have no required courses in US
history. By contrast, the study of the US is much more advanced in foreign
English departments, where required courses on the US are much more likely
to be found.

The insularity on each side of the Atlantic would be far more acute had it
not been for the Fulbright program and other exchanges. Many people do not
realize that much of the money for these exchanges comes from foreign
governments. In Denmark, for example, more than half the funds come from
the Danish government, and the last time I checked this was also true for
Germany and several other bilateral exchanges. In other words, the US
sometimes has not been paying its own way.

I strongly believe that seeing the US in wider perspective almost requires
living outside of the nation for an extended period, at least a year. Even
so, some people on exchange do not master the language, send e-mails to
their friends back home every day, watch American films on TV, and read the
Herald Tribune. The result is a superficial gloss of internationalism with
little grasp of what the world (and the US) looks like from inside another
culture.

A last word. I doubt that the internet will overcome this parochialism. It
will not dissolve away cultural differences, nor will it provide a
substiute for the hard work of adjusting to the patterns and habits of
living inside another culture.



Professor David E. Nye
Odense University - SDU
Center for American Studies
Campusvej 55
Odense 5230 M     Denmark

Center for American Studies
http://www.sdu.dk/hum/amstud/

Fax 45 65 93 04 90
University telephone (direct dial)00 45 65 50 31 32
nye@hist.sdu.dk

Recent  books

(editor) Technologies of Landscape : From Reaping to Recycling
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558492291/ref=s_e5

Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies
http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262140632

Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture
Columbia UP
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/idx_list.html

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 4 Nov 2001 12:47:03 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Jack Betterly 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender
In-Reply-To:  <003601c164c7$04dac440$68054942@default>
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

    I taught high school history for forty-two years in good independent
schools, and I retired a year and a half ago. In my career I have taught US
History, US AP, European History, European AP, many different area studies
courses, philosophy, athropology, etc. I have had travel and study grants to
India and Japan. My last decades were focused on world history.
    History is taught as a very selective legend. In US, the nation is the
protagonist; in world history, humanity is.
    In the traditional legend of the U.S.A., the world is seen as backdrop.
The fur trade is rarely taught as the crucial impact of knives and glass
beads as products of an expanding, European industrial revolution. It is
taught as heroic tragedy - the heroic but inevitable decline of the Indian
and the awesome individualism and bravado of the fur trapper. The Salem
Witch Trials are not featured as a bizarre comment on the printing press,
one of the first means of mass manufacture.
    US history texts love the epithet "Epic." The Epic of Democracy. The
Epic of Expansion.
    Teaching the history of the United States as a particular facet or
incarnation of world history is an enterprise for which no model yet exists.
It should, and will, but it is early. Being a regional incarnation is quite
a different thing from being a protagonist. It involves a different legend,
a different story.
    Notice that September 11 has not been treated by the public or the media
as simply one more bit of tragic evidence of the growing vulnerability of
industrial infrastructures, the global nature of criminal and/or extreme
political infrastructures, and a footnote on years of poorly handled Middle
Eastern foreign affairs. "America Goes To War!" "Freedom's Responce!"
Courage versus Cowardice. This is epic. It is not history in global context.
    I believe what will bring about the transition will be the blessed,
undying lust of high school students for relevance. School Boards fight this
sort of change. Parents are uneasy. Politicians have apoplexy. Students, on
the other hand, protest the irrelevant with rude comments, snores, skipped
classes and tawdry work. (In the '70s, the growth in peace and war studies
was not the result of faculty, alumni, administrative or board love of
political activism in curriculi. Schools knew they had to be perceived as
relevant or die.)
    How start now, if you are a teacher? First, desire it. Second - run
heavy on newspaper and periodical work. Third - be honest. TELL your
students what you are trying to do. They will be sympathetic.
    When I was a lad in 1948 we were ALL REQUIRED to take a year of
Pennsylvania history. Well, it was already boring and dying, and it is now
an epic which is long dead.
    Change will come. You people will bring it about.
--
   "Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age
writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions
uppermost in its own time."
            - Frederick Jackson Turner

Jack Betterly, Emma Willard School, Emeritus
6350 Eubank Boulevard NE, Apt. #1013
Albuquerque, NM 87111    E-mail: jbetterl@yahoo.com
New Web Site: 



_________________________________________________________
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This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
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Date:         Sun, 4 Nov 2001 14:12:05 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         James Johnson 
Subject:      Re: Opening dialogues on internationalizing US history
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

I'd like to open with a request for validation or clarification on the
nature of internationalized history. As I understand the issue, an
internationalized history seeks to expand the discovery, exposition and
teaching of history to reflect the mutuality of the affects that the events
of US and world histories (and their historiographies?) impose upon the
other.

Regarding Barb Carroll's posting, I tend to agree that "national security"
is often a misguided cover for concealing politically and diplomatically
embarrassing information that would be critical for an internationalized
history. When considering the potential implications of the
behind-the-scenes diplomacy in the Middle East on the eve of the fall of the
USSR, as it relates to our current relationship with Russia and the "War on
terrorism," I am not at all certain that now is the time to release the
information though. Much of that information could tend to provide
"ammunition" for the anti-war effort, and subsequently errode public support
for the war as well (Not that I support the war, as expressed conceptually
by the Bush administration, but, like everyone outside the "loop," I know to
little to "know" what may be right.).

I believe however that such information may be critical to the avoidance of
another 9-11. My dilemma is exacerbated by concern over the potential for
politicians (the President in particular) to abuse their power to conceal
information that may simply be damaging to their partisan interests--ie: the
extent to which the Reagan was involved in the "Contra" affair, and CIA
subversion of the "War on Drugs" during  the USSR-Afghanistan War. I think
these issues are critical for meaningful history, , and demand a re-think of
the open records legislation.

Roy Rosenzweig's posting poses many sub-contextual layers of possibility for
discussion. I cannot begin to enumerate them, but feel certain that they
will emerge. I will however comment on a notion that involves some overlap
with Barb Carroll's posting that seems relevant to the study of history in
general--again, whether viewed in isolation or in an international context.
Though developments in other disciplines--such as language, math and
science--expand, history and historiography compounds generationally.
Comparing the "growth" of history in comparison to other disciplines to the
difference between that of microbes and trees is an analogy that would not
be too outlandish. That said, I submit that the emphasis allowed for the
teaching of history and the subsequent time constraints do not allow for
adequate coverage of history as taught at present, not at least in public
education.

The politics of education will indeed pose significant obstacles to
internationalizing history in public education. Not the least of such
obstacles that my understanding of the concept of internationalized history
in secondary education poses are the "patriotic" requirements that the
states impose on teachers. This problem will be further complicated by the
political nature of our education system, in that teachers tread a fine line
between being perceived as "patriots" and "traitors" themselves. Teachers
who breech the acceptable limits of critical exposition, violating the
historiographic paradigms of their students, parents, administrators and
school boards, too often find themselves confronted by the certainty of
unemployment. Freedom of speech is indeed a fragile right that few teachers
have the liberty to enjoy--even post-public education academia imposes
certain political constraints on speech.

Within the context of my understanding, I applaud the efforts toward
development of an internationalized history. I believe however that the
effort will need to consider more than the development of criteria, and will
need to develop political strategies for its implementation.

J. Johnson,
History Student



_________________________________________________________________
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Date:         Sun, 4 Nov 2001 14:50:29 -0400
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         linda rupert 
Subject:      carrying the fluid of history
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Barb Carroll's point is well taken, but we do have to categorize and
systematize information in some way to begin to make sense of the huge
amount of history there is. As soon as we drop all adjectives and reference
points and simply say we are teaching "history" then we are refusing to
acknowledge the choices that we inevitably make in what to include and what
to leave out. There is just no way we can teach it all, and it is highly
irresponsible to pretend that we can. Rather than dodge the issue, it seems
to me that we need to face squarely the question of what little piece we are
going to tackle, and what linkages we can make with the other pieces and the
wider picture (a quilt or mosaic metaphor seems appropriate here). In this
process, we should also be honest (but not necessarily apologetic) about
what we are leaving out. I agree with Tom Bender that a national approach is
not a natural or sufficient container to in which to carry the fluid of
history, but it is one way to carry it without spilling it all over
everything, and there is no reason why we can't explore with students what
happens when we pour it into containers of different sizes and shapes. What
changes? What stays the same?

I agree with Tom Bender that a national approach remains both
valid and useful. Perhaps students should also be taught that other
national histories are similarly situated in a wider context, and that they
also overlap with each other. Students should appreciate not only the global
context of US history, but also that it is one among many national
histories. It also
might be fruitful to try to get students to begin to see the complex
relationshp between
mythologies and historical fact in the teaching of US history.

I am excited by the recognition of wide themes and currents that seems to
have contributed to the
development of the trend towards teaching world history. But part of me is
also a bit skeptical.
I don't think we really can teach world history, and I
worry that the downside of focusing exclusively on the wider picture will be
a false
smugness that we really are saying it all, and an evasion of the opportunity
to discuss candidly with our students the fact that certain things are being
left
out, and how these choices are made.

I think Roy Rosenzweig touches on a fundamental point that we must address
in the process of inserting US history into World History. Can we indeed
envision a world history curriculum that incorporates the US without having
it dominate? I think we must.

Linda M. Rupert


-----Original Message-----
From: barbaracarroll 
To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Date: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender


>Hello to everyone, I mustr say that I too found Tom's intro very thought
>provoking. However, I'd like to add another spin to his perspective. Maybe,
>just maybe American History has alienated itself from an international
>bonding of inclusion in world history is because, in my opinion, there is
so
>much history "left out or omitted" from the history itself. It appears that
>American historical facts are based on how much of the facts can or will be
>told. A great deal of th e exclusion can be laid at the feet of  those who
>have the responsiblity to tell the historical facts as they happened ,
>leaving out nothing. But this selected few elect not to do so. Case in
>point: just the other day President Bush "decided " that "he" would not
make
>ex- president Reagan's days in office a matter of public knowledge or used
>as historical events. He cited that  "he" felt that there was information
>within that should not or could not be viewed. History is history, whether
>it is based on negative events or positive ones, the fact of the matter is
,
>it is the story. The history of the US and/or the World cannot exist
without
>each including the other. It should be taught in school under the heading
of
>History, not World or American, just plain, simple history that examines
>every culture, environment, religion, legal system, etc.Or is it that
>American History is thought of in the same realm as the contest we are all
>watching now " The World Series" baseball game, which as we all know is not
>competing against another country, rather, two teams within the US. Why is
>it called the "world Series" ? Barb Carroll
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Thomas Bender" 
>To: 
>Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 11:14 AM
>Subject: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender
>
>
>> Welcome to History Matters and our discussion of transnational
>> dimensions of American history.  While most of the previous topics
>> considered in History Matters have been established fields with
>> considerable literatures, what I hope to discuss is not so much a field
>> as an emerging orientation to the teaching and writing of American
>> history.  Recently historians have been recognizing the permeability of
>> national boundaries; they have been using a rather simple and quite
>> empirical formula to practice this history:  reject the assumption of the
>> nation as container and follow the people, the money, the
>> knowledges, and the things wherever they go. It is the challenge of
>> such an approach to American history that we will explore.
>>
>> Today's students, whether in high school or college, are increasingly
>> aware of living within a plenitude of histories--some smaller than the
>> nation (the neighborhood, for example), some larger (a global kinship
>> network, for example). A transnational approach to American history
>> resonates with their experience. Does it then make sense to try to
>> persuade students that American history is singular and wholly
>> contained within the territorial boundaries of the formal sovereignty of
>> the United States.
>>
>> American history has always been embedded in histories larger than
>> itself.  And this has become all too clear, and tragically so, with the
>> events of September 11, 2001.  It is time, I think, to work toward an
>> opening of American history (and American political and cultural
>> discourse) out toward the world. Only that way can we educate our
>> students to recognize our place within and in relation to the histories
>> of that world.
>>
>> At the K-12 level, particularly, it is important to rethink the relation
>of
>> American history to world history. One of the important developments
>> in history teaching in the United States has been the decisions by
>> various state and local school authorities to require world history.  If
>> the intention is to produce a more cosmopolitan and tolerant citizenry,
>> the characteristic segregation of world history from American history
>> undermines that goal.  Too often they are mutually exclusive curricula,
>> thus re-enforcing the very isolation and sense of self-containment that
>> the reform is designed to overcome. U.S. history is seldom included in
>> world history courses, at least until the twentieth century.  And
>> Americanists tend to exclude the world, save for a lecture or chapter
>> on immigration or foreign affairs. World history, like the international,
>> is always "over there."  The point is to practice and teach a history
that
>> recognizes that we are a part of the abroad and vice versa.
>>
>> At the heart of this enterprise for me is a particular conception of
>> historical knowledge: I believe that the special contribution of our
>> discipline to knowledge derives from our capacity to place human
>> experience and meanings into contexts, contexts of space and time.
>> Treating the nation as the natural or sufficient container of history
>> unnecessarily truncates that context and limits that work.
>>
>> It should be clear that my position on the matter is a moderate one.
>> There are those who wish to move beyond the nation, to postnational
>> histories. That time may come; for myself, however, it seems likely that
>> for a while yet the nation will be with us and important for the lives of
>> Americans. For me, then, the move to transnational themes is to better
>> explain the ideas and events that constitute the experience of
>> Americans (including those aspects that extend beyond the formal
>> territory of the United States, whether in practice or in the imagination
>> of Americans and others).
>>
>> Transnational, comparative, and global perspectives seem useful for
>> two reasons: first, such a history better fits the actual lived
experience
>> of those we identify as Americans; second, it will better prepare us for
>> the global experience of our own times.
>>
>> Toward this end, I call to your attention the joint NYU-OAH "Project on
>> Internationalizing the Study of American History."  This project, which
>> involved both U.S. based historians of the United States and scholars
>> from abroad, sought to identify the issues and possibilities of such
>> histories. Two  products emerged from that work.  The first is a "report
>> to the profession," called The La Pietra Report (2000). It "makes the
>> case" for widening the "territory" of American history, and it explores
>> curricular changes that seem to be implied by such an approach to
>> American history. The Report was mailed to all members of the
>> Organization of American Historians last spring, but those who do not
>> have it at hand may see it (as well as the three annual reports that
>> preceded it) at two websites:
>> www.oah.org/activities/lapietra/index.html and
>> www.nyu.edu/gsas/icas/past.htm.
>>
>> In addition, a partial collection of the papers written for the project
>are
>> being published in book form:  Thomas Bender, ed. Rethinking
>> American History in a Global Age (University of California Press,
>> forthcoming, March 2002).
>>
>> Of course, U.S. historians cannot and should not suddenly become
>> global historians.   But they should recognize the globe as a context
>> and domain of relations that partially explain American history.  The
>> conversations we have here will enable us, I hope, to explore different
>> and more limited ways of making the point that all aspects and
>> periods of American history have a transnational dimension to them.
>> Particular events or themes may lend themselves better than others to
>> illustrate this point, and we may want to identify those events or
>> themes that clarify the transnational aspects of American history.
>>
>> Much of what I have written above is unfortunately fairly abstract. Yet
>> many experiments in teaching and writing in this new key have been
>> undertaken. Therefore, I hope those who have brought a transnational
>> dimension into their courses will share that information with us all. It
>> will help everyone to learn more about what is actually being done
>> and, perhaps, how it can be done.
>>
>> Thomas Bender
>> Director
>> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
>> and
>> Department of History
>> New York University
>> 53 Washington Square South
>> New York, NY 10012
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

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Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 12:56:29 +1100
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Ian Tyrrell 
Subject:      U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Roy's question appears to be pitched at a response from within the US. Are
these matters treated differently outside the US? World history is pretty
much an American invention. Outside the US, any nation would study the
world as including US history, you might think. However because Americans
have largely invented world history, it doesn't necessarily work out this
way. If there are other non-Americans on the list apart from me, they might
want to comment on this.

In my university an American academic, an expert on the history of China,
introduced a first year introductory world history course and there is some
history of the European invasion of the western hemisphere and the period
up to the revolutions of the late 18th century Atlantic world in that
course.   An upper level world history in the twentieth century course also
includes material  on the cold war and other aspects of modern
international relations.  That of course  means the US as well as other
powers.

I am struck by the way world history sometimes marginalises the US
contribution when this is done in the land of the concept's origin (perhaps
for the reasons that Roy Rosenzweig mentions). Part of the problem however
would be the same as here-the competition for space within such a course in
a crowded curriculum. When the ancient civilisations of, for example
Persia, are rapidly passed over (one lecturer told me he had to do three
such case studies in a week), there are differing views as to how much
space ought to be given to the US.

Though world history is not much taught in Australia, David Christian, now
based at SD State, was an innovator in this field in Australia. He might be
interested in contributing to the forum, though his area of specialisation
is Russian history.

Best regards to all,

Ian Tyrrell


Professor Ian Tyrrell
Head,
School of History
Director,
Centre for Community History

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:30:19 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Erika Dreifus 
Subject:      Re: U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum
In-Reply-To:  
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I am finding this forum extremely interesting, and am particularly
intrigued by Ian Tyrrell's most recent posting, which has
crystallized what I think I find most challenging as someone trained
in French history working in an American university.

Professor Tyrrell's comment that "Outside the US, any nation would
study the world as including US history" helped me begin to
formulate, at last, the essence of the problem I've been struggling
with for too long:  I think that outside the US, any nation would
study itself as part of the world.

My experience is that when one studies French history, or many other
national histories (non-U.S.), the "international" seems inherently
part of the picture.  Foreign wars, imperialism, diplomatic
relations=8Ajust to start.  It is nearly impossible to imagine
historians of France or any other country outside the United States
having studied only domestic politics and culture, or conveying only
that kind of material to undergraduates.

This does not, however, seem to be the approach taken by some
Americanists in a parallel context.  I don't think I need to convince
this forum of the pedagogical problems of such a limited perspective.
But how do we convince others?

Again, thanks to everyone for these illuminating exchanges.

Sincerely,
Erika Dreifus
Lecturer on History and Literature
Harvard University
Barker Center 122
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
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I am finding this forum extremely interesting, and am
particularly intrigued by Ian Tyrrell's most recent posting, which
has crystallized what I think I find most challenging as someone
trained in French history working in an American university.


Professor Tyrrell's comment that "Outside the US, any
nation would study the world as including US history" helped me
begin to formulate, at last, the essence of the problem I've been
struggling with for too long:  I think that outside the US, any
nation would study itself as part of the world. 


My experience is that when one studies French history, or many
other national histories (non-U.S.), the "international"
seems inherently part of the picture.  Foreign wars,
imperialism, diplomatic relations=8Ajust to start.  It is nearly
impossible to imagine historians of France or any other country
outside the United States having studied only domestic
politics and culture, or conveying only that kind of material
to undergraduates. 


This does not, however, seem to be the approach taken by some
Americanists in a parallel context.  I don't think I need to
convince this forum of the pedagogical problems of such a
limited perspective.  But how do we convince others?


Again, thanks to everyone for these illuminating exchanges.


Sincerely,
Erika Dreifus
Lecturer on History and Literature
Harvard University
Barker Center 122
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA


--============_-1207191475==_ma============--

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
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Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 09:59:28 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         champa patel 
Subject:      Re: U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

Hello all

Much like Erika Dreifus I too am finding this forum very interesting and
agree with her that outside of the US nations would study itself as part of
the world but I would argue that in the West they would still retain a
certain westerncentricness - for lack of a more succint word! I am in a very
different position to the respondents to date in that I am a Phd candidate
working with in an American Studies department in England but the area of my
research is a transnational enquiry into the Civil Rights movements of the
1960s placing them within larger discourses of freedom emerging from the
so-called Third World nations and considering the political ramifications of
such a relationship and affiliation. In the UK at least, there is a growing
body of literature on the need to open up the rubric of 'American Studies,'
which discuss the adavantages and fallacies of such a position but very
little actual case studies employing such a internationalist framework.

However, I am also a member of an NGO that provides alternative education
for primarily young African/African-Caribbean and Asian people in the UK,
that seeks to encourage understanding and better relations between these
groups. In this setting, and with the audience that we have, we cannot
overload them with information but we try and provide historical narratives
to them that illustrate the commonalities between differing diasporic groups
histories. The problem we face is that white communities still remain their
other. At the recent UN World Conference against Racism in South Africa,
educationalists from all over the world met to discuss such issues as this
forum raises although the emphasis was much more on the human rights aspects
of education. It is interesting how many of the same points are raised
through this forum as was discussed at the conference. If people are
interested I can post the blueprint on education that the NGO community and
the Governments produced, although like I mentioned earlier, it was much
more focused on the intersectionality between mainstream education and human
rights education.

I guess what I am trying to say is, particularly for those of us raised in
the West but of immgrant parents, what happens when you displace that
Westerncentricness which is not just evident in US history but most national
historical narratives in the West? I say this as someone struggling to write
a history that draws on differing histories without trying to privilege the
national narratives of any one nation-state. Is this ultimately impossible
perhaps? I am not sure of the answers.

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy posting. I look forward to reading more of
what you all think out there.

Champa Patel
National Black Youth Forum
England.

>From: Erika Dreifus 
>Reply-To: "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
>
>To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum
>Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 22:30:19 -0500
>
>
>I am finding this forum extremely interesting, and am particularly
>intrigued by Ian Tyrrell's most recent posting, which has
>crystallized what I think I find most challenging as someone trained
>in French history working in an American university.
>
>Professor Tyrrell's comment that "Outside the US, any nation would
>study the world as including US history" helped me begin to
>formulate, at last, the essence of the problem I've been struggling
>with for too long:  I think that outside the US, any nation would
>study itself as part of the world.
>
>My experience is that when one studies French history, or many other
>national histories (non-U.S.), the "international" seems inherently
>part of the picture.  Foreign wars, imperialism, diplomatic
>relations just to start.  It is nearly impossible to imagine
>historians of France or any other country outside the United States
>having studied only domestic politics and culture, or conveying only
>that kind of material to undergraduates.
>
>This does not, however, seem to be the approach taken by some
>Americanists in a parallel context.  I don't think I need to convince
>this forum of the pedagogical problems of such a limited perspective.
>But how do we convince others?
>
>Again, thanks to everyone for these illuminating exchanges.
>
>Sincerely,
>Erika Dreifus
>Lecturer on History and Literature
>Harvard University
>Barker Center 122
>12 Quincy Street
>Cambridge, MA 02138
>USA


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 11:29:19 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         "Harry L. Watson" 
Organization: University of North Carolina
Subject:      Re: US History versus/and World History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Roy has raised good points, but I think there are valid ways to defend
Tom Bender's moderate position.  I assume that teaching is for the
students, not the teacher.  That means that you have to start where the
students are and hope to bring them somewhere else by the time they move
on.  That also means that teaching must be adapted to the student
population; you can't successfully teach the exact same history course
to Americans and far-distant others just as if it were calculus or
geometry.  Since history, memory, and identity are so closely
intertwined, moreover, teaching students their own national history will
always have a different emotional and cultural valence than teaching
them someone else's. Generally speaking I don't see any reason why the
teacher can or should try to get around these fundamental conditions,
but various kinds of ad hoc adjustments can and should be made where the
student body is very diverse, with little prior experience in common
with each other.

At my institution and most of those in the US, the overwhelming majority
of students are native born Americans.  The nation state looms very
large in their experience, to put it mildly, and most of them will spend
most of their lives within it. Acquiring a comparative or transnational
perspective will thus be a gradual process for them at best.  I would
therefore try to mix the US and the non US experience into all
introductory courses where possible in order to give them a point of
reference.  And I wouldn't try to abolish the US survey course on the
pretense that the nation state no longer matters; students whose whole
public awareness revolves around this nation state will never believe
that, and I don't believe it myself.  How could anybody credibly explain
the current American war in Afghanistan  without drawing on American
national history, specifically on concepts of mission, manhood, national
identity, Manifest Destiny, Indian wars, interpretations of "Munich" and
the Cold War, the Vietnam Syndrome, and so on?  We'll have much more
success persuading our students that this nation state matters and so do
many others than to argue that the nation state is now irrelevant.

As for excluding the US from world history because it makes non-US
historians uncomfortable, I would say two things.  1) Since teaching is
about the students and not the teacher, those who teach Americans but
feel uncomfortable about including America should put their feelings
aside, or acknowledge them and include America anyway, at least in the
classroom if not in their research, because their American students need
at least some familiar references even if the teachers don't. 2)  The
reality of the contemporary world is that America is like the elephant
in the living room.  It obviously makes the non-Americans uncomfortable
and for good reason, but that's no reason not to talk about it.  In the
end, our teaching should be about reality and not just about our
feelings.

Harry Watson
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Roy   wrote:
>
>         I had two questions provoked by Tom's very thoughtful
> introductory statement
>
>         1. U.S history *in* World History: I was recently working on
> a world history  project and we consciously excluded the US on the
> grounds that those who taught non-US would feel like US history was
> pushing out those stories/histories. What is experience of those on
> list on inclusion of US history in world history courses?
>
>         2. World History v. US history: Tom takes, as he says, a
> "moderate" position, rejecting the postnational argument against
> nation-based history. Do people on list have experiences with campus
> discussions in which the case *was* made to abandon the
> nation-centric approach and, hence, courses like U.S. history survey?
> Has this happened in places? Has the nation-state faired better in
> teaching than in scholarship?
>
> best,
> Roy
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

--
Harry Watson
Professor of History
Director, UNC Center for the Study of the American South
(919) 962-5436

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
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Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 12:32:30 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         "Nancy L. Zens" 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender

As one of two historians, I teach the U.S. sequence at Central Oregon
Community College and Western Hemisphere topics, while my counterpart
teaches the Western Civilization, East Asian, and World History sequences.
When I initially started teaching the sequence, the concentration was on
political, military, economic, and international issues.  I found myself
over the years moving toward including more cultural and social issues.  I
joined this discussion because I continue to struggle to place the U.S. in
a global perspective but find the time factor as well as student skills, a
continuing problem.
     One of the most basic premises of my U.S. sequence is that the U.S.
started as a very insignificant nation, with significant problems and an
unsure future. The issue was not whether the nation was a big power, but
whether it would survive at all.  Then in the 20th century, WWI seemed to
answer the question about whether the U.S. wanted to be a "Big Power" with
a resounding no - international markets were desired, involvement in some
type of balance of power was not.  WWII and atomic power changed that, but
the U.S. developed its muscle more along the lines of major European powers
prior to WWII rather than according to its own ideals.  The problem of what
to present, what to omit, what to encourage students to pursue on their own
remains a constant struggle. The course has built in limits based on time,
but also on my own background and historical interests.  Each year there
are 100s of books and even more articles that I can't wait to read, let
alone the 1,000s that I probably should read to stay reasonably informed
and up-to-date.  A teaching load of 45 credits (15 courses a year) limits
the possibilities.
     Among other things that I would love to gain from this discussion is a
reading list of the best new works dealing with the U.S. through a global
perspective.  I would also like information on the best web sites or
discussion areas to pursue this topic once this month's forum ends.
    At the present, during the colonial and early national period, the
dependence on international issues seems particularly significant.  Slavery
makes little sense to me except in a global perspective.  The impact of
religious antagonisms, the unusual Salem witch trials, growth of religious
colonies as Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania, even the choices by
native peoples in supporting the French or the English become clearer when
placed in global perspective.  The successful Revolutionary War becomes
more significant in comparison to 18th, 19th, and 20th century civil wars.
Early national problems with taxes, political freedom, a weak economy,
tensions from the French Revolution, etc. demonstrate how the early
development of the U.S. was similar to the struggle of new nations in the
20th century.
     During the 19th century there are the issues of aggressive expansion
to the Pacific, the impact of Britain, France, and Mexico on the Civil War,
and "lessons learned abroad" by American industrialists on how to succeed
in business and how to control labor and government.  As for the 20th
century, the list of international impacts on the U.S. as well as attempts
of the U.S. to impact the world, seem to increase each decade.
     The constant problem for me is how to place the U.S. appropriately in
a global perspective while using the U.S. as a specific location where
historic events occurred, so that students can see how specific examples
demonstrate (or do not demonstrate) broad global trends.  I can see big
historic generalizations driving U.S. history, but to me there still needs
to be the specific examples that encourage a student to understand that
questions like "how", "where", "when" show similarities and differences
between nations and time periods.
     So, with the continuing challenge that student experiences and
interests are local and time specific, what tactics are you using to
broaden horizons? What topics are your students most interested in?  How do
you get over the initial reaction that as Americans, students already know
their history, so your class is going to be just one more boring repetition
of material that is more interesting at the movies?
Nancy Zens, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History

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Date:         Wed, 1 Aug 2001 05:39:52 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         PadmaRang 
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Subject:      Re: carrying the fluid of history

Dear colleagues:
Like all the others in this forum, I found the introductory statement and
the ensuing responses in this discussion extremely interesting.  It warms my
heart to know how many others are struggling with the same issues that have
plagued me in my student days and teaching career.

I teach American immigration history and world history courses from a
perspective that is hardly unique but certainly particular to my own
experience as an immigrant from India to the United States. My Ph. D is in
American history with minors in South Asian civilization and Immigration
history (my dissertation was on Indian Immigrants in Chicago), but even as I
chose my topics of graduate study, I realized that even a subject like
immigration history, which is inherently and unavoidably international in
nature, is largely written and taught from an America-centric perspective.
(America is the land of opportunity, what is always important is what
happens to immigrants after they get here, and the world of origin of the
immigrant merits no more than a cursory introductory  treatment).

I teach World history through the Indian diaspora (I prefer the term
"oikumene" or ecumene to "diaspora", since it conveys the notion of an
interconnected household, not merely an exile), and by talking of Indians
who are scattered all over the globe, I connect their personal histories to
the histories of the country whence they came (which is not always India
since it was their ancestors who left India in the 19th century and they
themselves never went back) and the countries in which they are settled.

I teach US Immigration history from a similar international perspective. An
Asian American Immigration history curriculum that I wrote for high schools
(published by OAH) examines world events as forces influencing migration to
America as much as events in the US.

Much as I favor the international perspective, I believe it is only one of
the many perspectives from which to teach US history or any other history.
I agree wholeheartedly with Prof. Thomas Bender and others that we are far
from doing away with nationalist history (it has its own strengths and
appeals to our need to belong and be rooted in a particular time and place)
but as long as we point out that it is only one of many ways in which to
approach history, we are not limiting ourselves or our students. .   As
Linda Rupert put it so well "there is just no way we can teach it all" and
once we acknowledge that, teaching history as "a slice of life" rather than
the "whole pie" becomes much more enjoyable and less onerous.

It is never too early to tell our students that history is written by
historians who have their inevitable biases, their strengths and
limitations.  Historians are a product of their own nature and their own
unique experience. And the more (his)stories we hear, the more wisely we can
tell (his)tories.  The validity of one history does not negate or undermine
the validity of another, it merely adds to our understanding of
possibilities.

The hard part is, especially when dealing with very young minds in the
secondary school stage:  In our need to structure and categorize and analyze
in order to understand, do we begin with the narrower givens (the
nationalist histories) and open up later to the broader possibilities (the
global/thematic/issue-oriented histories), or vice versa?  Is one approach
better than another?  Is there a good way to "mix it all up"?  I'm not sure.
The only rule I'm comfortable with is: Be inclusive.

Padma Rangaswamy
Visitng Professor/History Dept
University of Illinois at Chicago

----- Original Message -----
From: "linda rupert" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: carrying the fluid of history


> Barb Carroll's point is well taken, but we do have to categorize and
> systematize information in some way to begin to make sense of the huge
> amount of history there is. As soon as we drop all adjectives and
reference
> points and simply say we are teaching "history" then we are refusing to
> acknowledge the choices that we inevitably make in what to include and
what
> to leave out. There is just no way we can teach it all, and it is highly
> irresponsible to pretend that we can. Rather than dodge the issue, it
seems
> to me that we need to face squarely the question of what little piece we
are
> going to tackle, and what linkages we can make with the other pieces and
the
> wider picture (a quilt or mosaic metaphor seems appropriate here). In this
> process, we should also be honest (but not necessarily apologetic) about
> what we are leaving out. I agree with Tom Bender that a national approach
is
> not a natural or sufficient container to in which to carry the fluid of
> history, but it is one way to carry it without spilling it all over
> everything, and there is no reason why we can't explore with students what
> happens when we pour it into containers of different sizes and shapes.
What
> changes? What stays the same?
>
> I agree with Tom Bender that a national approach remains both
> valid and useful. Perhaps students should also be taught that other
> national histories are similarly situated in a wider context, and that
they
> also overlap with each other. Students should appreciate not only the
global
> context of US history, but also that it is one among many national
> histories. It also
> might be fruitful to try to get students to begin to see the complex
> relationshp between
> mythologies and historical fact in the teaching of US history.
>
> I am excited by the recognition of wide themes and currents that seems to
> have contributed to the
> development of the trend towards teaching world history. But part of me is
> also a bit skeptical.
> I don't think we really can teach world history, and I
> worry that the downside of focusing exclusively on the wider picture will
be
> a false
> smugness that we really are saying it all, and an evasion of the
opportunity
> to discuss candidly with our students the fact that certain things are
being
> left
> out, and how these choices are made.
>
> I think Roy Rosenzweig touches on a fundamental point that we must address
> in the process of inserting US history into World History. Can we indeed
> envision a world history curriculum that incorporates the US without
having
> it dominate? I think we must.
>
> Linda M. Rupert
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: barbaracarroll 
> To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> 
> Date: Sunday, November 04, 2001 10:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender
>
>
> >Hello to everyone, I mustr say that I too found Tom's intro very thought
> >provoking. However, I'd like to add another spin to his perspective.
Maybe,
> >just maybe American History has alienated itself from an international
> >bonding of inclusion in world history is because, in my opinion, there is
> so
> >much history "left out or omitted" from the history itself. It appears
that
> >American historical facts are based on how much of the facts can or will
be
> >told. A great deal of th e exclusion can be laid at the feet of  those
who
> >have the responsiblity to tell the historical facts as they happened ,
> >leaving out nothing. But this selected few elect not to do so. Case in
> >point: just the other day President Bush "decided " that "he" would not
> make
> >ex- president Reagan's days in office a matter of public knowledge or
used
> >as historical events. He cited that  "he" felt that there was information
> >within that should not or could not be viewed. History is history,
whether
> >it is based on negative events or positive ones, the fact of the matter
is
> ,
> >it is the story. The history of the US and/or the World cannot exist
> without
> >each including the other. It should be taught in school under the heading
> of
> >History, not World or American, just plain, simple history that examines
> >every culture, environment, religion, legal system, etc.Or is it that
> >American History is thought of in the same realm as the contest we are
all
> >watching now " The World Series" baseball game, which as we all know is
not
> >competing against another country, rather, two teams within the US. Why
is
> >it called the "world Series" ? Barb Carroll
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Thomas Bender" 
> >To: 
> >Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 11:14 AM
> >Subject: Introductory Statement from Thomas Bender
> >
> >
> >> Welcome to History Matters and our discussion of transnational
> >> dimensions of American history.  While most of the previous topics
> >> considered in History Matters have been established fields with
> >> considerable literatures, what I hope to discuss is not so much a field
> >> as an emerging orientation to the teaching and writing of American
> >> history.  Recently historians have been recognizing the permeability of
> >> national boundaries; they have been using a rather simple and quite
> >> empirical formula to practice this history:  reject the assumption of
the
> >> nation as container and follow the people, the money, the
> >> knowledges, and the things wherever they go. It is the challenge of
> >> such an approach to American history that we will explore.
> >>
> >> Today's students, whether in high school or college, are increasingly
> >> aware of living within a plenitude of histories--some smaller than the
> >> nation (the neighborhood, for example), some larger (a global kinship
> >> network, for example). A transnational approach to American history
> >> resonates with their experience. Does it then make sense to try to
> >> persuade students that American history is singular and wholly
> >> contained within the territorial boundaries of the formal sovereignty
of
> >> the United States.
> >>
> >> American history has always been embedded in histories larger than
> >> itself.  And this has become all too clear, and tragically so, with the
> >> events of September 11, 2001.  It is time, I think, to work toward an
> >> opening of American history (and American political and cultural
> >> discourse) out toward the world. Only that way can we educate our
> >> students to recognize our place within and in relation to the histories
> >> of that world.
> >>
> >> At the K-12 level, particularly, it is important to rethink the
relation
> >of
> >> American history to world history. One of the important developments
> >> in history teaching in the United States has been the decisions by
> >> various state and local school authorities to require world history.
If
> >> the intention is to produce a more cosmopolitan and tolerant citizenry,
> >> the characteristic segregation of world history from American history
> >> undermines that goal.  Too often they are mutually exclusive curricula,
> >> thus re-enforcing the very isolation and sense of self-containment that
> >> the reform is designed to overcome. U.S. history is seldom included in
> >> world history courses, at least until the twentieth century.  And
> >> Americanists tend to exclude the world, save for a lecture or chapter
> >> on immigration or foreign affairs. World history, like the
international,
> >> is always "over there."  The point is to practice and teach a history
> that
> >> recognizes that we are a part of the abroad and vice versa.
> >>
> >> At the heart of this enterprise for me is a particular conception of
> >> historical knowledge: I believe that the special contribution of our
> >> discipline to knowledge derives from our capacity to place human
> >> experience and meanings into contexts, contexts of space and time.
> >> Treating the nation as the natural or sufficient container of history
> >> unnecessarily truncates that context and limits that work.
> >>
> >> It should be clear that my position on the matter is a moderate one.
> >> There are those who wish to move beyond the nation, to postnational
> >> histories. That time may come; for myself, however, it seems likely
that
> >> for a while yet the nation will be with us and important for the lives
of
> >> Americans. For me, then, the move to transnational themes is to better
> >> explain the ideas and events that constitute the experience of
> >> Americans (including those aspects that extend beyond the formal
> >> territory of the United States, whether in practice or in the
imagination
> >> of Americans and others).
> >>
> >> Transnational, comparative, and global perspectives seem useful for
> >> two reasons: first, such a history better fits the actual lived
> experience
> >> of those we identify as Americans; second, it will better prepare us
for
> >> the global experience of our own times.
> >>
> >> Toward this end, I call to your attention the joint NYU-OAH "Project on
> >> Internationalizing the Study of American History."  This project, which
> >> involved both U.S. based historians of the United States and scholars
> >> from abroad, sought to identify the issues and possibilities of such
> >> histories. Two  products emerged from that work.  The first is a
"report
> >> to the profession," called The La Pietra Report (2000). It "makes the
> >> case" for widening the "territory" of American history, and it explores
> >> curricular changes that seem to be implied by such an approach to
> >> American history. The Report was mailed to all members of the
> >> Organization of American Historians last spring, but those who do not
> >> have it at hand may see it (as well as the three annual reports that
> >> preceded it) at two websites:
> >> www.oah.org/activities/lapietra/index.html and
> >> www.nyu.edu/gsas/icas/past.htm.
> >>
> >> In addition, a partial collection of the papers written for the project
> >are
> >> being published in book form:  Thomas Bender, ed. Rethinking
> >> American History in a Global Age (University of California Press,
> >> forthcoming, March 2002).
> >>
> >> Of course, U.S. historians cannot and should not suddenly become
> >> global historians.   But they should recognize the globe as a context
> >> and domain of relations that partially explain American history.  The
> >> conversations we have here will enable us, I hope, to explore different
> >> and more limited ways of making the point that all aspects and
> >> periods of American history have a transnational dimension to them.
> >> Particular events or themes may lend themselves better than others to
> >> illustrate this point, and we may want to identify those events or
> >> themes that clarify the transnational aspects of American history.
> >>
> >> Much of what I have written above is unfortunately fairly abstract. Yet
> >> many experiments in teaching and writing in this new key have been
> >> undertaken. Therefore, I hope those who have brought a transnational
> >> dimension into their courses will share that information with us all.
It
> >> will help everyone to learn more about what is actually being done
> >> and, perhaps, how it can be done.
> >>
> >> Thomas Bender
> >> Director
> >> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
> >> and
> >> Department of History
> >> New York University
> >> 53 Washington Square South
> >> New York, NY 10012
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
at
> >http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
> >
> >
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 13:49:31 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Jennifer Brooks 
Subject:      Re: US History versus/and World History
In-Reply-To:  <3BE6BE5F.E4ABEE28@email.unc.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

As an Americanist but a relative newcomer to the ongoing effort to
internationalize the teaching of US history, I have a couple of points or
questions that I hope will be relevant and provoke some response.

First, if we move away from teaching "national" histories, aren't we then
teaching "universalist" history? And if that is the case, which universal
standards would we be using? Would a "Braudelian" approach that emphasizes
the long and seemingly universal evolution of historical trends resolve this?

Second, I think the primary problem with perpetuating
nationalism-as-history lies more at the secondary ed. level than at the
university, college level---the uproar over the effort to develop and
implement national history standards in the 1990s comes to mind.

And finally, I am so concerned about most of my students learning ANY
history, especially the story of their own past, that it is hard to imagine
tackling the US survey in a seriously global perspective. How have others
confronted the serious lack of knowledge students today have about even
their own history while attempting to introduce them to the American story
in a more global framework?

Hope this makes sense!

Jennifer E. Brooks
Assistant Professor of Commons and History
Tusculum College
P.O. 5057
Greeneville, TN  37743
(423)636-7300 x658
jbrooks@tusculum.edu





At 11:29 AM 11/5/01 -0500, Harry L. Watson wrote:
>Roy has raised good points, but I think there are valid ways to defend
>Tom Bender's moderate position.  I assume that teaching is for the
>students, not the teacher.  That means that you have to start where the
>students are and hope to bring them somewhere else by the time they move
>on.  That also means that teaching must be adapted to the student
>population; you can't successfully teach the exact same history course
>to Americans and far-distant others just as if it were calculus or
>geometry.  Since history, memory, and identity are so closely
>intertwined, moreover, teaching students their own national history will
>always have a different emotional and cultural valence than teaching
>them someone else's. Generally speaking I don't see any reason why the
>teacher can or should try to get around these fundamental conditions,
>but various kinds of ad hoc adjustments can and should be made where the
>student body is very diverse, with little prior experience in common
>with each other.
>
>At my institution and most of those in the US, the overwhelming majority
>of students are native born Americans.  The nation state looms very
>large in their experience, to put it mildly, and most of them will spend
>most of their lives within it. Acquiring a comparative or transnational
>perspective will thus be a gradual process for them at best.  I would
>therefore try to mix the US and the non US experience into all
>introductory courses where possible in order to give them a point of
>reference.  And I wouldn't try to abolish the US survey course on the
>pretense that the nation state no longer matters; students whose whole
>public awareness revolves around this nation state will never believe
>that, and I don't believe it myself.  How could anybody credibly explain
>the current American war in Afghanistan  without drawing on American
>national history, specifically on concepts of mission, manhood, national
>identity, Manifest Destiny, Indian wars, interpretations of "Munich" and
>the Cold War, the Vietnam Syndrome, and so on?  We'll have much more
>success persuading our students that this nation state matters and so do
>many others than to argue that the nation state is now irrelevant.
>
>As for excluding the US from world history because it makes non-US
>historians uncomfortable, I would say two things.  1) Since teaching is
>about the students and not the teacher, those who teach Americans but
>feel uncomfortable about including America should put their feelings
>aside, or acknowledge them and include America anyway, at least in the
>classroom if not in their research, because their American students need
>at least some familiar references even if the teachers don't. 2)  The
>reality of the contemporary world is that America is like the elephant
>in the living room.  It obviously makes the non-Americans uncomfortable
>and for good reason, but that's no reason not to talk about it.  In the
>end, our teaching should be about reality and not just about our
>feelings.
>
>Harry Watson
>University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>
>Roy   wrote:
>>
>>         I had two questions provoked by Tom's very thoughtful
>> introductory statement
>>
>>         1. U.S history *in* World History: I was recently working on
>> a world history  project and we consciously excluded the US on the
>> grounds that those who taught non-US would feel like US history was
>> pushing out those stories/histories. What is experience of those on
>> list on inclusion of US history in world history courses?
>>
>>         2. World History v. US history: Tom takes, as he says, a
>> "moderate" position, rejecting the postnational argument against
>> nation-based history. Do people on list have experiences with campus
>> discussions in which the case *was* made to abandon the
>> nation-centric approach and, hence, courses like U.S. history survey?
>> Has this happened in places? Has the nation-state faired better in
>> teaching than in scholarship?
>>
>> best,
>> Roy
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>--
>Harry Watson
>Professor of History
>Director, UNC Center for the Study of the American South
>(919) 962-5436
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 12:35:13 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Rich Slatta 
Subject:      Internationalizing by comparing

Thanks to all contributors for a stimulating discussion. Below I've
reproduced a section of an essay that will appear in the Fall 2002 issue of
Journal of the West. It seems to me that a comparative approach is one way
to dissipate some of the us/them US/non-US tension that comes with
internationalizing efforts. You'll also note that I cite several of the
contributors to this list in the fragment below. Best wishes, Rich Slatta

"Rationales for Comparative History"
 Writing in 1982, Peter Kolchin outlined three major functions of
comparative history. "First and most basic, comparison can create an
awareness of alternatives, showing developments to be significant that
without a comparative perspective might not appear so." Second, "scholars
seek to explain historical differences or peculiarities, weighing and
eventually isolating variables responsible for particular conditions."
Finally, "historians seek to recognize common patterns and make historical
generalizations; indeed, it is only through comparison that such
generalizations can be made."1
The fundamental power of a comparative perspective comes from its
illumination of structural and cultural elements. Through comparisons, we
can see similar forces or processes operating in different national
contexts. By observing similar phenomena in different setting, we can
rigorously test a hypothesis. William H. Sewell, Jr., pointed out this
virtue in a 1967 article. "If an historian attributes the appearance of
phenomenon A in one society to the existence of condition B, he can check
this hypothesis by trying to find other societies where A occurs without B
or vice versa."i
 We can clarify the roles of specific variables (culture, economy,
transnational). "Some of the questions that comparativists have difficulty
evading are the extent to which people in comparable circumstances are
impelled by 'idealist' or 'materialist' motives; the appropriateness of such
concepts as class, caste, race, ethnic group, and status group to describe
particular forms of social stratification; and the cross-cultural meaning of
such terms as equality, democracy, fascism, racism, and capitalism. One of
the great values of comparative history is that it forces such issues to the
forefront of consciousness and demands that they be resolved in some fashion
that is neither parochial nor culture-bound."ii
 Comparisons also help to explain the dominant cause of various
processes and events. If, for example, similar economic structures recur in
widely differing cultures, then we can focus our attention on those economic
variables. "William Sewell has claimed that the term comparative history can
have three meanings. First, as with Marc Bloch, it may be a method of
testing hypotheses. Second, it may mean a comparative perspective, which
offsets the historian's tendency toward parochialism. Third, comparative
history may be applied to "studies which make systematic comparisons between
two or more societies and present their results in a comparative
format.'"iii
 Particularly important to historians of the United States,
international comparisons serve as an antidote to exceptionalism,
nationalism, and xenophobia. Most nations have an ethnocentric, "we're
unique," "chosen people" view of the past. Most are wrong. "To limit the
subject of historical study within national boundaries is always to invite
the charge of narrow perspective and historical nationalism."iv  In the past
decade, Ian Tyrrell and George M. Fredrickson, among others, have debated
how best to push beyond the confines of traditional nation-state studies
toward meaningful regional or transnational comparisons.v "Acknowledging the
international context does not mean disregarding the nation as a unit of
analysis," writes Fredrickson. "The most profound insights may come from
showing how the national and international dimensions interact and modify
each other."vi
 Comparative studies, noted C. Van Woodward, "have thrown new light
on old myths, put to comparative test invidious claims of national priority
or excellence, disclosed foreign familiarity with what was often considered
a uniquely American experience, corrected assumptions about the relative
impact of forces that have shaped our history, discovered new or forgotten
bonds of kinship in the common historical experience of other nations,
disproved the validity of commonly accepted parallels or comparisons, and
tested conflicting hypotheses about American history."vii
 A comparative perspective can also serve as an antidote to
over-specialization and parochialism. As Patricia Nelson Limerick reminded
us, "western American history offers a literally world-class basis for
alliances, for building bridges and pooling efforts with fellow
investigators in many other areas of work, in the celebration of the fact
that the same historical case study can be revealing, thought-provoking and
instructive at regional, national, and global levels of meaning. Given this
potential, I am now more than ever convinced that western American history
can play a key role in the recovery from specialization, an affliction that
has come down upon the academic profession with disproportionate force."viii
 Comparisons also help us to identify the cultural/historical roots
of what appear to be national characteristics. The roots of these
characteristics may lie in other parts of the world. Traditional Eurocentric
studies tended to overlook or underestimate the continuing roles and
resistance of indigenous societies under colonialism. In contrast, Robert H.
Jackson and Gregory Maddox compared the creation of identity in colonial
Bolivian and Tanzanian society, exhibiting careful attention to the many
forces and groups at work.ix
By embracing a comparative perspective, the investigator gains a clearer
perspective on one's own society. "There is nothing like studying other
cultures to inspire questions about one's own," writes psychologist Robert
Levine in A Geography of Time. "In a curious way, the outsider's vantage
point leads us to see home with fresh objectivity and insight."x Writing in
1992, David Thelen touted the benefits of comparing historical phenomena in
the United States with those elsewhere in the world. "Shaped by the
practices and debates of other countries, comparative perspectives deepen
our sense of alternatives in the present."xi
 In 2000, the Organization of American Historians issued their "La
Pietra Report," after four years of discussions. "Not all historically
significant forms of power are coterminous with nations. Historical inquiry
must be more sensitive to the relevance of historical processes larger than
the nation. Under the inspiration of social history, historians have in the
past generation become aware of the importance of solidarities and processes
smaller than the nation. Now we must extend our analysis of those histories
to incorporate an awareness of larger, transnational contexts, processes,
and identities."xii
 Comparisons also reveal large-scale transnational processes that
affect many different parts of the world. One logical, cognitive outcome of
this macro-comparative process is world systems analysis. The many works of
Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall have moved the approach well
beyond its initial formulation in 1974 by Emmanuel Wallerstein with The
Modern World System. They provide excellent models for such broad-ranging
and illuminating analysis.xiii
Even analysts not content with the world systems perspective understand that
comparisons provide a helpful, familiar frame of reference to enhance our
understanding of an unfamiliar context. Comparisons can contribute to the
development of grand theory by carefully grounding such theory in empirical
evidence. Comparisons can be "useful in enlarging our theoretical
understanding of the kinds of institutions or processes being compared,
thereby making a contribution to the development of social-scientific
theories and generalizations."xiv Most topics lend themselves to
international comparison, including frontiers (the topic at hand),
revolutions, economic development, slavery and other systems of labor
control, gender roles, immigration and ethnicities, colonialism/
imperialism, warfare, religion, mythologies, and urbanization.

1 Peter Kolchin, "Comparing American History," Reviews in American History,
10: 4 (December 1982): 64-65.
i William H. Sewell, Jr. "Marc Block and the Logic of Comparative History,"
History and Theory, 6: 2 (1967): 208.
ii Fredrickson, "Comparative History," 461.
iii Lamar and Thompson, eds., The Frontier in History, 12.
iv C. Vann Woodward, ed. The Comparative Approach to American History. (New
York: Basic Books, 1968), 3.
vIan Tyrrell, "American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History,"
American Historical Review, 96 (October 1991): 1031-55; George M.
Fredrickson, "From Exceptionalism to Variability: Recent Developments in
Cross-National Comparative History," Journal of American History, 82: 2
(September 1995): 587-604.
vi Fredrickson, "From Exceptionalism," 591.
vii Woodward, Comparative Approach, 348.
viii Patricia Nelson Limerick, "Going West and Ending Up Global," Western
Historical Quarterly, 32: 1 (Spring 2001): 22.
ix Robert H. Jackson and Gregory Maddox, "The Creation of Identity: Colonial
Society in Bolivia and Tanzania," Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 35: 2 (April 1993): 263-84.
x Robert Levine, A Geography of Time: the Temporal Misadventures of a Social
Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently
(New York: Basic Books, 1997), 207.
xi David Thelen, "Audiences, Borderlands, and Comparisons: Toward the
Internationalization of American History," Journal of American History, 79:
2 (September 1992): 444.
xii Thomas Bender, director, "La Pietra Final Report: A Report to the
Profession." (New York: Organization of American States, September 2000).
http://www.oah.org/activities/lapietra/final.html
xiii Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Vol. 1, Capitalist
Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth
Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974); Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas
D. Hall, Rise and Demise: Comparing World Systems (Boulder: Westview Press,
1997); and Thomas D. Hall, ed., A World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on
Gender, Urbanism, Cultures, Indigenous Peoples, and Ecology (Lanham: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2000); see also Journal of World-Systems Research
http://csf.colorado.edu/jwsr/ .
xiv Fredrickson, "Comparative History," 458.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 14:44:09 -0500
Reply-To:     rob.kroes@hum.uva.nl
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         kroes 
Subject:      U.S. History in Global perspective Forum
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Joining the discussion on U.S. History in Global Perspective, I do so
from a vantage point that is of interest in its own right. Normally in
the American Studies program of the University of Amsterdam, I spend
this semester as a visiting Americanist  in the sociology department of
Boston College. It is not the first time I do this. Previously I spent
semesters teaching in American Studies Departments, History Departments,
or Sociology Departments of various universities in the US and Canada.
Whatever the precise setting, in my teaching I always try to bring a
transnational, or comparative, perspective to students who normally tend
to conceive of the topic or theme of a course as bounded, tacitly or
explicitly, by the context of US society or history.
This time my teaching covers two areas: one, the European response to
and reception of forms of American mass culture, and, two, a comparative
analysis of citizenship in a  Europe in transition to becoming a
European Union, an America exploring the implications of
multi-culturalism and globalization, and Canada. The approach in both
courses is transnational, addressing an Atlantic world and the cultural
exchanges taking place inside it. It takes students out of established
frameworks of perception, seen as normal or natural. To most, it comes
as an eye-opening experience.
    I have had a similar experience in Europe since the time that
teaching at European universities really became internationalized,
through Brussels-sponsored exchange programs, through linkages set up
between individual universities, or under any other auspices. There is
no class that I teach now in Amsterdam which is not international in the
composition of its student audience. There again, I have always tried to
have that international composition reflected in the approach to the
topic taught, whether a topic of history, of sociology, or of American
Studies. And always students have responded eagerly to this explosion of
the tacit, or not so tacit, nation-state perspective in our teaching and
reading traditions.

Rob Kroes, University of Amsterdam

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Date:         Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:01:23 +1300
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
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From:         Dolores Janiewski 
Subject:      Americanization or New Zealandisation
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Dear Fellow Discussants,

        As a US trained historian teaching in a New Zealand
university, I occupy a somewhat anomalous position on this list, but
recognize many of the issues previously raised.  It does matter where
the students are located, and there's a certain freedom to teaching
US and international history outside of the US that goes with a
removal from the inward-looking pattern of US history as taught and
understood within the continental empire whose formation was the
basis of the 48 states.  It is absolutely crucial to make US students
see that process as similar to other continental empires, and then to
trace the developed of the US as a Global Power in the 20th Century,
to prepare them to understand events such as occurred in September.
They also need to recognise that what they say is heard and seen far
away, rather than being confined to internal discussions.  A nation
that is both powerful and the centre of the international media
system is one that is both seen, heard, criticized, exposed, admired,
and resented.  Unless students can understand that complex position
and response, they can not really understand what the United States
has come to be.

        I attach a brief interpretation from a longer essay that
looks at the US from the vantage point of one of the smaller
countries on the periphery of American vision, but who sees US on the
screen every day as a contribution to this discussion.   This was
written in 1999 but it doesn't need to be changed very much to convey
the impact of recent events.  It draws upon the work of one of the
contributors to this discussion, Ian Tyrrell, and my own experiences
at the San Pietro discussions in l998.  It's a part of the thinking
that's going into a research project, "Marketing Morality:  The
Campaign to Remoralise New Zealand," which traces ideological flows
from the US, Australia, and UK to New Zealand, and back again.
Students, inside or outside the US, need to understand these
processes or they won't be able to understand the history of the
recent past.




Americanization or New Zealandization?:  New Zealand and the Virtual
American Empire
Dolores E. Janiewski
The extent to which New Zealand has shifted its imperial allegiance
from "mother" Britain to "virtual Uncle Sam" needs to be assessed.
Perhaps, as is claimed by New Zealand's most prominent historian,
James Belich, New Zealand began the process of decolonization in
1973.  New Zealanders may have freed themselves from both "colonial
cringe," avoided the curse of "Americanization," and become an
independent nation rather than merely serving as a transmission point
in a virtual empire. This essay will test the validity of these
competing claims about New Zealand because its current situation may
resemble the circumstances of many contemporary societies. In a
global flow of ideological and cultural transitions, other nations
may be as vulnerable as New Zealand to "virtual" colonization.

        In the context of social transformation from within and
global transformation from without, New Zealanders engaged in
"identity politics" as a defence against the loss of certainty that
came without their estrangement from their imperial past and the
perplexities of their present.  As those familiar with contemporary
scholarly debates will know, cultural politics have engaged the
attention of various peoples around the world in battles between
fundamentalist and modernity, ethnic conflicts, gender conflicts, and
the panoply of issues about subjectivity, identity, and allegiances.
Neither the people of powerful nations nor those among the least
powerful have escaped such confusions.  The dissolution of the Cold
War division of the world has revealed the multiplicity of powers and
players who include multinationals, banks, traders, media
conglomerates, and think tanks that oversee the flow of resources,
ideas, and values around the globe.

        The irony that the U.S. could described as "New Zealandised"
did not occur to those who uncritically consumed the "virtual"
version of the U.S.. American society had been buffeted by the same
global forces as New Zealand as the stagnant incomes or declining
incomes of many Americans may testify.  As students in New Zealand
inquire into the causes of school shootings in the US, they see
forces at work that American media appear unable to recognise.
Across the Pacific, Americans listen to a cacophony of voices,
speaking in American or Canadian accents, committed neither to
promote the "general welfare" of the American people nor to the
health of the nation state.  In a world system increasingly dominated
by megacompanies, media conglomerates played the political game with
rules that they increasingly wrote themselves. Eschewing allegiance
to any nation state, imperial magnates like Rupert Murdoch can easily
undermine a Crown Prince or a president, urge a country into war
"against terrorism," or prod it to make peace.  Exercising "virtual"
power to define situations before diplomats or government officials
can develop policies, they possess power and influence without
responsibility.  In the aftermath of the Cold War, once powerful
nations may assume the position of imperial dependencies.  New
Zealandization might become as likely a fate as "Americanization"
might once have been.

  James Belich, Paradise Reforged:  A History of New Zealand from the
1880s to 2000 (Penguin:  2001); Ian Tyrrell, "Making Nations/Making
States: American Historians in the Context of Empire," Journal of
American History, 86 (Dec. 1999), forthcoming; "Peripheries and World
Empire in Transnational and Comparative History," unpublished, La
Pietra Conference, 8 July l998; "Prohibition, American
CulturalExpansion, and the New Hegemony in the 1920s: An
Interpretation," Histoire Sociale/Social History, 27 (November 1994),
pp. 413-45.

--


~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*+
Dolores E. Janiewski, History/Te Hunga Aro Whakamuri, in the
School of History, Philosophy, Politics & International Relations
Victoria University of Wellington/Te Whare Wananga o te Upoko o te Ika a Maui
P O Box 600  Wellington, New Zealand
64-4-463-6752; Fax:  64-4-463-5261; http://www.vuw.ac.nz/history/
64-4-472-1000, extn 6752; Dolores.Janiewski@vuw.ac.nz
~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*+

"Every contradiction is a conflict of value as well as a conflict of
interest; that inside every 'need' there is an affect, or 'want,' on
its way to becoming an "ought" (and vice versa); that every class
struggle at at the same time a struggle over values." E.P. Thompson,
The Poverty of Theory
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Dear Fellow
Discussants,


       
As a US trained historian teaching in a New Zealand
university, I occupy a somewhat anomalous position on this list, but
recognize many of the issues previously raised.  It does matter
where the students are located, and there's a certain freedom to
teaching US and international history outside of the US that goes with
a removal from the inward-looking pattern of US history as taught and
understood within the continental empire whose formation was the basis
of the 48 states.  It is absolutely crucial to make US students
see that process as similar to other continental empires, and then to
trace the developed of the US as a Global Power in the 20th Century,
to prepare them to understand events such as occurred in September. 
They also need to recognise that what they say is heard and seen far
away, rather than being confined to internal discussions.  A
nation that is both powerful and the centre of the international media
system is one that is both seen, heard, criticized, exposed, admired,
and resented.  Unless students can understand that complex
position and response, they can not really understand what the United
States has come to be.


       
I attach a brief interpretation from a longer essay that looks
at the US from the vantage point of one of the smaller countries on
the periphery of American vision, but who sees US on the screen every
day as a contribution to this discussion.   This was written
in 1999 but it doesn't need to be changed very much to convey the
impact of recent events.  It draws upon the work of one of the
contributors to this discussion, Ian Tyrrell, and my own experiences
at the San Pietro discussions in l998.  It's a part of the
thinking that's going into a research project, "Marketing
Morality:  The Campaign to Remoralise New Zealand," which
traces ideological flows from the US, Australia, and UK to New
Zealand, and back again.    Students, inside or outside
the US, need to understand these processes or they won't be able to
understand the history of the recent past.








Americanization or New Zealandization?:  New
Zealand and the Virtual American Empire
Dolores E.
Janiewski
The extent to which New
Zealand has shifted its imperial allegiance from "mother"
Britain to "virtual Uncle Sam" needs to be assessed. 
Perhaps, as is claimed by New Zealand's most prominent historian,
James Belich, New Zealand began the process of decolonization in
1973.  New Zealanders may have freed themselves from both
"colonial cringe," avoided the curse of
"Americanization," and become an independent nation rather
than merely serving as a transmission point in a virtual empire. This
essay will test the validity of these competing claims about New
Zealand because its current situation may resemble the circumstances
of many contemporary societies. In a global flow of ideological and
cultural transitions, other nations may be as vulnerable as New
Zealand to "virtual" colonization. 


       
In the context of social transformation from within and global
transformation from without, New Zealanders engaged in "identity
politics" as a defence against the loss of certainty that came
without their estrangement from their imperial past and the
perplexities of their present.  As those familiar with
contemporary scholarly debates will know, cultural politics have
engaged the attention of various peoples around the world in battles
between fundamentalist and modernity, ethnic conflicts, gender
conflicts, and the panoply of issues about subjectivity, identity, and
allegiances.  Neither the people of powerful nations nor those
among the least powerful have escaped such confusions.  The
dissolution of the Cold War division of the world has revealed the
multiplicity of powers and players who include multinationals, banks,
traders, media conglomerates, and think tanks that oversee the flow of
resources, ideas, and values around the globe. 


       
The irony that the U.S. could described as "New
Zealandised" did not occur to those who uncritically consumed the
"virtual" version of the U.S.. American society had been
buffeted by the same global forces as New Zealand as the stagnant
incomes or declining incomes of many Americans may testify.  As
students in New Zealand inquire into the causes of school shootings in
the US, they see forces at work that American media appear unable to
recognise.  Across the Pacific, Americans listen to a cacophony
of voices, speaking in American or Canadian accents, committed neither
to promote the "general welfare" of the American people nor
to the health of the nation state.  In a world system
increasingly dominated by megacompanies, media conglomerates played
the political game with rules that they increasingly wrote themselves.
Eschewing allegiance to any nation state, imperial magnates like
Rupert Murdoch can easily undermine a Crown Prince or a president,
urge a country into war "against terrorism," or prod it to
make peace.  Exercising "virtual" power to define
situations before diplomats or government officials can develop
policies, they possess power and influence without responsibility. 
In the aftermath of the Cold War, once powerful nations may assume the
position of imperial dependencies.  New Zealandization might
become as likely a fate as "Americanization" might once have
been.


 James Belich, Paradise Reforged:  A History of
New Zealand from the 1880s to 2000 (Penguin:  2001); Ian
Tyrrell, "Making Nations/Making States: American Historians in
the Context of Empire," Journal of American History, 86
(Dec. 1999), forthcoming; "Peripheries and World Empire in
Transnational and Comparative History," unpublished, La Pietra
Conference, 8 July l998; "Prohibition, American
CulturalExpansion, and the New Hegemony in the 1920s: An
Interpretation," Histoire Sociale/Social History, 27
(November 1994), pp. 413-45.


--





~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*+

Dolores E. Janiewski, History/Te Hunga Aro Whakamuri, in the
School of History, Philosophy, Politics & International
Relations
Victoria University of Wellington/Te Whare Wananga o te Upoko o
te Ika a Maui
P O Box 600  Wellington, New Zealand

64-4-463-6752; Fax:  64-4-463-5261;
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/history/

64-4-472-1000, extn 6752; Dolores.Janiewski@vuw.ac.nz

~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*+



"Every contradiction is a conflict of value as well as a conflict
of interest; that inside every 'need' there is an affect, or 'want,'
on its way to becoming an "ought" (and vice versa); that
every class struggle at at the same time a struggle over values."
E.P. Thompson,  The Poverty of Theory


--============_-1207121211==_ma============--

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 17:33:35 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         David Snyder 
Subject:      Transnational US History
In-Reply-To:  
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Here at Texas A&M, I've repeatedly taught the US survey (both halves but
predominantly second half) to sections composed almost entirely of
international students.  In an attempt to make the course content both more
interesting and more relevant to these students, I began approaching US
history completely within a global context.  I've also carried over the
approach to my (much larger) sections composed of American-born students.
The only real difference between the two courses now is the reading list and
the test format.

Given that my own research in both the history of technology and the history
of US foreign affairs emphasizes world system theory, I've found it actually
quite easy to place the US survey in a transnational context.  I structure
the course around the concepts of peripheral, semi-peripheral, and core
states, using this construction as the framework for analyzing the evolution
of the United States from a peripheral imperial outpost of various European
core states to the emergence of American hegemony in the twentieth century.
Among other things, this approach permits me to explore (and explode) the
myth of American isolationism and point out that the US has always been part
of a larger global economy even before globalization became a buzzword.
About the only real difficulty I've had with this approach is the lack of a
suitable textbook.  All too many US survey texts treat international history
as an adjunct, brought in from time to time as if Americans looked outward
only at specific intervals.  The most consistent negative feedback from
students has been on the issue of a text -- they're generally distressed
that the text and the lectures don't always correlate.  Any lack of
historical awareness on the part of my students is not generally an issue.
In fact, it's often easier to begin anew with them than it is to address
misconceptions. ("Once more, the Civil War was *not* about states'
rights....  Did you read the South Carolina Articles of Secession I
assigned?" can be a constant refrain at times.)  I find geographical
ignorance to be more of a problem than historical ignorance; many of my US
students are appallingly ignorant of American geography, let alone world
geography.  Overcoming presentist thinking is another issue; my US students
especially seem to have problems envisioning that the course of history was
not readily perceptible to the contemporary participants and actors.  This
last difficulty, though, is far from unique to any transnational US
approaches.

I've been able to present US history within a global context, if at times
only a global economic context.  My first half survey classes spend some
time studying the rise of Islam, the emergence of European capitalism, and
the quest for trade with Asia before touching on the more familiar elements
of Iberian exploration, European colonization and native resistance, and the
religious and political struggles of early modern Europe.  Comparative
studies of economic systems, especially slave-based systems follow.
Independence is treated as an imperial and economic issue as much as an
ideological or political one.  The ensuing tension between Jeffersonian
agrarian republicanism and Hamiltonian industrial development informs not
only the emergence of political parties but also the development of
sectionalism and the question of whether the US will remain a peripheral
part of the British economy or establish itself within the core.  As we move
in to the second half, the ultimate triumph of industrialism through the
Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Second Industrial Revolution (with a nod
to the abortive Jeffersonian counter-revolution of the Populists) leads both
to America's entry into the core as well as its supposed post-1898
"awakening" to the existence of a larger outside world beyond North America.
Mass production and mass culture and the resultant cultural imperialism play
a large part in my twentieth century lectures, as does America's rise to
hegemony and its subsequent attempts to defend said hegemony.  If anything,
this approach took on added relevance this September.

As a product of that American hegemony (military and diplomatic brat, born
and reared overseas) studying a key element of that hegemony (the oil
industry, especially the US oil industry), this approach certainly resonates
with me.  And it seems to strike a chord in both my international and
native-born students.  I've even won a teaching award from the International
Studies program here at A&M for my approach to the US survey.  While I'd be
the first to admit that there are some drawbacks to this approach, it does
seem to engage the students' attention no matter what their background.
Moreover, it's been of benefit to me as it has hammered home just how little
of US history really is devoid of an international component or context.
The whole isolationist versus internationalist debate within American
diplomatic historiography seems fairly irrelevant from this perspective.
It's not an issue of Americans dithering over whether or not to engage the
rest of the world but rather over *how* to do so.

One nagging question that remains, at least for me, is how to deal with the
issue of American exceptionalism.  Just as world historians grapple with the
question of Europe's rise and what accounts for its eventual dominance over
the global economy in the nineteenth century, I too find myself wondering
how to account for the US traveling from the fringes of the periphery to the
hegemonic center of the world system.  The concept of American
exceptionalism doesn't sit well with me in general, but it is all too
seductive an explanation for my students when confronted with my approach to
the survey.

In turn, I have to wonder about the impact of the notion of American
exceptionalism on the study of US history both here and abroad.  On the
surface, it seems a good many Americans, professional historians included,
subscribe to the idea.  Most of my international students do not, which in
turn leads me to conclude historians outside the US feel likewise.  Yet the
notion of exceptionalism, if not the actuality, is arguably a force in US
history, a force non-US (and even US) scholars might ignore or deprecate as
jingoistic wishful thinking on the part of American historical actors and
analysts.  After all, even though the leagues competing in the World Series
are based in North America, a fair number of the athletes are Asians or
Latin Americans.  Just because the US is bombastic and jingoistic need not
mean that bombast is always misguided or misplaced.  More importantly, if
knowledge is a social construct, the reality of American exceptionalism is
irrelevant; that some Americans do believe in it and act upon it means it
becomes a historical force in and of itself.  Yet the inability to identify
with the seductive appeal of this construct in turn limits the ability to
comprehend its power.  Is it simply insularity, as David Nye suggests, or is
there a fundamental difference in perception between those in the US and
those outside?  If so, what does that imply for the study of "world" history
in general?

Like Erika Dreifus, I wonder how to engage other Americanists to embrace a
more transnational approach, one that is not merely comparative but instead
places the US fully within a global context (and in turn fully incorporates
the US within that global context).  All too often, it appears as if the
occasional comparative essay or monograph seems to suffice.  It's especially
galling to see some disparage international history as "dead white European
male" history while simultaneously emphasizing race, class, and gender as
the stuff of historical discourse.  Why must we separate the two
perspectives rather than meld them?  Considering that race, class, and
gender are used to study issues of power, why limit that power to a national
context?

Given my own background and life experiences, it is only natural that I
prefer a transnational, even global, approach to US history.  Indeed, it's
hard for me to conceive as US history as anything other than an American
lens through which to view world history either in whole or in part.  Yet my
experiences on the job market lead me to question the degree to which the
majority of other Americanists are willing to embrace a more transnational
approach -- all too often it seems as if globalization is as much a buzzword
within the AHA as it is within the business world.  Those on this list need
not be reminded of the importance of this perspective; yet how do we
convince others to look beyond the


David Snyder

Lecturer
History Department
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843

hokie@tamu.edu
     OR
oil.historian@verizon.net

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 5 Nov 2001 19:42:40 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Catherine Cocks 
Subject:      the problem of language
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Thanks to all the previous contributors for an interesting discussion.  =
Several have mentioned the difficulty many of us face in broadening our =
knowledge beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to =
internationalize the practice and teaching of US history.  One of the =
key problems that many US-reared and trained scholars face is a lack of =
facility in languages other than English.  It seems to me that any =
thoroughgoing internationalization of US history requires a radical =
overhaul of graduate education, including, among other things, rigorous =
foreign-language requirements.  Without the ability to read and speak =
languages other than English, we can't hope to participate meaningfully =
in global scholarship on the US or to pass its insights on to students.
    Catherine Cocks
    Independent Scholar

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Thanks to all the previous contributors =
for an=20
interesting discussion.  Several have mentioned the difficulty many =
of us=20
face in broadening our knowledge beyond traditional disciplinary =
boundaries in=20
order to internationalize the practice and teaching of US history.  =
One of=20
the key problems that many US-reared and trained scholars face is a lack =
of=20
facility in languages other than English.  It seems to me that any=20
thoroughgoing internationalization of US history requires a radical =
overhaul of=20
graduate education, including, among other things, rigorous =
foreign-language=20
requirements.  Without the ability to read and speak languages =
other than=20
English, we can't hope to participate meaningfully in global scholarship =
on the=20
US or to pass its insights on to students.
    Catherine =
Cocks
    Independent=20
Scholar

------=_NextPart_000_0057_01C16632.07909B80--

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Date:         Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:16:42 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Thomas Bender 
Subject:      US and World History
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

One of the themes that has been raised in the rich discussion that has
already begun on the theme of Internationalizing the Study of American
History concerns the relation of U.S. to World History.  It seems to me
that the main concern behind the recent decisions by state school boards to
require world history is that Americans know something of the history and
culture the increasing number of their school mates who come from abroad. I
hope, too, that they hope to educate a citizenry that is more informed
about the world around them and the place of the United States in that
world.  For both reasons, it seems to me, it is essential that we help
students see that there is some continuity and connection between U.S.
history and the histories beyond our borders.  One cannot, of course, cover
it all, but the point is to provide an opening, a bridge, if you will, to
help students discover these connections where they are relevant to their
own individual experience and our collective experience, such as September
11 and its continuing aftermath.

So far our lively discussion has been led by college teachers and much of
the discussion has focuse on undergraduates.  I hope that some high school
teachers might join in, for I suspect that many high school teachers have
relevant experience on this particular issue.  Often, I assume, teach both
American and World History. If so, it think it would be helpful to our
discussion to learn something of how they connect or do not connect in the
schools and in the minds of the students.

Tom Bender

Thomas Bender
Director
International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
and
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
ph:  212.998.3773
fax: 212.995.4546

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:05:23 EST
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         James Burke 
Subject:      Web
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I'm interested to see that the recent stage of the discussion has moved to
high school work,  as I am developing a dynamic,  inter-related structure,
for (free) online use,  that is at present composed of about 2200 historical
figures (from all parts of the general culture, both science and humanities,
back to the early Middle Ages),  interconnected about 17,000 ways.  One of my
aims is to show context,  since all structure elements are, in a sense,
linked to all.  The American elements (about a fifth of the total) can only
be accessed through connecting pathways that,  by definition,  reveal their
relationship to the other, non-American 4/5ths.
I'd much appreciate discussion with any teachers who have views on such a
structure might serve some of the purposes being talked about in this present
forum.
James Burke
("Connections,"  Scientific American column,  etc.)

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:33:07 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Web
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Dear James: Is your web site operational yet? I would love to take a look at
it, with your permission of course. Sincerely, Pete Haro.

----------
>From: James Burke 
>To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Web
>Date: Tue, Nov 6, 2001, 11:05 AM
>

> I'm interested to see that the recent stage of the discussion has moved to
> high school work,  as I am developing a dynamic,  inter-related structure,
> for (free) online use,  that is at present composed of about 2200 historical
> figures (from all parts of the general culture, both science and humanities,
> back to the early Middle Ages),  interconnected about 17,000 ways.  One of my
> aims is to show context,  since all structure elements are, in a sense,
> linked to all.  The American elements (about a fifth of the total) can only
> be accessed through connecting pathways that,  by definition,  reveal their
> relationship to the other, non-American 4/5ths.
> I'd much appreciate discussion with any teachers who have views on such a
> structure might serve some of the purposes being talked about in this present
> forum.
> James Burke
> ("Connections,"  Scientific American column,  etc.)
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 6 Nov 2001 19:04:24 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Tom Osborne 
Subject:      Re: US and World History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

As a community college professor teaching survey courses in American and
world history I'm particularly interested in connections between global
communities, that is, American cities/communities and urban centers
throughout the world.  For example, the ties among St. Petersburg, Russia,
Sitka, Alaska, and Fort Ross in Alta Calfiornia in the early 19th century
illuminate the global nexus--commercially and culturally--of what became
America's Pacific frontier.  My hunch is that exploring the links between
these sub-national units helps get us out of the nation-state/diplomatic
history mindset enough to see a whole range of other global relationships
and interactions operating at the local level.  To take this variant of a
"sister city" approach back in time is one way to both recenter and
recontextualize the study and writing of American history.  I would like to
hear from other people who are interested in exploring the connections
between America's communities and those abroad.
In fact, I could see teaching an entire American history survey course based
on this theme of global communities connected.
Tom Osborne, Ph.D.
Santa Ana (Community) College
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Bender" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 5:16 AM
Subject: US and World History


> One of the themes that has been raised in the rich discussion that has
> already begun on the theme of Internationalizing the Study of American
> History concerns the relation of U.S. to World History.  It seems to me
> that the main concern behind the recent decisions by state school boards
to
> require world history is that Americans know something of the history and
> culture the increasing number of their school mates who come from abroad.
I
> hope, too, that they hope to educate a citizenry that is more informed
> about the world around them and the place of the United States in that
> world.  For both reasons, it seems to me, it is essential that we help
> students see that there is some continuity and connection between U.S.
> history and the histories beyond our borders.  One cannot, of course,
cover
> it all, but the point is to provide an opening, a bridge, if you will, to
> help students discover these connections where they are relevant to their
> own individual experience and our collective experience, such as September
> 11 and its continuing aftermath.
>
> So far our lively discussion has been led by college teachers and much of
> the discussion has focuse on undergraduates.  I hope that some high school
> teachers might join in, for I suspect that many high school teachers have
> relevant experience on this particular issue.  Often, I assume, teach both
> American and World History. If so, it think it would be helpful to our
> discussion to learn something of how they connect or do not connect in the
> schools and in the minds of the students.
>
> Tom Bender
>
> Thomas Bender
> Director
> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
> and
> Department of History
> New York University
> 53 Washington Square South
> New York, NY 10012
> ph:  212.998.3773
> fax: 212.995.4546
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:32:19 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Kriste Lindenmeyer 
Subject:      Re: Transnational US History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Colleagues:

David Snyder writes:
>Indeed, it's hard for me to conceive as US history as anything other than
>an American lens through which to view world history either in whole or in
>part.  Yet my experiences on the job market lead me to question the >degree
to which the majority of other Americanists are willing to embrace >a more
transnational approach -- all too often it seems as if globalization is >as
much a buzzword within the AHA as it is within the business world.  >Those
on this list need not be reminded of the importance of this >perspective;
yet how do we convince others to look beyond the

I am part of a team writing a U.S. History survey text that tries to place
U.S. history into a more international context. I am sorry to report that
readers' reviews have been dismissive of our sections focusing on the
international history. Instructors don't seem to know much about history
outside the U.S. and therefore seem unwilling to address U.S. trends in an
international context. So, as David Snyder suggests, convincing others to
look beyond the U.S. is a problem.

Kris Lindenmeyer

Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer
UMBC
Dept. of History, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
410-455-6521
410-455-1045 fax

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Nov 2001 10:47:46 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         carl nightingale 
Subject:      Global history and int'l'zed American history
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

        I was trained as an American historian, in the field of 20th-century urban
poverty. My research agenda has taken an international turn, towards an
effort to understand American inner city poverty and segregation in a world
historical context. When it came time for me to take on responsibility for
one of my department's survey courses, I decided to forgo the intro to
American history and instead to teach a course on world history since 1400
(it had been on the books for a while, but no one wanted to touch it). I've
now taught the course six times, and I always look forward to the chance to
do it again.

        In fact, for me _personally_, it was one of the best decisions I've ever
made.  It allowed me--actually it forced me--to have very interesting
conversations with colleagues whose stange and intimidating fields might
have otherwise hindered much intellectual exchange. It allowed me to get my
toes quite wet in debates within the field of world history (though I'm
still definitely a wanabee, if now at least more than a rookie wanabee).
And since my area of research interest intrinsically overlaps with
sociology and urban theory, fields which are undergoing their own embrace
of concepts like "globalization," my course gave me appreciation for both
the scope of what they are trying to do and the sheer ahistoricity they
bring to the task. It gave me a unique position in the department and the
university, as the person to whom Americanist grad students (or for that
matter any grad students) come when they get on the job market and need
advice on how to describe in interviews a world history course they'd teach
once they got hired. Our PhD program feeds many schools whose unenviable
budget restrictions and enviable effort to teach global perspectives
require people to be quite versatile. Finally, I regularly invite students
from the education school to take my course as part of the training many of
them now need to be high school social studies teachers in our state.

        But as I read the postings to this conversation so far, I'm still not
quite sure whether my choice was necessarily in the overall best interest
of the internationalizing of American history, especially at the curricular
level. First of all, the discussion (especially Roy Rosenzweig's questions
and David Snyder's description of his course) has made me aware that a
course of global history and an internationalized course on American
history are two different things. I don't believe, as Rosenzweig and Tyrell
seem to imply, that this is because World History courses in the U.S.
NECESSARILY leave the US out. There is considerable debate in World history
circles in the US about the place of the West and the US in a world history
course. It would be great to hear REAL world historians talk about this
some in this forum. However, it's very clear to me that ALL the
American-authored world history textbooks I've ever looked at devote a
suprisingly inordinate amount of space to the West, including a huge role
to the US in their final chapters. I don't use these textbooks for other
reasons, but my course too has much about the West and the US in it. This
is because I don't see the course solely as a way of introducing students
to the diversity of cultures in the world and to validate the perspectives
of nonwestern cultures (though that is a key theme, and all my readings
offer non-western perspectives) but also as a means of appreciating
changing constellations of connections between different parts of the
world--or, in other words, those "sites of power larger than nations" that
Tom Bender alluded to in beginning this discussion. Without the west, and
indeed without a knowledge of some of the key aspects of western
civilization-Christianity, liberalism, nationalism, racism etc., many of
these metanational entities would be incomprehensible, at least in the
post-Columbian world. And, in turn, any of these aspects of Western
civilization would be incomplete without reference to the US, especially in
the world after WWI. (I say all of this with a strong awareness of the
great importance and difficulty of avoiding portrayals of the world outside
the west solely as REACTING to western advance).


        However, the result is NOT a internationalized course in American history,
even if it does give a little cosmopolitan outlook to a hundred-odd
American undergraduates. It seems that fact could open a can of worms for
curricular discussions based on the idea that American history, or, more
specifically, the American survey, ought to be taught with atention to the
international context. Might it be that, in an already crowded field for
survey courses, now dominated in the US by the relative importance of
western civ., world history, and traditional American courses, not to
mention other European surveys and so on, that an internationalized version
of US history needs to be a fourth or fifth entrant? Or is it enough to
make a more "moderate" call for World history, Western Civ., and a few
faculty members who are willing to teach deprovincialized American history?
Or another maybe even more moderated (some might say prone) position: As
long as history majors take both a world history survey course that has a
little America in it, it doesn't matter whether their American history
survey course is internationalized or not. I present these questions as
speculative, but in answer to Roy Rosenzweig's question, they have come up
in my department repeatedly whenever we discuss ways to refashion the
surveys. Invariably, of course, such discussion are not just about what's
best for students, but how to keep courses on the books that people have
taught for years and don't want to change. Americanists, I should point
out, aren't the only ones on the hook for being provincial. All of our
regional specialists get involved in such discussions about their own
fields. Is a global history survey enough to cover THEIR obligations to
internationalize their part of the curriculum?

        There's one place where I think my decision to teach global history might
have more use on a wider scale for the project to internationalize American
history, and that's by offering one possible pathway for those of us who
were trained as Americanists without much focus on the wider world to
follow our own desires to learn and think about broader contexts, and maybe
to get inspiration for research topics. First of all, difficult as it can
be, World History CAN be taught--though we will probably need more world
historians to attest to this fact in this discussion for everyone to be
convinced. Teaching world history courses involves dealing with all kinds
of tough choices about what to include and not, and involvement in all
kinds of ideological disputes. But so does teaching the American survey or
any other "impossible" task. For those of us not trained in world hostory,
it definitely involves some retooling and research, but lots of the
investment comes back to you as grist for your analytic mill as you embark
on your own projects. You do not have to know or teach about everything in
the world to offer a successful course on world history, despite the vast
amounts of factobabble most WH textbooks include. I believe that if you
leave your students with even some of the barest outlines of how to think
about changing networks of global connections and about changing patterns
of global diversity, you will have done a great thing. And it's certainly
possible to do a lot more than that without too much strain, especially as
you teach the course again and again. For those interested in more details
on my way of doing that, let me know. I can send out any number of course
materials.

        Second of all, teaching world history can give rise to situations where
teaching--in my case INTRODUCTORY teaching--symbiotically enhances
research. My research focus remains on the US, but the concepts of world
history, as I explore them and reexplore them each year as my class changes
continually return to benefit the project. If there is one potentially
difficult problem, it is one that I think haunts the enterprise of
transnational research on American history as a whole, namely that the
broad brushes you work with can lead you more quickly into realms deemed
too speculative to our overwhelmingly empirical disciplinary culture. But
that's a whole other subject. If the discussion gets around to that topic,
I'll definitely send in another message.

Carl Nightingale
Department of History
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Amherst, MA 01103 USA


This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:45:27 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         "Mary C. Canzoneri" 
Subject:      Re: Transnational US History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi David,   I would be interested in looking at your text.
Thanks, Mary Canzoneri, Ph.D.
U.S. History, Women's History


Kriste Lindenmeyer wrote:

> Colleagues:
>
> David Snyder writes:
> >Indeed, it's hard for me to conceive as US history as anything other than
> >an American lens through which to view world history either in whole or in
> >part.  Yet my experiences on the job market lead me to question the >degree
> to which the majority of other Americanists are willing to embrace >a more
> transnational approach -- all too often it seems as if globalization is >as
> much a buzzword within the AHA as it is within the business world.  >Those
> on this list need not be reminded of the importance of this >perspective;
> yet how do we convince others to look beyond the
>
> I am part of a team writing a U.S. History survey text that tries to place
> U.S. history into a more international context. I am sorry to report that
> readers' reviews have been dismissive of our sections focusing on the
> international history. Instructors don't seem to know much about history
> outside the U.S. and therefore seem unwilling to address U.S. trends in an
> international context. So, as David Snyder suggests, convincing others to
> look beyond the U.S. is a problem.
>
> Kris Lindenmeyer
>
> Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer
> UMBC
> Dept. of History, 1000 Hilltop Circle
> Baltimore, MD 21250
> 410-455-6521
> 410-455-1045 fax
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:16:44 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         ahoffman 
Subject:      Re: US and World History
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

The challenge to high school teachers who teach World History to ninth or
tenth graders was summed up for me when one of my students, reading aloud from
the book, said "Australia" when the text read "Austria."  When I pointed out
the error the student said, "Australia, Austria, whatever."  This did provoke
a discussion (with some class merriment) on such "whatevers" as "Russia,
Prussia," "Persia, Prussia," "Mexico, Texaco," and other names.

Abe Hoffman
Los Angeles Valley College
(and an escapee from the Los Angeles Unified School District)


>===== Original Message From "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
       =====
>One of the themes that has been raised in the rich discussion that has
>already begun on the theme of Internationalizing the Study of American
>History concerns the relation of U.S. to World History.  It seems to me
>that the main concern behind the recent decisions by state school boards to
>require world history is that Americans know something of the history and
>culture the increasing number of their school mates who come from abroad. I
>hope, too, that they hope to educate a citizenry that is more informed
>about the world around them and the place of the United States in that
>world.  For both reasons, it seems to me, it is essential that we help
>students see that there is some continuity and connection between U.S.
>history and the histories beyond our borders.  One cannot, of course, cover
>it all, but the point is to provide an opening, a bridge, if you will, to
>help students discover these connections where they are relevant to their
>own individual experience and our collective experience, such as September
>11 and its continuing aftermath.
>
>So far our lively discussion has been led by college teachers and much of
>the discussion has focuse on undergraduates.  I hope that some high school
>teachers might join in, for I suspect that many high school teachers have
>relevant experience on this particular issue.  Often, I assume, teach both
>American and World History. If so, it think it would be helpful to our
>discussion to learn something of how they connect or do not connect in the
>schools and in the minds of the students.
>
>Tom Bender
>
>Thomas Bender
>Director
>International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
>and
>Department of History
>New York University
>53 Washington Square South
>New York, NY 10012
>ph:  212.998.3773
>fax: 212.995.4546
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 7 Nov 2001 15:14:36 EST
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         jenanddom3@AOL.COM
Subject:      Re: US and World History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
              boundary="part1_4e.1514daf.291af02c_boundary"

--part1_4e.1514daf.291af02c_boundary
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Tom Osborne raises a point that strikes close to my studies--the role of
non-governmental actors in foreign relations.  My Ph.D. dissertation focuses
on the role of American Jesuit missionaries in British Honduras (1894-1956).
I have found that these non-governmental actors, in addition to traditional
missionary work, were responsible for running the colony's most important
schools and had a tremendous impact both socially and politically.  While
recognizing that their efforts and influences were always negotiated at the
local level, the study illuminates the significant and complex effects of an
American NGO in a specific space and time.

Missionaries have traditionally been unsettling to the status quo, going into
communities to proselytize and thus breaking down the existing social order.
They introduce Western ideas (christianity, "modernization", efficiency),
American culture (including sports, food, and literature), and American
commercial goods.  While they have been effective at altering the social
order, they have had less predictable results in forming a new social
order--its just too darn difficult to contain and control the new social
forces.  In the case of British Honduras, among other things, it led to the
formation of the leadership of the colony's nationalist movement.

The study of American business interests overseas is another way to move
beyond a simple model of state relations.  As has been well documented,
American interests in Latin America have a long and sordid history.  The
impact of the United Fruit Company in Central America, for instance, can be
measured on so many levels: politically and economically (the local, national
and international); and socially (workers, communities, unions, to name a
few).  It also allows for consideration of dependency theory and
modernization theory models.

I don't think it is wise to discard the role of the state as an important
factor.  It does have tremendous influence on the affairs at the local level,
at the very least by setting the broader parameters and options available to
NGOs and local actors. Clearly though, an understanding of the United States
in the world needs to move beyond a discussion of what one diplomat said to
another.  A more complex picture is required that integrates state interests
and actions, NGOs (at the individual and organizational level), American
media, and other important factors (perhaps immigration).  This complicates
simpler and easier generalizations, but brings us closer to understanding the
United States, its impact in different areas of the world and how its
influences are interpreted, negotiated, appropriated and contested at the
local level.

Another possible way to examine US international relations at the local level
is to look at American colonies abroad.  Americans (as well as other Western
powers) established distant communities usually associated with a business
interest (or when the U.S. was an occupying power).  What was the social,
political and economic impact of these American outposts and how did local
conditions shape the nature of these outposts?

Anyway, these are just some thoughts I had on understanding the United States
and the various forms of its international relations.

Dominic Cerri
Ph.D. Candidate in History
University of Wisconsin-Madison



At 07:04 PM 11/6/01 -0800, you wrote:
>As a community college professor teaching survey courses in American and
>world history I'm particularly interested in connections between global
>communities, that is, American cities/communities and urban centers
>throughout the world.  For example, the ties among St. Petersburg, Russia,
>Sitka, Alaska, and Fort Ross in Alta Calfiornia in the early 19th century
>illuminate the global nexus--commercially and culturally--of what became
>America's Pacific frontier.  My hunch is that exploring the links between
>these sub-national units helps get us out of the nation-state/diplomatic
>history mindset enough to see a whole range of other global relationships
>and interactions operating at the local level.  To take this variant of a
>"sister city" approach back in time is one way to both recenter and
>recontextualize the study and writing of American history.  I would like to
>hear from other people who are interested in exploring the connections
>between America's communities and those abroad.
>In fact, I could see teaching an entire American history survey course based
>on this theme of global communities connected.
>Tom Osborne, Ph.D.
>Santa Ana (Community) College


--part1_4e.1514daf.291af02c_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Tom Osborne raises a point that strikes close to my studies--the role of non-governmental actors in foreign relations.  My Ph.D. dissertation focuses on the role of American Jesuit missionaries in British Honduras (1894-1956).  I have found that these non-governmental actors, in addition to traditional missionary work, were responsible for running the colony's most important schools and had a tremendous impact both socially and politically.  While recognizing that their efforts and influences were always negotiated at the local level, the study illuminates the significant and complex effects of an American NGO in a specific space and time.  



Missionaries have traditionally been unsettling to the status quo, going into communities to proselytize and thus breaking down the existing social order.  They introduce Western ideas (christianity, "modernization", efficiency), American culture (including sports, food, and literature), and American commercial goods.  While they have been effective at altering the social order, they have had less predictable results in forming a new social order--its just too darn difficult to contain and control the new social forces.  In the case of British Honduras, among other things, it led to the formation of the leadership of the colony's nationalist movement.



The study of American business interests overseas is another way to move beyond a simple model of state relations.  As has been well documented, American interests in Latin America have a long and sordid history.  The impact of the United Fruit Company in Central America, for instance, can be measured on so many levels: politically and economically (the local, national and international); and socially (workers, communities, unions, to name a few).  It also allows for consideration of dependency theory and modernization theory models.



I don't think it is wise to discard the role of the state as an important factor.  It does have tremendous influence on the affairs at the local level, at the very least by setting the broader parameters and options available to NGOs and local actors. Clearly though, an understanding of the United States in the world needs to move beyond a discussion of what one diplomat said to another.  A more complex picture is required that integrates state interests and actions, NGOs (at the individual and organizational level), American media, and other important factors (perhaps immigration).  This complicates simpler and easier generalizations, but brings us closer to understanding the United States, its impact in different areas of the world and how its influences are interpreted, negotiated, appropriated and contested at the local level.



Another possible way to examine US international relations at the local level is to look at American colonies abroad.  Americans (as well as other Western powers) established distant communities usually associated with a business interest (or when the U.S. was an occupying power).  What was the social, political and economic impact of these American outposts and how did local conditions shape the nature of these outposts?



Anyway, these are just some thoughts I had on understanding the United States and the various forms of its international relations.



Dominic Cerri

Ph.D. Candidate in History

University of Wisconsin-Madison







At 07:04 PM 11/6/01 -0800, you wrote:

>As a community college professor teaching survey courses in American and

>world history I'm particularly interested in connections between global

>communities, that is, American cities/communities and urban centers

>throughout the world.  For example, the ties among St. Petersburg, Russia,

>Sitka, Alaska, and Fort Ross in Alta Calfiornia in the early 19th century

>illuminate the global nexus--commercially and culturally--of what became

>America's Pacific frontier.  My hunch is that exploring the links between

>these sub-national units helps get us out of the nation-state/diplomatic

>history mindset enough to see a whole range of other global relationships

>and interactions operating at the local level.  To take this variant of a

>"sister city" approach back in time is one way to both recenter and

>recontextualize the study and writing of American history.  I would like to

>hear from other people who are interested in exploring the connections

>between America's communities and those abroad.

>In fact, I could see teaching an entire American history survey course based

>on this theme of global communities connected.

>Tom Osborne, Ph.D.

>Santa Ana (Community) College



--part1_4e.1514daf.291af02c_boundary--

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 8 Nov 2001 06:01:07 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         ERIN LEHDE 
Subject:      relavence
Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0

As a student teacher in social science, one of my interests is attempting to invade the closed-minded attitude of the high schooler who, for all intentional purposes knows everything, and has formulated his or her own opinions on how the world will or will not affect them personally. I had a chance today with my World Cultures class to discuss the homogeneous society of Japan in comparison to our heterogeneous American society. The discussion turned from a list of pros and cons to a debate on racism. Here in Smalltown, USA my students have been raised to accept racism as normal and feel their lives personally have no bearring on nor are they affected by other cultures/ethnicities. With one exception being a negative affect, therefore they follow in their parents' footsteps by advocating the all-white environment they grew up in.
My question to all educators is what advice can you give to a rookie in this department? I have little concern for the toes I stepped on in today's discussion, but rather enjoy the possibilitiy of maybe having reached one or two of them so that they may at least LOOK at the world a different way for once. The popular question of, "Why is history important to me today?" can be connected in an effort to internationalize the topic by asking, "why is the world important to me today?" How do I answer that?
Sincerely, Erin Lehde

_________________________________________________________________
iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
Check out the most exciting women's community on the Web
http://www.ivillage.com

------- End of forwarded message -------

_________________________________________________________________
iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
Check out the most exciting women's community on the Web
http://www.ivillage.com

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 8 Nov 2001 08:40:27 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Jack Betterly 
Subject:      Re: relavence
In-Reply-To:  <20011108140107.19371.cpmta@c006.snv.cp.net>
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Bravo, Erin Lehde!
    Advise: A good teacher makes students uncomfortable by challenging ALL
their preconceptions; a good teacher must, then, offset this by radiating
understanding of their ignorance, concern and love, and pride in their
endurance. If they sense these things, they will be tough enough to take
everything you can throw at them. Which should be lots. Keep them
unbalanced, keep them dancing, make fun of yourself often, and laugh with
them a lot.
    They don't LIKE being ignorant - but neither do they like being
patronized, or insulted, or blamed for it. They want a colleague, not a
pretentious nag.
--
     "The function off the historian is neither to love the past nor to
emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as
the key to the understanding of the present." - E. H. Carr

Jack Betterly, Emma Willard School, Emeritus
6350 Eubank Boulevard NE, Apt. #1013
Albuquerque, NM 87111    E-mail: jbetterl@yahoo.com
New Web Site: 

> As a student teacher in social science, one of my interests is attempting to
> invade the closed-minded attitude of the high schooler who, for all
> intentional purposes knows everything, and has formulated his or her own
> opinions on how the world will or will not affect them personally. I had a
> chance today with my World Cultures class to discuss the homogeneous society
> of Japan in comparison to our heterogeneous American society. The discussion
> turned from a list of pros and cons to a debate on racism. Here in Smalltown,
> USA my students have been raised to accept racism as normal and feel their
> lives personally have no bearring on nor are they affected by other
> cultures/ethnicities. With one exception being a negative affect, therefore
> they follow in their parents' footsteps by advocating the all-white
> environment they grew up in.
> My question to all educators is what advice can you give to a rookie in this
> department? I have little concern for the toes I stepped on in today's
> discussion, but rather enjoy the possibilitiy of maybe having reached one or
> two of them so that they may at least LOOK at the world a different way for
> once. The popular question of, "Why is history important to me today?" can be
> connected in an effort to internationalize the topic by asking, "why is the
> world important to me today?" How do I answer that?
> Sincerely, Erin Lehde
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
> Check out the most exciting women's community on the Web
> http://www.ivillage.com
>
> ------- End of forwarded message -------
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
> Check out the most exciting women's community on the Web
> http://www.ivillage.com
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.



_________________________________________________________
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Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:47:06 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Thomas Bender 
Subject:      How to do it??
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Colleagues:
Just how one does the work of internationalizing American history, whether
whole cloth or incrementally, raises questions of strategy or architecture
and reading materials, textbooks and otherwise.

Some very promising "architectures" for  telling the story of American
history in a global context have been mentioned so far in our
discussion-diasporic movements of people, world systems theory,  urban
connections, looking for the strategic opportunity rather than a single
interpretive frame.  Are there others that have been used with success?  It
would be very helpful to have some more suggestions.

There is also the question of where and how one "internationalizes"
American history.  Is it in the survey?  Or in a course that builds upon
the basic knowledge that is learned (we hope) in the survey, forcing the
students to rethink what they have learned.  The problem of limited
textbooks, so far, has been raised.  Is it possible to combine both the
survey and the internationalization of it by teaching both with and against
the textbook?   Finally, I suspect that all of us would be interested in
readings, whether primary sources or secondary ones, that enable one to
raise transnational issues with students, whether in a survey or other
courses.

Tom Bender

Thomas Bender
Director
International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
and
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
ph:  212.998.3773
fax: 212.995.4546

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:19:00 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Erika Dreifus 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.6.32.20011113134706.03c8cec0@pop.nyu.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

The discussion gets more and more interesting.  Thank you.  I've been
following up on some of the ideas that have been raised with a bit of
side research, and I discovered something that perhaps others may be
kind enough to comment on, as I confess I was not "in the field" at
the time it likely attracted most attention:  the Bradley Commission
report on "Building a History Curriculum."

I find the report's suggestions for "Topics for the Study of American
History," issued in printed form in 1988, much in line with some of
what I would love to see (minimally) in place these days: ("4.  "The
changing role of the United States in the outside world; relations
between domestic affairs and foreign policy; American interactions
with other nations and regions, historically and in recent times.
The United States as a colonial power and in two world wars.  The
Cold War and global economic relations.").  Without this "basic"
background, it's very hard to do more "advanced" theoretical (or
other) work, it seems to me, and this background is quite often left
out.

I would be very interested in hearing about the follow-up on this
report, how its recommendations may or may not have been implemented
in the schools, or carried over into university instruction.

And despite one of the comments in an earlier communication, I would
still support the value of teaching and learning what might be
construed as more "traditional" diplomatic history.  Studying the San
Francisco Conference of 1945, for instance, can frame many issues
about World War II and its aftermath, shifting world leadership roles
for America AND other countries, and the history of the United
Nations, among other topics.

Thanks again for the continued conversation.

Sincerely,
Erika Dreifus
Lecturer on History and Literature
Harvard University
Barker Center 122
12 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138









>Colleagues:
>Just how one does the work of internationalizing American history, whether
>whole cloth or incrementally, raises questions of strategy or architecture
>and reading materials, textbooks and otherwise.
>
>Some very promising "architectures" for  telling the story of American
>history in a global context have been mentioned so far in our
>discussion-diasporic movements of people, world systems theory,  urban
>connections, looking for the strategic opportunity rather than a single
>interpretive frame.  Are there others that have been used with success?  It
>would be very helpful to have some more suggestions.
>
>There is also the question of where and how one "internationalizes"
>American history.  Is it in the survey?  Or in a course that builds upon
>the basic knowledge that is learned (we hope) in the survey, forcing the
>students to rethink what they have learned.  The problem of limited
>textbooks, so far, has been raised.  Is it possible to combine both the
>survey and the internationalization of it by teaching both with and against
>the textbook?   Finally, I suspect that all of us would be interested in
>readings, whether primary sources or secondary ones, that enable one to
>raise transnational issues with students, whether in a survey or other
>courses.
>
>Tom Bender
>
>Thomas Bender
>Director
>International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
>and
>Department of History
>New York University
>53 Washington Square South
>New York, NY 10012
>ph:  212.998.3773
>fax: 212.995.4546
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web
>site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for
>teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 12 Nov 2001 15:05:28 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Carl Guarneri 
Organization: St. Mary's College of Calif.
Subject:      How to do it??
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Colleagues:

This is an interesting and much-needed discussion!  In hopes of
developing it   along the curricular lines indicated by Tom Bender's
lastest query, let me throw out some suggestions.

I like to distinguish between "systemic" and "episodic" strategies for
internationalizing the survey course.  The first, which is similar to
what Tom calls "architecture," incorporates a particular
internationalized theme or theory into the overall structure of the
course.  This could be done in a variety of ways. One might be to
reframe the course into a larger ecological or geographic unit such as
North American history, hemispheric history ("The Americas"), Atlantic
(or Pacific) history.  A variant of this approach might be to
incorporate a sustained binational comparison through the course, sort
of a "sister country" theme not unlike Tom Osborne's "sister city"
thread.  Another strategy is to choose a facet of US history that is
inherently international and make it the main or at least a major theme
of the course: foreign relations, migration, trade, biological
exchange.  Yet another possibility is to integrate US history with
various stage theories or macrohistorical conceptual schemas that are
used by world historians or historical sociologists.  This is where
David Snyder's use of world-systems theory fits in; so would Marxist
theory, state-development schemas, long-wave economic cycles and other
social-science models, as well as such meta-themes as the rise of
modernity.  Finally, a quite different approach would be to keep the
course's spatial focus on the territory that became the United States,
but to present that territory over time as the contested ground of
local, regional, national, and transnational cultures and powers.

I'm sure that there are many other possibilities for "systemic"
strategies, but these at least give an idea of the range.  They have the
attraction of providing a coherent overall architecture, if not a new
master narrative, to US history.  They also can do a good job of
focusing sustained attention on an internationalized history by
incorporating interactionist and/or comparative elements into the very
fiber of the course.

Despite this appeal, I think it is safe to say that many history
teachers would resist--and have resisted--impressing this kind of
architecture on the survey course.  Some believe it will decenter US
history too radically or force them to omit important domestic
material.  We should remember, too, that some states in the US set rigid
guidelines for topics to be covered in this course, and most of these
emphasize events rather than structures, domestic rather than
international developments.  Others feel that they or their students
will not be able to master other nations' histories in addition to the
US in one course; the end result will be to learn neither deeply and
well.  And many historians of the US argue that these larger
architectures inhibit teachers from engaging students in mid- and
lower-range interpetive controversies about specific events and
movements:  debates over the Constitution, for example, or options
inside the Gilded Age labor movement.

I think that there are good answers to these objections, but leaving
them aside for now, for teachers who resist this "whole-cloth"
internationalization there remains the possibility of  engaging an
internationalized US history more episodically.  This would mean linking
one-at-a-time or opportunistically the events or developments discussed
in the survey course to a larger frame of description and analysis.
Students could be encouraged to situate each major topic in the course
internationally or globally by seeking out its larger contexts, tracing
its transnational connections, or framing an appropriate external
comparison.  The great Depression, to take one example, could be taught
simultaneously as a local catastrophe, a national problem, and a world
economic and political crisis with a much longer background than 1929
and with comparable effects from nation to nation.  This episodic
strategy gives instructors greater flexibility than committing oneself
to one large transnational theme or theory.  It may help as well to
model different paths to a more internationalized US history and to
instill internationalization as a habit of mind rather than to present a
replacement master narrative.  It also may work better with the
generally eclectic nature of the survey course, in which readings can be
used to widen the perspective of lectures or vice versa.

These are some possibilities presented as food for thought and
discussion.  Before I end this long e-mail, however, I do want to
address Tom's question about the appropriateness of the survey as a site
for internationalization.  I strongly believe that if
internationalization is going to take root in the curriculum as well as
in students' minds, the US survey course must be one of the places where
the seeds are planted.  For many high school or college students such
surveys are all the US history they are going to get.  For others who
may continue in their studies, I believe that we should seize the
opportunity to make the survey the place where internationalizing themes
are introduced and cosmopolitan viewpoints are engaged.  Just as it
would be absurd to ask world history teachers to wait for students to
reach upper-level courses before they confront an enlarged picture of
the past, I hope that we will come to see the absurdity of asking US
history teachers to do the same.  As the La Pietra Report states quite
eloquently, an insulated national history is simply not an accurate one.

Carl Guarneri
Department of History
St. Mary's College of California
Moraga, CA  94575
E-mail: cguarner@stamarys-ca.edu

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:19:50 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Harvey Wheeler 
Subject:      Query
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

--------------
Amer Hist - in light of:

1. Clash of Civs;

2 But we gotta have a Civ to Clash with other Civs...

3. Didn't Toynbee say - Th'aint no Amer Civ, anyway ?

4. Frontier-ology - not a "Civ"? They all gone anyway - post-Frontier
America - anyway?

5. Besides, Isn't it Post-History anyways...

6. Except! Woah! "convergence theory" - it snuck us a "PseudoCiv"...

7. Hey Tex! bin Laden helped save us. The bomb's Law East of the Pecos -

8. Showdown at High Dawn: Cowboys bomb'n Muslims!

9. Whew! Amer Hist safe after all.

HW
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Bender 
To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Date: Monday, November 12, 2001 12:44 PM
Subject: How to do it??


>Colleagues:
>Just how one does the work of internationalizing American history, whether
>whole cloth or incrementally, raises questions of strategy or architecture
>and reading materials, textbooks and otherwise.
>
>Some very promising "architectures" for  telling the story of American
>history in a global context have been mentioned so far in our
>discussion-diasporic movements of people, world systems theory,  urban
>connections, looking for the strategic opportunity rather than a single
>interpretive frame.  Are there others that have been used with success?  It
>would be very helpful to have some more suggestions.
>
>There is also the question of where and how one "internationalizes"
>American history.  Is it in the survey?  Or in a course that builds upon
>the basic knowledge that is learned (we hope) in the survey, forcing the
>students to rethink what they have learned.  The problem of limited
>textbooks, so far, has been raised.  Is it possible to combine both the
>survey and the internationalization of it by teaching both with and against
>the textbook?   Finally, I suspect that all of us would be interested in
>readings, whether primary sources or secondary ones, that enable one to
>raise transnational issues with students, whether in a survey or other
>courses.
>
>Tom Bender
>
>Thomas Bender
>Director
>International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
>and
>Department of History
>New York University
>53 Washington Square South
>New York, NY 10012
>ph:  212.998.3773
>fax: 212.995.4546
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 12 Nov 2001 20:21:24 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Donna L Sharer 
Subject:      Re: a high school example
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I teach in a large urban school district with a student body over 3500.
Our school is one of the few neighborhood city high schools (not a
magnet/special admit) with a ethnically diverse student body.  One thing
I notice last year while teaching World History is 9th graders had a hard
time grasping the concept of the Cold War.  This year, I'm having older
students work on a Service Learning Project on the Cold War that fits
into this model of "internationalizing US history." (I purposely am not
writing "American" history - I was born in Central American and return in
the 1980s for awhile - American history is the history of North, Central
and South - many Latin Americans will remind North Americans of that
fact.)

The project entails students participating in primary, secondary and oral
history research.  The oral histories will be with adults over 45 - 1/2
will be born and raised in the US and 1/2 will be born and raised until
at least 18 outside of the U.S.  I'm also setting up a meeting with (1) a
US member of the Communist Party (and the impact of the Cold War on our
city in the 1950s - teachers were fired, lawyers lost jobs, etc.), (2) a
Soviet Jewish immigrant,  (3) three local history professors (a Soviet
specialist, a US specialist and a Latin American specialist).  My hope is
the students will see the Cold War from different perspectives.  They
will develop some materials by the Spring to be used by World History
students to help explain the Cold War from the perspective of fellow
students who have no living memory of the 1945 - 1991 (or there abouts).
I see this as an attempt to not only learn lessons and stories of the
Cold War but to provide an international perspective to a conflict that
is generally viewed through a U.S. lens in most high school text books.

I'd appreciate any suggestions for materials I can use with the students.
 There are many web sites I've found with documents galore but little
concrete information.

Thanks also for the dialogue in the forum.  Those of us teaching in
public high schools often feel out of the loop re: current research.
Most of us have little time to do much more than prepare for classes,
grade paper, attend workshops, etc.  (And spend some time with out
families....)

D. Sharer

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 14:36:57 +1100
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Ian Tyrrell 
Subject:      Carl Guarneri's comments
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Dear all,

I agree there also needs to be rather more attention  to the question of
how transnational perspectives  might be integrated in teaching.

I agree with Carl Guarneri when he writes about the possibility of  engaging an
internationalized US history more episodically.  (linking one-at-a-time or
opportunistically the events or developments discussed in the survey course
to a larger frame of description and analysis.)


I have an honours student who has been looking at the reception of the film
Amistad, including internet discussions of this. I don't claim to be an
expert but I do think the film and the debates surrounding it can be
usefully employed. To what extent can this case, cutting so clearly across
national boundaries, serve to draw students' attention  to  the interplay
of national and transnational themes at work in any situation? And why was
this case not looked at so much in textbooks and in scholarly discussions
(e.g the Journal of American History) until Hollywood produced a movie?
Was it because the story was thought to be outside a US history narrative
(a rebellion outside US borders, and concerning foreign nationals), in
comparison with say Nat Turner or John Brown?   Students can also look at
the way a transnational story is turned into a national story in the movie,
since the resolution of the issues requires the reaffirmation, through John
Quincy Adams, of the traditions of the founding fathers.


Regards,

Ian Tyrrell

Professor Ian Tyrrell
Head,
School of History
Director,
Centre for Community History

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 12:56:55 +0100
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         David Nye 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Reply to Thomas Bender: Where to introduce international perspectives?

The international point of view needs to be there from the start, in the
introductory course. Teaching for 16 years abroad has made this an obvious
necessity for me, but I could not conceive of teaching American history
inside the US in the old fashioned way that most textbooks still present
it.

Clearly what is needed are new textbooks, and a greater range of them. I
wrote my own for use in the Nordic countries, but I doubt that it would
work in the US. Here are some of the reasons

(1) In Denmark my audience accepts the welfare state as normal, including
free medical care and free university entrance, and they regard the US as
being a backward country when it comes to social policy.  If my students
were American voters, virtually all of them would all be in the liberal
wing of the Democratic Party or to the left of it.

(2) Danes almost all support their constitutional monarchy and most pay
taxes to support the state Lutheran church

(3) A large minority of Danes are upset about continued immigration into
their country and demand restriction.

(4) The majority of the labor force is unionized, and collective bargaining
takes place at the national level each year. The Danish labor movement was
closely linked to the socialist party, which has been the largest bloc in
coalition governments for most of the past half century. The American labor
movement obviously does not have a similar history.

Teaching the political history or immigration or American religion or
health policy to a Danish class requires a different textbook than the sort
produced in the US.

By the same token,  American textbooks need to be reconceived. I do not
think it is a question of adding an international perspective here and
there, but a complete rethinking of the periodization and organization.



Professor David E. Nye
Odense University - SDU
Center for American Studies
Campusvej 55
Odense 5230 M     Denmark

Center for American Studies
http://www.sdu.dk/hum/amstud/

Fax 45 65 93 04 90
University telephone (direct dial)00 45 65 50 31 32
nye@hist.sdu.dk

Recent  books

(editor) Technologies of Landscape : From Reaping to Recycling
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558492291/ref=s_e5

Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies
http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262140632

Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture
Columbia UP
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/idx_list.html

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
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Date:         Mon, 12 Nov 2001 20:04:32 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Susan Oliver 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
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Colleagues:

With great interest, I've read through the discussion forum of the last few
weeks, and it is reassuring  to see we all face similar issues.

I would like to specifically address the November 13 statement by T. Bender,
while applying some of my thoughts on the total transcript.  It we might do
well to separate the pedagogical approaches (strategies and architectures)
and practical considerations (textbooks, survey vs. upper division).

Strategy and architecture:

In terms of pedagogical approaches, it seems to me that there have emerged
two consistent questions or issues.  First, and most obvious is whether we,
as individual educators, believe it important to tell the story of American
history in a global context.  The second issue is the one offered both
explicitly and implicitly:  it is not possible "to teach it all" even if we
continue to consider American history within its own national boundaries.
My position on these issues is this: I plan to reposition the story of
American history in a global context and I believe that it is not possible
to "teach it all."
Specifically, I am restructuring my courses into learning modules.  This
means that much of the content of the survey course will be subordinated
and/or not taught.  To help with this process, I am relying on the work done
by T. Mills Kelly, George Mason University. In his research and work, Kelly
decided to redefine his western civilization course into five thematic
learning modules. (See http://www.theaha.org/teaching/aahe/welcome.htm)  To
do this, Kelly made tough decisions about what to include/exclude.  But the
process and result, he argues, made for a better course  --- a course in
which student actually gained knowledge that they could use and apply after
semester's end.
Related to our discussion, it seems to me that if we can reconsider the
survey course into smaller learning modules, then we can begin to consider
ways that we can conceptualize American history in its proper global
context.  Rather than cramming more information into an already filled
content outline, one begins with the relevant question of "what do I really
want my students to learn about American history in its global context?"  As
an example, Champa Patel's work in the transnational enquiry into the Civil
Rights movements of the 1960s prompts me to think about how this could be an
effective thematic module in teaching the American history survey.  Also, I
found Tom Osborne's approach of interactions among global communities an
exciting way to retain a sense of national history (US), yet shift the
learning paradigm to seeing America as part of a larger network of peoples
and events.
Practical considerations: textbooks; survey vs. upper division
Textbooks and readings:
It seems to me that the Internet offers great opportunities to expand beyond
the traditional textbooks.  As each of us reconsider the way we want to
present American history, we could put together student activities,
interactive topical outlines, a list of resources organized around themes,
e.g. colonialism, revolutions, etc., that would provide students resources
that would help them make the connections.  For example, the PBS has created
a state-of-the-art site to accompany its recent series on Africa.  It is
visual, information, and invites one to make comparisons. The site includes
student activities.  Also, asking students to engage in online activities
carries with it the concept of transnational, breaking down barriers, etc.
That may be a subliminal message, but it is a message, nonetheless.
Survey vs. upper division.  Repositioning the American experience into its
global context is a concept that I believe needs to be taught as early as
high school, continued in the lower division survey courses, and sustained
in upper division and graduate work.  To echo what others have stated, we
must consider who are our students:  They live in a world that is
transnational  --- it is now time for us to play catch up.

I'd be interested in what others think about these issues

Susan Oliver, Ph.D
History
Cerritos College
Norwalk, CA


----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Bender" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 10:47 AM
Subject: How to do it??


> Colleagues:
> Just how one does the work of internationalizing American history, whether
> whole cloth or incrementally, raises questions of strategy or architecture
> and reading materials, textbooks and otherwise.
>
> Some very promising "architectures" for  telling the story of American
> history in a global context have been mentioned so far in our
> discussion-diasporic movements of people, world systems theory,  urban
> connections, looking for the strategic opportunity rather than a single
> interpretive frame.  Are there others that have been used with success?
It
> would be very helpful to have some more suggestions.
>
> There is also the question of where and how one "internationalizes"
> American history.  Is it in the survey?  Or in a course that builds upon
> the basic knowledge that is learned (we hope) in the survey, forcing the
> students to rethink what they have learned.  The problem of limited
> textbooks, so far, has been raised.  Is it possible to combine both the
> survey and the internationalization of it by teaching both with and
against
> the textbook?   Finally, I suspect that all of us would be interested in
> readings, whether primary sources or secondary ones, that enable one to
> raise transnational issues with students, whether in a survey or other
> courses.
>
> Tom Bender
>
> Thomas Bender
> Director
> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
> and
> Department of History
> New York University
> 53 Washington Square South
> New York, NY 10012
> ph:  212.998.3773
> fax: 212.995.4546
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 08:09:32 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         "Mary C. Canzoneri" 
Subject:      Re: TEXTBOOK PROJECT:How to do it??
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I agree with David Nye:  As he said:   American textbooks need to be reconceived. I do not
think it is a question of adding an international perspective here and
there, but a complete rethinking of the periodization and organization.

I would be interested in working on a textbook restructuring project, and to make history required from K-12.

Mary Canzoneri, Ph.D.
Mesa Community College, Arizona
Women's History, U.S. History

David Nye wrote:

> Reply to Thomas Bender: Where to introduce international perspectives?
>
> The international point of view needs to be there from the start, in the
> introductory course. Teaching for 16 years abroad has made this an obvious
> necessity for me, but I could not conceive of teaching American history
> inside the US in the old fashioned way that most textbooks still present
> it.
>
> Clearly what is needed are new textbooks, and a greater range of them. I
> wrote my own for use in the Nordic countries, but I doubt that it would
> work in the US. Here are some of the reasons
>
> (1) In Denmark my audience accepts the welfare state as normal, including
> free medical care and free university entrance, and they regard the US as
> being a backward country when it comes to social policy.  If my students
> were American voters, virtually all of them would all be in the liberal
> wing of the Democratic Party or to the left of it.
>
> (2) Danes almost all support their constitutional monarchy and most pay
> taxes to support the state Lutheran church
>
> (3) A large minority of Danes are upset about continued immigration into
> their country and demand restriction.
>
> (4) The majority of the labor force is unionized, and collective bargaining
> takes place at the national level each year. The Danish labor movement was
> closely linked to the socialist party, which has been the largest bloc in
> coalition governments for most of the past half century. The American labor
> movement obviously does not have a similar history.
>
> Teaching the political history or immigration or American religion or
> health policy to a Danish class requires a different textbook than the sort
> produced in the US.
>
> By the same token,  American textbooks need to be reconceived. I do not
> think it is a question of adding an international perspective here and
> there, but a complete rethinking of the periodization and organization.
>
> Professor David E. Nye
> Odense University - SDU
> Center for American Studies
> Campusvej 55
> Odense 5230 M     Denmark
>
> Center for American Studies
> http://www.sdu.dk/hum/amstud/
>
> Fax 45 65 93 04 90
> University telephone (direct dial)00 45 65 50 31 32
> nye@hist.sdu.dk
>
> Recent  books
>
> (editor) Technologies of Landscape : From Reaping to Recycling
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558492291/ref=s_e5
>
> Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262140632
>
> Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture
> Columbia UP
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/idx_list.html
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

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I agree with David Nye:  As he said:   American textbooks
need to be reconceived. I do not

think it is a question of adding an international perspective
here and

there, but a complete rethinking of the periodization and organization.
I would be interested in working on a textbook restructuring project,
and to make history required from K-12.

 

Mary Canzoneri, Ph.D.

Mesa Community College, Arizona

Women's History, U.S. History
David Nye wrote:
Reply to Thomas Bender: Where to introduce international
perspectives?
The international point of view needs to be there from the start, in
the

introductory course. Teaching for 16 years abroad has made this an
obvious

necessity for me, but I could not conceive of teaching American history

inside the US in the old fashioned way that most textbooks still present

it.
Clearly what is needed are new textbooks, and a greater range of them.
I

wrote my own for use in the Nordic countries, but I doubt that it would

work in the US. Here are some of the reasons
(1) In Denmark my audience accepts the welfare state as normal, including

free medical care and free university entrance, and they regard the
US as

being a backward country when it comes to social policy.  If my
students

were American voters, virtually all of them would all be in the liberal

wing of the Democratic Party or to the left of it.
(2) Danes almost all support their constitutional monarchy and most
pay

taxes to support the state Lutheran church
(3) A large minority of Danes are upset about continued immigration
into

their country and demand restriction.
(4) The majority of the labor force is unionized, and collective bargaining

takes place at the national level each year. The Danish labor movement
was

closely linked to the socialist party, which has been the largest bloc
in

coalition governments for most of the past half century. The American
labor

movement obviously does not have a similar history.
Teaching the political history or immigration or American religion or

health policy to a Danish class requires a different textbook than
the sort

produced in the US.
By the same token,  American textbooks need to be reconceived.
I do not

think it is a question of adding an international perspective here
and

there, but a complete rethinking of the periodization and organization.
Professor David E. Nye

Odense University - SDU

Center for American Studies

Campusvej 55

Odense 5230 M     Denmark
Center for American Studies

http://www.sdu.dk/hum/amstud/
Fax 45 65 93 04 90

University telephone (direct dial)00 45 65 50 31 32

nye@hist.sdu.dk
Recent  books
(editor) Technologies of Landscape : From Reaping to Recycling

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558492291/ref=s_e5
Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies

http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262140632
Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture

Columbia UP

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/idx_list.html
This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
for more resources for teaching U.S. History.


--------------9872CB769A0B6CB4AC6379D8--

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Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:09:54 -0400
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         linda rupert 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
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Since Tom Bender has raised the image of architecture, how about using a
standard tool from that field: i.e., making a structural flaw the very
center of a new design when it can't be gotten rid of. Survey courses have
to cover basic national material, textbooks have a limited approach, state
legislatures require certain names and dates. So why not work with all this
as a foil for discussing the need for a wider context? A weekly handout can
graphically and succinctly make students aware of international linkages for
each unit (a map by D.W. Meinig, a few paragraphs about contemporary
relevant developments elsewhere, some hard data on the international aspects
of given theme: Internet resources are invaluabe here.) In some ways this is
a stopgap measure, but perhaps it is a realistic way that overloaded
teachers can begin to internationalize the material without having to
completely revamp the course. Also, perhaps it goes to the deeper issue of
trying to help students THINK ABOUT history in a totally different way, and
not just fill them with a whole new set of international facts.

Does anyone have experience with involving students more directly in this
dilemma? What happens when you regularly point out that the material is
narrowly focused, and that some historians are struggling to move beyond
this perspective? Can they be engaged in trying to find some of the
solutions? Will they get curious about what the book isn't teaching?

Linda Rupert
Duke Univ.

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Bender 
To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Date: Monday, November 12, 2001 4:54 PM
Subject: How to do it??


>Colleagues:
>Just how one does the work of internationalizing American history, whether
>whole cloth or incrementally, raises questions of strategy or architecture
>and reading materials, textbooks and otherwise.
>
>Some very promising "architectures" for  telling the story of American
>history in a global context have been mentioned so far in our
>discussion-diasporic movements of people, world systems theory,  urban
>connections, looking for the strategic opportunity rather than a single
>interpretive frame.  Are there others that have been used with success?  It
>would be very helpful to have some more suggestions.
>
>There is also the question of where and how one "internationalizes"
>American history.  Is it in the survey?  Or in a course that builds upon
>the basic knowledge that is learned (we hope) in the survey, forcing the
>students to rethink what they have learned.  The problem of limited
>textbooks, so far, has been raised.  Is it possible to combine both the
>survey and the internationalization of it by teaching both with and against
>the textbook?   Finally, I suspect that all of us would be interested in
>readings, whether primary sources or secondary ones, that enable one to
>raise transnational issues with students, whether in a survey or other
>courses.
>
>Tom Bender
>
>Thomas Bender
>Director
>International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
>and
>Department of History
>New York University
>53 Washington Square South
>New York, NY 10012
>ph:  212.998.3773
>fax: 212.995.4546
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 16:37:15 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Alan Dawley 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
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    Putting my two cents into this interesting discussion, I think there is some value in looking at the United States simultaneously from "the outside
in" and "the bottom up."
    Certainly for twentieth century historians, the distinctive features of American life are intimately bound up with imperial expansion, the world
wars, the Cold War, and globalization. The result is something of a paradox. To understand what is special about twentieth century America, it is
necessary to come to grips with what goes on outside its boundaries. If the goal is to write a distinctly national history, there is no option but to
look at America from the outside in.
    At the same time, if we are to capture the textures of lived experience and the distinctly American mix of social practices, it is necessary to
ground the story in the everyday workings of American life. Historians have opened many vistas on the ways private dramas of work and family are played
out on the public stage, revealing how the push and pull of everyday life involves social struggles for power among the various layers of American
society.
   Combining the two perspectives - outside in and bottom up - points to the reciprocal impact of the external and the internal balance of power. Many
aspects of twentieth century history are being re-examined along these lines. To take three examples, work is well underway on the impact of the Cold
War on Civil Rights, wartime nationalism on gender identities, and globalization on the welfare state. New courses and new textbooks are sure to
follow.

    Yours,
Alan Dawley

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Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 16:09:02 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Paddy Swiney 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I found it interesting that in the discussion of architectures, themes, and
"how to do it"s, no one has mentioned Carl Guarneri's fine work, America
Compared.   I teach both American surveys at a community college where the
bulk of the students have been "taught" American history by high school
coaches, where most of the student body works full time and tries to carry
12 hours, and who never watch the news or pick up a newspaper.  They don't
know their own history, and I spend a great part of my course trying to
encourage them to discover why they care.  In my honors course, I try to
teach American history with an international reference.  These are
motivated, self selected "honors" students, and they will do the extra
reading necessary to get an inkling of another world out there.  I also
make a concerted effort to recruit international students, because they ask
such wonderful questions,which I refer to their classmates to answer.  This
can lead to amazing discussions.
       I use America  Compared, and an out of print book called From the
Foreign Press, which is a contemporary compiliation of commentary on
American events.  I found in my first semester that knowledge of World
History is less than  that of American, so I added a feature called
Timeline Topics--reporting by the students on concurrent events with
American history.  For example, the colonial experience in South America
would be explored during our own colonial period; one of my most successful
timeline topics is assigning the French revolution and the Haitian
revolution to be compared to our own, which illuminates events from the
Jefferson-Hamilton clash, to the Louisiana purchase, to slavery.  Finding
out  for example, how the British viewed the Louisiana purchase (you're
giving 15 million dollars to Napoleon?)  is VERY informative, and gives
insight into how American actions can be read on the world stage.  After a
series of Timeline Topic reports on 1968, my students wanted to know what
had been in the water that year!
      I am always open to suggestions, but I find it amazing that in all
this discussion, no one has mentioned Dr. Guarneri's two pertinent volumes.
pds

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Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 15:13:51 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Dear Paddy: Who are the publishers of the two books that you make reference
to? I would like to see if it is possible to get desk copies, at least of
the one in print. Thanks. Pete Haro.

----------
>From: Paddy Swiney 
>To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: How to do it??
>Date: Tue, Nov 13, 2001, 2:09 PM
>

> I found it interesting that in the discussion of architectures, themes, and
> "how to do it"s, no one has mentioned Carl Guarneri's fine work, America
> Compared.   I teach both American surveys at a community college where the
> bulk of the students have been "taught" American history by high school
> coaches, where most of the student body works full time and tries to carry
> 12 hours, and who never watch the news or pick up a newspaper.  They don't
> know their own history, and I spend a great part of my course trying to
> encourage them to discover why they care.  In my honors course, I try to
> teach American history with an international reference.  These are
> motivated, self selected "honors" students, and they will do the extra
> reading necessary to get an inkling of another world out there.  I also
> make a concerted effort to recruit international students, because they ask
> such wonderful questions,which I refer to their classmates to answer.  This
> can lead to amazing discussions.
>        I use America  Compared, and an out of print book called From the
> Foreign Press, which is a contemporary compiliation of commentary on
> American events.  I found in my first semester that knowledge of World
> History is less than  that of American, so I added a feature called
> Timeline Topics--reporting by the students on concurrent events with
> American history.  For example, the colonial experience in South America
> would be explored during our own colonial period; one of my most successful
> timeline topics is assigning the French revolution and the Haitian
> revolution to be compared to our own, which illuminates events from the
> Jefferson-Hamilton clash, to the Louisiana purchase, to slavery.  Finding
> out  for example, how the British viewed the Louisiana purchase (you're
> giving 15 million dollars to Napoleon?)  is VERY informative, and gives
> insight into how American actions can be read on the world stage.  After a
> series of Timeline Topic reports on 1968, my students wanted to know what
> had been in the water that year!
>       I am always open to suggestions, but I find it amazing that in all
> this discussion, no one has mentioned Dr. Guarneri's two pertinent volumes.
> pds
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 19:02:46 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Paddy Swiney 
Subject:      Re: How to do it??
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Houghton Mifflin publishes America Compared in two volumes. Reading it gave
me the idea of teaching a comparative American history course, since we
rarely discuss such rarified notions down here in the trenches.  Our
academic efforts are often bent to reiterating the differences between
their, there and they're.   From the Foreign Press  edited by R.E. Weber is
a  Kreiger Publishing reprint (1979) of a 1972 Holt Rinehart publication.
I got 10 copies from a remand source, which I use as reserve copies in the
library.  I am trying to find some sources on the internet to update From
The Foreign Press, as it only goes to the Bicentennial.  It's pretty nifty.
pds

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Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 18:22:32 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Austin Manghan 
Subject:      Re: relavence
In-Reply-To:  <20011108140107.19371.cpmta@c006.snv.cp.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--- Dear ERIN LEHDE,

 The so called closed-minded attitude of the high
schooler is probably a defense mechanism on some
level.

I work in an integrated HS and the kids are very
idealistic on issues that they've seen first hand
(instances of interpersonal racism), and very
insensitive to the fate of people who are more removed
(e.g. the people of Afghanistan).

A debate on racism is a good idea.  Your students have
been raised to accept racism as normal and feel their
> lives personally have no bearing on nor are they
> affected by other cultures/ethnicities because they
haven't been.  Perhaps you could raise the idea that
they're also the victims of racism.  That their lives
would be enriched by being exposed to a fuller
spectrum of humanity.

I personally think your students are also victims.

They
> follow in their parents' footsteps by advocating the
> all-white environment they grew up in because they
find comfort in the status quo.  (Like Hamlet's
hesitancy to try the afterlife.)

> My advice is to pursue the possibilitiy of
> maybe having reached one or two of them so that they
> may at least LOOK at the world a different way for
> once.

"why
> is the world important to me today?" They ask.


One might answer....  Because your standard of living
has been supported by cheap labor and oppression
abroad.  The attacks of 9-11  show that we don't live
in a vacuum.

I have students who think we should nuke Afghanistan.
(Rumsfeld hasn't ruled out that option.)

My advice is to have students look at the world in
terms of their interest.  See if they think that
"Liberty and justice for all", is a goal that they'd
like to achieve.

Try to show them that that goal can't be achieved in a
vacuum.

Even if their goal is to get rich.  That needs to be
the starting point of the discussion.

Have them list all that they know.  Go from there.

What you want to do is a beautiful thing.  Just try to
guard against being patronizing.

peace,

Austin Manghan

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals
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Date:         Tue, 13 Nov 2001 23:23:13 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Steve Streeter 
Subject:      how to do it

Regarding the request for how to internationalize US history courses:

Last year the history department at McMaster University implemented a new
level 1 course called "America and the World."  Our goal was to entice
students into American history when they first enter the university, and to
offer them an alternative to European history, which is the only other
choice at the moment.  I designed the second half of the course, which runs
from 1900 to the present, to be very accessible to a wide range of students
(like the US survey, students need not have taken the first half of the
course to enroll in the second half).

The overarching theme for the course is America as empire, but I stress in
my introductory remarks that it is not a course on foreign relations.  Each
week we develop a theme, alternating between the domestic and foreign
arena. So for example, one week we might look at the effect of immigration
on America in the 1920s, and in another week we explore the impact of the
U.S. marine intervention in Nicaragua.  The lectures provide background for
tutorials which are in essence case studies that teach basic critical
thinking skills through primary and secondary sources.  I don't worry about
coverage except that the course does flow chronologically and I do attempt
to include various geographic regions (Latin America, Asia, Europe, etc.) I
opted for a coursepack approach rather than a textbook, and 75% of the
students surveyed last year said they said a textbook was not needed.  The
advantage of the coursepack is that you can pick and chose readings each
year depending on what seems relevant.  I am interested in whatever can get
them interested in history, so I like the flexibility. To help the students
with the lectures, I provided a short "background" reading in the
coursepack.  Also, I posted my lecture outlines and powerpoint
presentations on the web.

The course was very successful, but I do wonder sometimes about the
difficulty of teaching this kind of material at the lower level.  I find it
a bit challenging to keep shifting national settings, and the students can
get lost if they don't grasp the background before plunging into the
primary sources.  As always in these kinds of courses it is hard to find
unifying themes that don't over simplify.  Also, because we offer the
standard US survey to second year students and up, I have to make sure not
to encroach too much on that territory.

Last year's course syllabus is available at
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/%7Estreete/courses/H_1BB3_Winter_2001.htm
and I will shortly be posting the course syllabus for 2002.  Comments,
suggestions, inquiries are most welcome.

Steve Streeter
History Department
McMaster University
streete@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

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Date:         Wed, 14 Nov 2001 07:04:29 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         ERIN LEHDE 
Subject:      Re: relavence
Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0

Thank you very much for your advice and I feel the same way! In fact the discussion DID go in the direction you suggested. We were on the topic of who commits the crimes in a society and how to keep them out of this one. I asked them if they thought it was a crime that the city and their community has failed to prepare them as citizens for life in the real world. What would they do if when they went off to college, God forbid outside the state of IL, and they were placed in a dorm room with a black person? What would they think? What would they do?
THe discussion was remarkable and I belive I learned as much as they di although on a different level per say.
My final request of them as the class period wound down was to go thorugh life with an open mind. Not to necessarily adopt the beliefs of everyone they come incontact with, but to listen and consider and arm themselves with as much knowledge as possible to form their own ideas.
I don't have much time to finish this email, but I want you to know that all of the advice I am receiving is welcomed with an open minds and open arms. Thank you, thank you, thank you! -Erin Lehde














On Tue, 13 November 2001, Austin Manghan wrote:

>
> --- Dear ERIN LEHDE,
>
>  The so called closed-minded attitude of the high
> schooler is probably a defense mechanism on some
> level.
>
> I work in an integrated HS and the kids are very
> idealistic on issues that they've seen first hand
> (instances of interpersonal racism), and very
> insensitive to the fate of people who are more removed
> (e.g. the people of Afghanistan).
>
> A debate on racism is a good idea.  Your students have
> been raised to accept racism as normal and feel their
> > lives personally have no bearing on nor are they
> > affected by other cultures/ethnicities because they
> haven't been.  Perhaps you could raise the idea that
> they're also the victims of racism.  That their lives
> would be enriched by being exposed to a fuller
> spectrum of humanity.
>
> I personally think your students are also victims.
>
> They
> > follow in their parents' footsteps by advocating the
> > all-white environment they grew up in because they
> find comfort in the status quo.  (Like Hamlet's
> hesitancy to try the afterlife.)
>
> > My advice is to pursue the possibilitiy of
> > maybe having reached one or two of them so that they
> > may at least LOOK at the world a different way for
> > once.
>
> "why
> > is the world important to me today?" They ask.
>
>
> One might answer....  Because your standard of living
> has been supported by cheap labor and oppression
> abroad.  The attacks of 9-11  show that we don't live
> in a vacuum.
>
> I have students who think we should nuke Afghanistan.
> (Rumsfeld hasn't ruled out that option.)
>
> My advice is to have students look at the world in
> terms of their interest.  See if they think that
> "Liberty and justice for all", is a goal that they'd
> like to achieve.
>
> Try to show them that that goal can't be achieved in a
> vacuum.
>
> Even if their goal is to get rich.  That needs to be
> the starting point of the discussion.
>
> Have them list all that they know.  Go from there.
>
> What you want to do is a beautiful thing.  Just try to
> guard against being patronizing.
>
> peace,
>
> Austin Manghan
>
> __________________________________________________
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Date:         Thu, 8 Nov 2001 18:27:52 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         PadmaRang 
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Subject:      Re: How to do it??

Dear Colleagues:
With so many of the "How to do it" responses so well focused on practical
solutions, we should all, at the very least, come away from this forum with
a bibliography of text books worth using and strategies worth experimenting
with.

I find that it is often possible to draw the students themselves into this
internationalizing  process. If you happen to be teaching a diverse body of
students, they can often provide the wherewithal for internationalizing a
course.  The varying perspectives of students, even if they belong to the
same ethnic group, can give us an excuse to broaden the context and bring in
histories of other countries.  For e.g. if you ask students what they think
of Martin Luther King's strategy of non-violence, all you need is one
student to question its effectiveness.  So you can bring in Gandhi and his
successful use of non-violence to gain Indian independence, and talk about
how the civl rights movement in America ran parallel to the overthrow of
imperialism in many parts of Asia and Africa. (Such comparisons incorporate
both the "systemic" and "episodic" models that Carl Guarneri talks about.) I
am sure that almost every topic in American History, from the Constitution
to Women's Rights to the Energy Crisis begs for such internationalization,
and we can do it regardless of textbooks and mandates from Boards of
Education. (This does not mean that we don't need new text books.  They
would make our task so much easier!) If we ourselves are committed to the
internationalization process and attuned to the opportunities to do it at
every turn, we can make a difference.   The biggest challenge is: How to do
it in the limited time available to teach the course.

I find that beginning with the here and now and what the student is familiar
with is most important if you want to get them interested in what is
happening or has happened elsewhere.  Architectures are more easily
constructed when they evolve from teacher and student interest and their own
experiences.  So no matter how deplorable their attitudes and how narrow
their vision, we can still look to students to guide us in how best to
engage them in the study of history.
Padma Rangaswamy
----- >
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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Date:         Wed, 14 Nov 2001 10:46:16 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Don Reese 
Subject:      Re: relavence
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

"Perhaps you could raise the idea that they're also the victims of racism."

He's an American who lived abroad, so I don't know whether it counts as
internationalizing or not, but I've had some success with my high-school
students (from an independent school with a somewhat diverse population) by
having them read some of James Baldwin's marvelous essays on the cost of
racism for the racist. Most accessible-but gruesome and shocking-is "Going
to Meet the Man," a short story.

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Austin Manghan [SMTP:austmang@YAHOO.COM]
        Sent:   Tuesday, November 13, 2001 7:23 PM
        To:     INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
        Subject:        Re: relavence

        --- Dear ERIN LEHDE,

         The so called closed-minded attitude of the high
        schooler is probably a defense mechanism on some
        level.

        I work in an integrated HS and the kids are very
        idealistic on issues that they've seen first hand
        (instances of interpersonal racism), and very
        insensitive to the fate of people who are more removed
        (e.g. the people of Afghanistan).

        A debate on racism is a good idea.  Your students have
        been raised to accept racism as normal and feel their
        > lives personally have no bearing on nor are they
        > affected by other cultures/ethnicities because they
        haven't been.  Perhaps you could raise the idea that
        they're also the victims of racism.  That their lives
        would be enriched by being exposed to a fuller
        spectrum of humanity.

        I personally think your students are also victims.

        They
        > follow in their parents' footsteps by advocating the
        > all-white environment they grew up in because they
        find comfort in the status quo.  (Like Hamlet's
        hesitancy to try the afterlife.)

        > My advice is to pursue the possibilitiy of
        > maybe having reached one or two of them so that they
        > may at least LOOK at the world a different way for
        > once.

        "why
        > is the world important to me today?" They ask.


        One might answer....  Because your standard of living
        has been supported by cheap labor and oppression
        abroad.  The attacks of 9-11  show that we don't live
        in a vacuum.

        I have students who think we should nuke Afghanistan.
        (Rumsfeld hasn't ruled out that option.)

        My advice is to have students look at the world in
        terms of their interest.  See if they think that
        "Liberty and justice for all", is a goal that they'd
        like to achieve.

        Try to show them that that goal can't be achieved in a
        vacuum.

        Even if their goal is to get rich.  That needs to be
        the starting point of the discussion.

        Have them list all that they know.  Go from there.

        What you want to do is a beautiful thing.  Just try to
        guard against being patronizing.

        peace,

        Austin Manghan

        __________________________________________________
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site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.

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Date:         Wed, 14 Nov 2001 10:10:37 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Carl Guarneri 
Organization: St. Mary's College of Calif.
Subject:      textbooks and readers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Thanks to Paddy Swiney for the plug!  Just to clarify:  America
Compared: American History in International Perspective (1997), is a
two-volume reader for the survey course, each volume containing 24
essays by historians excerpted from books, scholarly journals, and
popular history magazines.  The paired essays present different
comparative and transnational perspectives on topics such as
colonization, slavery, revolution, the Civil War, industrialization,
imperialism, and the Cold War. You can order an examination copy by
calling HM at 800-733-1717.

A second possibility for survey use is David J. Russo's American History
From a Global Perspective: An Interpretation (2000), published in
hardcover by Praeger.  This is not a reader and not really a textbook in
the conventional sense, but an extended essay on key themes in US
History with suggestions about how they can be placed within larger
international contexts. A recent favorable review in History Teacher
suggested that it could very well be used as a survey text.

Another alternative might be C. Vann Woodward's collection of essays
entitled The Comparative Approach to American History (1968), which has
been reissued by Oxford University Press.  These were originally Voice
of America broadcasts in which prominent US historians tried to place
major US developments in larger perspective for a foreign audience.  As
you might expect, some of the essays are quite dated and several are
uncritically "exceptionalist," but others are still valuable and all are
quite readable by AP students and new undergraduates.  I wrote an
extended critique/appreciation of Woodward's anthology for Reviews in
American History, Sept. 1995.

I understand that Tom Osborne and others are in the process of writing
an internationalized US history textbook for McGraw-Hill.  Do Tom or his
co-authors want to tell us more?

Finally, teachers might want to know that the 1972 edition of From the
Foreign Press, the book that Paddy Swiney mentions, was titled As Others
See Us.  It's also out of print, but I've been photocopying excerpts for
my students for years.

Carl Guarneri

Department of History
Saint Mary's College of California
Moraga, CA  94575
Email: cguarner@stmarys-ca.edu

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Date:         Wed, 14 Nov 2001 17:47:47 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Austin Manghan 
Subject:      Re: relavence
In-Reply-To:  <20011114150429.11636.cpmta@c006.snv.cp.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Erin,

Keep up the good work.

I'm 52 years old, and I still learn more from the kids
than I teach them.

peace,

am
--- ERIN LEHDE  wrote:
> Thank you very much for your advice and I feel the
> same way! In fact the discussion DID go in the
> direction you suggested. We were on the topic of who
> commits the crimes in a society and how to keep them
> out of this one. I asked them if they thought it was
> a crime that the city and their community has failed
> to prepare them as citizens for life in the real
> world. What would they do if when they went off to
> college, God forbid outside the state of IL, and
> they were placed in a dorm room with a black person?
> What would they think? What would they do?
> THe discussion was remarkable and I belive I learned
> as much as they di although on a different level per
> say.
> My final request of them as the class period wound
> down was to go thorugh life with an open mind. Not
> to necessarily adopt the beliefs of everyone they
> come incontact with, but to listen and consider and
> arm themselves with as much knowledge as possible to
> form their own ideas.
> I don't have much time to finish this email, but I
> want you to know that all of the advice I am
> receiving is welcomed with an open minds and open
> arms. Thank you, thank you, thank you! -Erin Lehde
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 13 November 2001, Austin Manghan wrote:
>
> >
> > --- Dear ERIN LEHDE,
> >
> >  The so called closed-minded attitude of the high
> > schooler is probably a defense mechanism on some
> > level.
> >
> > I work in an integrated HS and the kids are very
> > idealistic on issues that they've seen first hand
> > (instances of interpersonal racism), and very
> > insensitive to the fate of people who are more
> removed
> > (e.g. the people of Afghanistan).
> >
> > A debate on racism is a good idea.  Your students
> have
> > been raised to accept racism as normal and feel
> their
> > > lives personally have no bearing on nor are they
> > > affected by other cultures/ethnicities because
> they
> > haven't been.  Perhaps you could raise the idea
> that
> > they're also the victims of racism.  That their
> lives
> > would be enriched by being exposed to a fuller
> > spectrum of humanity.
> >
> > I personally think your students are also victims.
> >
> > They
> > > follow in their parents' footsteps by advocating
> the
> > > all-white environment they grew up in because
> they
> > find comfort in the status quo.  (Like Hamlet's
> > hesitancy to try the afterlife.)
> >
> > > My advice is to pursue the possibilitiy of
> > > maybe having reached one or two of them so that
> they
> > > may at least LOOK at the world a different way
> for
> > > once.
> >
> > "why
> > > is the world important to me today?" They ask.
> >
> >
> > One might answer....  Because your standard of
> living
> > has been supported by cheap labor and oppression
> > abroad.  The attacks of 9-11  show that we don't
> live
> > in a vacuum.
> >
> > I have students who think we should nuke
> Afghanistan.
> > (Rumsfeld hasn't ruled out that option.)
> >
> > My advice is to have students look at the world in
> > terms of their interest.  See if they think that
> > "Liberty and justice for all", is a goal that
> they'd
> > like to achieve.
> >
> > Try to show them that that goal can't be achieved
> in a
> > vacuum.
> >
> > Even if their goal is to get rich.  That needs to
> be
> > the starting point of the discussion.
> >
> > Have them list all that they know.  Go from there.
> >
> > What you want to do is a beautiful thing.  Just
> try to
> > guard against being patronizing.
> >
> > peace,
> >
> > Austin Manghan
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals
> > http://personals.yahoo.com
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> iVillage.com: Solutions for Your Life
> Check out the most exciting women's community on the
> Web
> http://www.ivillage.com
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.


__________________________________________________
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Date:         Fri, 16 Nov 2001 11:27:29 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Ken Cruikshank 
Subject:      Re: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM Digest - 13 Nov 2001 to 14 Nov 2001
              (#2001-10)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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How to do it?

I see that my colleague Steve Streeter has beaten me to the punch in telling
you about McMaster's approach to internationalizing US history, by
introducing a set of courses separate from the regular US history survey,
and putting these in first year, so the "regular" survey comes second.  We
divided the course in half -- to 1900 and post 1900.  Steve teaches the
twentieth century; I teach the previous centuries.

Those interested in seeing what I do can consult the webpage for the course,
which provides the course outline as well as links to assignments, the
coursepack (but the site only has references to readings, not the actual
readings, to avoid any copyright complications) and powerpoint presentations
of the lectures so far (stripped of all images, again to avoid copyright
complications).
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~cruiksha/h1b032001.htm

I thought I would just talk about the course, America and the World to 1900,
in terms of some of the themes I have seen in this forum.

1.  Separate course?
We have opted for a separate course.  Having a separate course frees me from
worrying about covering all the material I would feel compelled to cover in
a survey.  Instead, I try to explore what it means to think about global
interactions, and emphasize how events in one part of the world affect other
parts of the world.  There may be downsides, but we just introduced the
course last year, so we do not know if students will complain about
duplication, or wish they had the survey first, for a few years.  One
downside is that it may limit our internationalizing the survey itself,
because in fact those teaching the second year survey will want to avoid
covering topics that some but not all students may have taken in the first
year course.

2.  What is the America we want to internationalize?
I have not seen very much discussion of this here, but those of us outside
the US are aware that America can have a broader meaning than the US, and
can include consideration, at least, of the development of and relations
between other parts of America.  Indeed, I have often been amused by US
texts which always seem to spend time on the conquest of Mexico and South
America, but those areas largely disappear once the thirteen colonies begin
to develop.  I chose to focus on the geographic areea that would become the
US, so I talk mostly about Spain in US southwest, French in Mississippi and
Ohio river areas, and British Atlantic colonies.  To be consistent, I focus
my pre-columbus discussion of America on what would become the continental
US.  The US is the anchor in the course, but I use it to discuss matter such
as economic and political changes in Europe and Africa, revolutions in
Europe and Latin America that flowed from the US revolution, the development
of Mexico prior to the Mexican war, and changes in other parts of the world
that prompted migration to the US.

3.  Themes?
This is the only way I could think of to organize this course.  First, I
decided that this would not be a comparative history course, nor would it be
what the US looked like to outsiders nor would it be a US foreign policy
course, which students sometimes expect from a course with this title.
These are all interesting approaches, but  I wanted a broad theme of global
interaction, how changes in one part of the world have always affected other
parts of the world.
My themes and indeed my course, at least for 8-9 weeks, looks suspiciously
like an Atlantic history course.  Last year my themes were: Borderlands
(encounter of European and American civilizations, with emphasis on Spain,
France and Britain in area that would become US); Atlantic Slave Trade
(global origins, impact on Africa and US); Revolutions (global origins and
consequences of American revolution); Creative Destruction (industrial
revolution and global migrations); Manifest Destiny (consequences of 19th c
"expansionism", both continental and beyond, on other peoples, with focus on
Mexico and Phillipines in readings, but some attention to expansionism and
US civil war).  This year I changed the first two, to "Encounters" to cover
encounter of Europe, Africa and America, and "Empires" to cover interactions
of various Indians groups with Spain, France and Britain as they sought to
achieve imperial strategic goals in America, and relations with Indians in
imperial rivalries, while also looking at the impact of the development of
the slave trade on Africa   For the most part, I am happy with the themes,
because they allow me to introduce students to a range of histories.  Like
Steve, I sometimes wonder if these themes are too complex for first year
students, although I do _try_ to simplify (which is probably easier for me,
since none of these areas is very near any of my own research work)

4.  Texts?
As many have noted, there are not many to choose from.  I use courseware
packs that I have designed, combining primary sources and articles.  I was
inspired, however imperfectly I may follow the model, by  Hollitz'  reader
for the standard survey, Thinking through the Past (I hope I have the right
title).

The year after I designed the course, Houghton Mifflin came out with a
reader, Thomas Benjamin et al, The Atlantic World in the Age of Empire,
which might be used to design a course in US as Atlantic history.   Peter
Charles Hoffer's The Brave New World: A History of Early America is
promising in defining America more broadly, but at least for my purposes,
and like many colonial US books, spends far too much time on the development
of the thirteen colonies. (Again, knowing that students will get more of it
in the survey, I spend less time on the thirteen colonies, and more time on
the frontier regions between the Spanish, French and British colonies).  I
have thought of using Gregory Nobles, _American Frontiers_, even though it
is quite US-centric, if only because it touches on the themes of
interactions between different European and native American peoples on the
frontiers, which is certainly a theme I return to quite a lot.  It would not
serve as a "textbook" however. I have not noticed anyone mentioning
Greenfield and Buenker, who have a reader with Harcourt Brace, Those United
States, which provides international perspectives on the US.   Worth a look,
although for me
For me, of course, any of these texts would be difficult because they are
tied to standard survey chronology, or if they are on colonial America, end
around the revolution.  Dividing the course at 1900 has its challenges.

Just some random comments, to contribute to this stimulating exchange.

Ken

Ken Cruikshank
Department of History
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
HAMILTON ON
L8S 4L9
cruiksha@mcmaster.ca
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~cruiksha/

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Date:         Fri, 16 Nov 2001 12:33:18 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         "David W. Stowe" 
Subject:      How to do it
In-Reply-To:  <200111140504.fAE54h258518@pilot14.cl.msu.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

Colleagues--

On the question of how to do it, I'd like to build on Alan Dawley's
notion of looking simultaneously from the outside in and bottom up.  At
Michigan State, general education courses provide a prime opportunity
for internationalizing students' views of American history.  Most are
both interdisciplinary and transnational in perspective, and reach the
great majority of undergraduates at some point.

Last year I developed a course for a general education program called
Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities, on Music and Culture in
American Religion.  We looked at transnational flows of religious
belief and musical practice into--and to some extent out of--North
America from Asia (beginning with Native peoples), Europe and Africa.
The interpenetration of these various practices makes for a fascinating
study of cultural hybridity across a range of regional contact zones--American
Indian and Buddhist hymns, concertized slave spirituals, Moravian hymns
in Georgia and the Carolinas, British ballads in shape-note revival
songs, and so on. National borders seemed almost to drop away from the story.

Religion and music are both transnational phenomena which are at the
same time preeminently local.  They allow students to see how people are
simultaneously embedded in communities and solidarities both smaller
than and larger than the nation.  And both are often ignored by
historians focusing on more material flows--of capital, commodities or
bodies. Assignments included both autoethnographies of their personal and
familial experiences with "sacred music" (defined broadly of
course--nearly everyone's favorite music is in some sense sacred) and
preliminary ethnographies of local communities of faith.  All
indications are that this way of integrating the transnational and the
local was one that made sense to students (and was stimulating to
teach).


>
>
>Date:    Tue, 13 Nov 2001 16:37:15 -0500
>From:    Alan Dawley 
>Subject: Re: How to do it??
>
>     Putting my two cents into this interesting discussion, I think
>there is some value in looking at the United States simultaneously
>from "the outside
>in" and "the bottom up."
>     Certainly for twentieth century historians, the distinctive
>features of American life are intimately bound up with imperial
>expansion, the world
>wars, the Cold War, and globalization. The result is something of a
>paradox. To understand what is special about twentieth century
>America, it is
>necessary to come to grips with what goes on outside its boundaries.
>If the goal is to write a distinctly national history, there is no
>option but to
>look at America from the outside in.
>     At the same time, if we are to capture the textures of lived
>experience and the distinctly American mix of social practices, it
>is necessary to
>ground the story in the everyday workings of American life.
>Historians have opened many vistas on the ways private dramas of
>work and family are played
>out on the public stage, revealing how the push and pull of everyday
>life involves social struggles for power among the various layers of
>American
>society.
>    Combining the two perspectives - outside in and bottom up -
>points to the reciprocal impact of the external and the internal
>balance of power. Many
>aspects of twentieth century history are being re-examined along
>these lines. To take three examples, work is well underway on the
>impact of the Cold
>War on Civil Rights, wartime nationalism on gender identities, and
>globalization on the welfare state. New courses and new textbooks
>are sure to
>follow.
>
>     Yours,
>Alan Dawley
--
        David W. Stowe
        American Thought & Language
        Michigan State University
        East Lansing, MI 48824-1033
        517/432-2551

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Date:         Fri, 16 Nov 2001 15:16:44 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Jack Betterly 
Subject:      Teaching WH in Future Tense (Long Cross-Posting)
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I wrote this post for, and sent this post to, H-World, a listserv of history
professors and teachers. I am cross-posting it here on the off chance that
it might be relevant to the concerns of globalizing U. S. History.
    Have a fine Thanksgiving!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    We look at the evidence we have before us and from it we imagine a past.
Similarly, we look at the evidence before us and we imagine a future. The
past is too enormous to teach unedited; therefore, the history which we
teach is inevitably shaped, at least in part, by the future we imagine. We
can never live anywhere except on that line-of-no-width called the present,
but we must live there within the context of our imagined past and our
imagined future.
    I look at the evidence of the future and I am disturbed, because it
seems to involve crises so complex that I feel history teachers increasingly
ignore them because of the extent of the historical revisionism they imply
if we are to edit and interpret wisely.
    Let me list projected trends for which evidence seems pretty
overwhelming:
1. Increasing population growth.
2. Demands for increasing productivity.
3. Increasing depletion of resources.
4. Increasing pollution.
5. Global warming sufficient to raise oceans.
6. Increasing concentration of wealth.
7. Increasing relative poverty, as well as numbers of poor.
8. Increasing mutated epidemic disease (a la HIV).
9. Increasing refugees.
10. Increasing economic and political instability.
11. Growth in relative global wealth of non-western economic elites.
12. Proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical technologies.

    That will do. One can quibble about degree for any of these, but I doubt
if any significant number of informed scholars would disagree that these
projected curves seem pretty valid guesses for at least the next 50-75
years. I will not be around to see all of this, but my three grandchildren
will. They are the sort I think of when I think of teaching history.
    Now - two single examples of obsolete terminology which one would think
history teachers would be working on to expunge or replace:
    1. CAPITALISM: By now I think it is evident that Smithian capitalism has
never existed, any more than Marxian Communism. For the most part, stable,
organized states are, and have always been, some variety of socialist
enterprise in which the state provides significant capital for, significant
support for, and significant regulation of, an economy which provides what
is necessary to the rich and to the poor in order to guarantee the station
of an elite. This elite is usually, to some degree, hereditary. (Young
George Bush is hardly unusual.) The government provides roads, protection,
taxation, currency, finance regulation, corporate subsidies, etc. The United
States, or Britain, does not in any way practice "laissez-faire capitalism",
any more than the Soviet Union practiced "Communism."
    2. DEMOCRACY: The term is used in a way to imply that there are states
in which most policy decisions, or most of the crucial policy decisions, are
made either by a majority of the adult citizens, or by people chosen by the
majority of adult citizens. It is horribly misleading. Obviously, if you
take the United States, only a small minority even vote when given a legal
opportunity. Most state structures - even the USSR under Stalin - mix some
mechanisms of popular review with both administrative autocracy, with
oligarchy, with class domination. Not that the varieties are not important.
That is just the point. Until we realize they are varieties of the same
thing, we misperceive the importance of varies differences. And we
misperceive the varieties which we must keep crucially in mind as our world
government continues to grow and evolve. We must be clear, accurate and
unembarassed about how power really works.
    These are just two examples. There are hundreds of other archaic terms
we should be weeding out. Calling George W. Bush a Capitalist is about as
relevant or enlightening or helpful  as calling him a Manichaen or an Arian,
as far as a 13-21 year-old is concerned.
    So much of history as it is taught sounds like some early Nineteenth
Century drawing room chat at Oxford. This bothers me. I think it is evident
to most of us that our courses should be presenting the kind of history
which has been structured and edited in terms of our perceived future.
    What does it mean to say "left-wing" or "right-wing"? This kind of
terminology is a hold-over from 17th century British Parliamentarianism and
18th and 19th Century reflections on the French Revolution. If someone today
tells me that a Congressman is "right-wing" today I haven't the vaguest idea
what it means except to imply adherence to certain popularized slogans.
    I will stick my neck out. Here are some of my conclusions about what
today's students will be required to adjust to: The UN, which IS and HAS
BEEN a world government since 1945 will continue, will gain in power, and to
a great degree at the price of US hegemony. Much more expensive gasoline.
The growth of a world elite far more ethnically varied and far less aware of
what white, middle-class Europeans and Americans call "civil rights."
Increasing domestic and foreign terrorism. A significantly declining
standard of living. Epidemics.
    Were I they, I would reach 45 saying, ":How the hell did I get here?"
Why isn't the world the way my history teachers implied it would be?" To a
degree, that is exactly what has happened since September 11, 2001. (And
people are arguing whether we should or should not have "globalization", a
"world government". Hello? We have had both for a long time. They get away
with murder because people haven't been told about them, so they debate
their existence rather than attempt to reform them.
    This is too long, and too arbitrary, and I apologize. I intend only to
bring up the relationship of teaching to the past and the future as an
important, relatively unconfronted issue in the teaching of world history.
(The WRITING of world history is quite another enterprise - related, but
different.) I do not seek airy, convoluted puzzles in the philosophical
semantics of history. They can be fun, but I get them on
H-History-and-Theory. Mine is a pragmatic issue of teaching "not writing"
history. How does a history teacher (not writer) shape and select and
interpret world history within the context of both the imagined past and the
imagined future in a way which will a) communicate the importance and
relevance of history, and, b) maximize accuracy, in a way which will leave
him/her proud of having fulfilled the obligations of the prefessional
history teacher to the student, to the society, and to the discipline?
    Myself, I think this is an issue we could profit from by kicking it
around. We are pretty bright people. It also has a great deal to do with the
History and the World Crisis issue, but much broader.
--
"...history is to be regarded not as a sequence of happenings but as a
series of problems".
    - Geoffrey Barraclough, 1991

Jack Betterly, Emma Willard School, Emeritus
6350 Eubank Boulevard NE, Apt. #1013
Albuquerque, NM 87111    E-mail: jbetterl@yahoo.com
New Web Site: 


_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


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Date:         Tue, 20 Nov 2001 17:31:02 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Ellen Noonan 
Subject:      9.11 changing the survey?

I'm curious if anyone is revamping any part of their US History Survey
courses, particularly the 20th century parts, to contextualize the events
of September 11th. It seems that it's an event students will be very
interested in, and one on which global perspectives can shed
considerable light.  Are you adding readings or material to lectures?
Altering themes or units?

Ellen Noonan

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 20 Nov 2001 22:46:28 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         albrown 
Subject:      Re: 9.11 changing the survey?
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Yes, I am adding lecture material and adding books to my review list.  In
discussing the Cold War, I had always discussed events in Guatemala and Cuba
to give context for US actions in Vietnam.  This semester and in the future I
plan to add more material on US involvement in the Middle East to give context
for the Sept. 11 tragedy.

April Brown
PhD candidate
University of Arkansas



>===== Original Message From "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
       =====
>I'm curious if anyone is revamping any part of their US History Survey
>courses, particularly the 20th century parts, to contextualize the events
>of September 11th. It seems that it's an event students will be very
>interested in, and one on which global perspectives can shed
>considerable light.  Are you adding readings or material to lectures?
>Altering themes or units?
>
>Ellen Noonan
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

April L. Brown
University of Arkansas
History Department
MAIN 416
Fayetteville, AR 72701

albrown@uark.edu

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:08:07 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Susan Butler 
Subject:      Re: 9.11 changing the survey?
Comments: cc: Susan Oliver 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Ellen raises an important issue.  As an American historian, I believe that
it is essential to revamp my survey course to reflect the September 11
event.  As I consider this process, it seems that it makes the most sense
integrate and highlight the causes and issues that have led to terrorist
acts  --- and I consider these roots to have a long tradition in our foreign
and domestic history.  Thus, my approach to reconsidering my course content
is to rethink what I select to emphasize about American foreign policy in
the 20th century, as well as make extra efforts to illustrate issues of
racism/cultural diversity in our own society.

Since I'm a novice about the societies and politics of the Middle East, I
have much to learn before I can teach.  Thus, I would much appreciate any
suggestions from others of resources that can help me better understand some
of the underlying causes.

Susan Oliver
Cerritos College

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ellen Noonan" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 2:31 PM
Subject: 9.11 changing the survey?


> I'm curious if anyone is revamping any part of their US History Survey
> courses, particularly the 20th century parts, to contextualize the events
> of September 11th. It seems that it's an event students will be very
> interested in, and one on which global perspectives can shed
> considerable light.  Are you adding readings or material to lectures?
> Altering themes or units?
>
> Ellen Noonan
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 21 Nov 2001 10:54:46 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Alan Dawley 
Subject:      Re: 9.11 changing the survey?
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

The events flowing from September 11th reinforced plans already underway to revamp 20th century courses to look at America from the outside in. The new
design is based on the premise that self-knowledge requires that Americans know something about how others see them, in their blue jeans and their F-16s
from Beijing to Baghdad. The 20th c. overview is organized around a series of thematic units where the vantage point starts from outside the U.S. and
moves in: for example, the unit on imperialism starts in Cuba; U.S. rise to world power begins with European migration; civil rights in the Cold War
begins with African independence. And so on.

Another initiative is a fledgling interdisciplinary Project on American History and Life. Bringing together colleagues in history, the humanities, and
the social sciences, the Project focuses on America in global context through a series of planned symposia, colloquia, and collaborative teaching
ventures. Again, this was already in gestation, and Sept. 11 has given an added impetus.

There is a danger in making too much of Sept. 11. Although everything has changed since then, historians - of all people - should know that everything
has also stayed the same. Have the structures of North/South division, U.S. hegemony, globalization, etc., etc. been fundamentally altered? I doubt it.
What Marc Bloch called the central question of our discipline - the conundrum of change and continuity - continues to govern.


Yours,
Alan Dawley
The College of New Jersey


Ellen Noonan wrote:

> I'm curious if anyone is revamping any part of their US History Survey
> courses, particularly the 20th century parts, to contextualize the events
> of September 11th. It seems that it's an event students will be very
> interested in, and one on which global perspectives can shed
> considerable light.  Are you adding readings or material to lectures?
> Altering themes or units?
>
> Ellen Noonan
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:27:51 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Thomas Bender 
Subject:      September 11, another aspect
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I hope the responses to  Ellen  Noonan's query about changes in teaching of
the twentieth century in response to September 11.  It does seem that 9.11
ought to serve as a great stimulus for internationalizing American history,
for bringing to the fore the connections of the US to larger  matters on a
global scale.

Yet the series of executive orders and a legislative act that severely
reduces civil liberties and the tradition of innocence until proven guilty
make me think about more conventional historical topics.  So does the
apparently postive recollection of the internment of the Japanese in
justification of curtailing rights of immigrants. And as Lincoln observed
in relation to the Know Nothing party, if you start denying rights to one
group, where do you stop.

So my question:  Does 9.11 require us to move in two directions at once:
first, greater integration into international history, and, second, greater
attention to such old-fashioned topics as constitutional history?  Or is
that traditional "civics" side of history someone else's job?  Can we do
all of this in the present allocation of time in the schools for U.S.
history?

Tom Bender
Thomas Bender
Director
International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
and
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
ph:  212.998.3773
fax: 212.995.4546

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
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Date:         Wed, 21 Nov 2001 06:04:13 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Susan Butler 
Subject:      Re: 9.11 changing the survey?
Comments: cc: Susan Oliver 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

April,

I would be interested in knowing what materials you plan to offer.  Also, do
you have any ideas about integrating the question of Arabs countries in the
WWI era?

Susan Butler
Cerritos College
----- Original Message -----
From: "albrown" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: 9.11 changing the survey?


> Yes, I am adding lecture material and adding books to my review list.  In
> discussing the Cold War, I had always discussed events in Guatemala and
Cuba
> to give context for US actions in Vietnam.  This semester and in the
future I
> plan to add more material on US involvement in the Middle East to give
context
> for the Sept. 11 tragedy.
>
> April Brown
> PhD candidate
> University of Arkansas
>
>
>
> >===== Original Message From "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
>        =====
> >I'm curious if anyone is revamping any part of their US History Survey
> >courses, particularly the 20th century parts, to contextualize the events
> >of September 11th. It seems that it's an event students will be very
> >interested in, and one on which global perspectives can shed
> >considerable light.  Are you adding readings or material to lectures?
> >Altering themes or units?
> >
> >Ellen Noonan
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
> April L. Brown
> University of Arkansas
> History Department
> MAIN 416
> Fayetteville, AR 72701
>
> albrown@uark.edu
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 21 Nov 2001 12:16:20 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Harvey Wheeler 
Subject:      Re: September 11, another aspect
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

As we attempt to recover from WW II, the History of America becomes, on the
international plane, oriented around the history of the American Presidency;

And so does World History and Globalization.

I think Kennan, Kissenger and Zbignew - and "Convergence Theory" furnish
special focal points.

HW


-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Bender 
To: INTERNATIONALIZINGFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Date: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 11:42 AM
Subject: September 11, another aspect


>I hope the responses to  Ellen  Noonan's query about changes in teaching of
>the twentieth century in response to September 11.  It does seem that 9.11
>ought to serve as a great stimulus for internationalizing American history,
>for bringing to the fore the connections of the US to larger  matters on a
>global scale.
>
>Yet the series of executive orders and a legislative act that severely
>reduces civil liberties and the tradition of innocence until proven guilty
>make me think about more conventional historical topics.  So does the
>apparently postive recollection of the internment of the Japanese in
>justification of curtailing rights of immigrants. And as Lincoln observed
>in relation to the Know Nothing party, if you start denying rights to one
>group, where do you stop.
>
>So my question:  Does 9.11 require us to move in two directions at once:
>first, greater integration into international history, and, second, greater
>attention to such old-fashioned topics as constitutional history?  Or is
>that traditional "civics" side of history someone else's job?  Can we do
>all of this in the present allocation of time in the schools for U.S.
>history?
>
>Tom Bender
>Thomas Bender
>Director
>International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
>and
>Department of History
>New York University
>53 Washington Square South
>New York, NY 10012
>ph:  212.998.3773
>fax: 212.995.4546
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 21 Nov 2001 15:29:57 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Mary Dudziak 
Subject:      Re: September 11, another aspect
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.6.32.20011122082751.03bb9780@pop.nyu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Since Tom has suggested that perhaps we are torn in two directions,
between "internationalizing" American history and "such old-fashioned
topics as constitutional history," as a constitutional historian I feel
compelled to respond.  I don't think this dichotomy is necessary.

For starters, the work being done in constitutional history these
days is not old-fashioned at all.  For just one example, see Linda Kerber,
No Constitutional Right to be Ladies.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0809073846/qid=1006381956/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_3_2/104-0280692-2747976

Some of the more interesting current work in constitutional history looks
at the transnational character of American constitutional history,
particularly the role of the Supreme Court in facilitating American empire
at the turn of the 19th century.  See Burnett and Marshall, eds., Foreign
in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822326981/qid=1006382175/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/104-0280692-2747976

There is also work that specifically addresses the relationship between
individual rights at home and the U.S. role in the world.  Apologies for
plugging my own work, but see Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights:  Race and
the Image of American Democracy.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691016615/qid=1006382430/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/104-0280692-2747976
This book has been assigned in high school and undergraduate history and
political science courses, in addition to grad and law classes.  It will
be out in paper early next year.

Cold War Civil Rights is just one of a number of books that explore the
intersection between race and foreign relations in U.S. history.  (See
e.g. Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign
Affairs, 1935-1960,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0807822728/qid=1006382598/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_14_6/104-0280692-2747976
and Penny Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and
Anticolonialism, 1937-1957
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801431972/qid=1006382680/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_4_1/104-0280692-2747976

If you have a student interested in this area, or if you're looking for an
article to assign, the best quick overview of the literature is the five
volume collection edited by Michael Krenn and published by Garland:  Race
and U.S. Foreign Policy From the Colonial Period to the Present: A
Collection of Essays.  See, e.g., the volume on the Cold War:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081532958X/qid=1006382792/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_8_4/104-0280692-2747976
Another collection edited by Brenda Gayle Plummer will be published by the
University of North Carolina Press.  The title is America's Dilemma.

A nice, short primary source that could be assigned in high school classes
would be an excerpt from the report of President Truman's President's
Committee on Civil Rights, To Secure These Rights (1947).  The report
argues that there were three reasons the U.S. needed to make progress on
civil rights reform:  discrimination was immoral, discrimination harmed
the economy, and discrimination harmed U.S. foreign affairs.
Another useful source would be an excerpt from the U.S. government's brief
in Brown v. Board of Ed. (1954), arguing that school segregation harmed U.S.
foreign relations.  These sources should be in any major research library
or government documents library.  Or you could simply turn to any U.S.
newspaper the day after Brown was decided, since the case was placed in
the context of the Cold War, and the impact of race discrimination on
American foreign relations was addressed in many papers.  (The Cold War
implications of Brown v. Bd. are also discussed in Cold War Civil Rights,
pp. 90-114.)

Thinking about the impact of individual rights on the U.S. image abroad
and on U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War could be helpful when
we examine the broader implications of racial and ethnic profiling,
military courts, etc., in the aftermath of September 11.  So in response
to Tom, I think constitutional history and an international approach to
U.S. history can and should be done together.

Mary Dudziak
USC Law School


On Thu, 22 Nov 2001, Thomas Bender wrote:

> I hope the responses to  Ellen  Noonan's query about changes in teaching of
> the twentieth century in response to September 11.  It does seem that 9.11
> ought to serve as a great stimulus for internationalizing American history,
> for bringing to the fore the connections of the US to larger  matters on a
> global scale.
>
> Yet the series of executive orders and a legislative act that severely
> reduces civil liberties and the tradition of innocence until proven guilty
> make me think about more conventional historical topics.  So does the
> apparently postive recollection of the internment of the Japanese in
> justification of curtailing rights of immigrants. And as Lincoln observed
> in relation to the Know Nothing party, if you start denying rights to one
> group, where do you stop.
>
> So my question:  Does 9.11 require us to move in two directions at once:
> first, greater integration into international history, and, second, greater
> attention to such old-fashioned topics as constitutional history?  Or is
> that traditional "civics" side of history someone else's job?  Can we do
> all of this in the present allocation of time in the schools for U.S.
> history?
>
> Tom Bender
> Thomas Bender
> Director
> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
> and
> Department of History
> New York University
> 53 Washington Square South
> New York, NY 10012
> ph:  212.998.3773
> fax: 212.995.4546
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 23 Nov 2001 17:33:09 -0600
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Rosemary Hopkins 
Subject:      Re: Web
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I am very interested in your new project.  I would also like to purchase
your video collection, The Day the Universe Changed.  It doesn't seem to be
available anywhere.  Do you have any hints on where I could get it?
Thanks, Rosemary Hopkins
Nerinx Hall High School

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 26 Nov 2001 21:18:48 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Thomas Bender 
Subject:      Combining inside and outside
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I am struck by the seeming fit in the responses of Mary Dudziak and Alan
Dawley to my query about internal and external aspects of American history.
 I think that Dawley's suggestion of starting as many themes from outside
the U.S. as possible has tremendous teaching potential.  If part of the
issue is to show that American history is embedded in larger histories,
start with those histories and connections, rather than treating them as
add-ons.  And the points Dudziak makes about constitutional issues, like
civil rights, fit right into this. Start with the view of race questions
from Africa or India and then show that such external histories are
sometimes incorporated into the fundamental work of domestic law making in
the courts and the legislature.

Starting outside and moving in would, I think, have an unusually strong
impact. I hope there will be more comment on the interventions by Dawley
and Dudziak--views on viability of the strategy and specific examples.

Tom Bender

Thomas Bender
Director
International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
and
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
ph:  212.998.3773
fax: 212.995.4546

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 26 Nov 2001 11:44:46 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         "Harry L. Watson" 
Organization: University of North Carolina
Subject:      Re: Combining inside and outside
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I'm curious to know whether the excellent suggestions from Dawley and
Dudziak are intended for the introductory first year survey, for
specialized introductory seminars, or for advanced, upper level
courses?

In my first year classes, I have a great many reasonably bright and
receptive students who think that all the English colonies were all
settled by people seeking religious freedom, who have no clear idea why
the American Revolution took place, and who need to be carefully
persuaded that the Civil War really did have something to do with
slavery instead of abstract principles of states rights.  Specifically
in connection with constitutional law, it is a major step forward to
familiarize them with the concept of republicanism and to discuss how
the Constitution did and did not embody it. All these topics have
international dimensions which can and should be brought out, but
putting them aside in the first year survey to discuss the latest work
on almost anything feels like a reversal of priorities to me.
Discussing these events primarily from the "outside in" likewise seems
to presume too much in the way of foreknowledge, particularly for
introductory students.  Is there a danger of trying to do too much at
once?  What sort of priorities should we follow to internationalize
different levels of coursework?

Harry Watson
UNC-CH


Thomas Bender wrote:
>
> I am struck by the seeming fit in the responses of Mary Dudziak and Alan
> Dawley to my query about internal and external aspects of American history.
>  I think that Dawley's suggestion of starting as many themes from outside
> the U.S. as possible has tremendous teaching potential.  If part of the
> issue is to show that American history is embedded in larger histories,
> start with those histories and connections, rather than treating them as
> add-ons.  And the points Dudziak makes about constitutional issues, like
> civil rights, fit right into this. Start with the view of race questions
> from Africa or India and then show that such external histories are
> sometimes incorporated into the fundamental work of domestic law making in
> the courts and the legislature.
>
> Starting outside and moving in would, I think, have an unusually strong
> impact. I hope there will be more comment on the interventions by Dawley
> and Dudziak--views on viability of the strategy and specific examples.
>
> Tom Bender
>
> Thomas Bender
> Director
> International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
> and
> Department of History
> New York University
> 53 Washington Square South
> New York, NY 10012
> ph:  212.998.3773
> fax: 212.995.4546
>
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Date:         Wed, 28 Nov 2001 15:44:12 +0200
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Nur Bilge CRISS 
Subject:      Internationalizing American History
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Dear Colleagues,

I have beeen reading the contributions to this forum with interest. As a
diplomatic historian teaching at a Turkish University (Bilkent where the
language medium of teaching is English), I have a couple of observations
to share.  One is that I totally agree with Mary Dudziak that this may
be a false dichotomy. Perhaps I feel this way because one cannot totally
divorce American History from European or world history when it comes to
teaching diplomatic history or Cold War history like I do. For instance,
how can one skip Great Power actions during the American Civil War, when
one considers Louis Napoleaon's machinations in Mexico and US diplomacy
in France. And Cold War history speaks for itself. Second, a few years
ago I had the responsibility to interview job applicants at the American
History Conference, to teach American History survey courses and
electives of their choice at Bilkent University's History Department.
The majority of the applicants who wrote their dissertations on one
aspect of American social history or another, shied away from teaching
an American History survey course, because they identified themselves
either as urban historians or sports historians.  I am sure that not all
Ph.D. candidates focus on regional, even yet smaller area histories, but
Americn colleagues also verified that topics chosen of late had become
too narrow. If this is the case, this limits the young PhDs'
marketability and at the same time does not provide a world-view of
history with America's place in that world. Maybe it is time to dwell on
this aspect also without having to force too much information into
American history courses. I believe that only when butressed with
European Diplomatic or systems histories can American History be
meaningfully tied to the rest of the world. Otherwise there is nothing
wrong with national histories per se.
Nur Bilge Criss
Assistant Professor of International Relations
Bilkent University, Department of International Relations
06533, Ankara Turkey
criss@bilkent.edu.tr

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Date:         Tue, 27 Nov 2001 08:05:55 -0800
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         RESHEF Ouriel 
Subject:      Reply to Internationalizing U.S. History Forum
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Dear all,

What I find most fascinating about this forum is that
respected scholars and educators seem to have
litterally "discovered" that U.S. history had been
taught autistically and without reference to the rest
of the world! What a discovery! Your guess is as good
as mine as to whether such an aloofness and depth of
ignorance is not at the root of much of the resentment
which the U.S. have to face today.If out of the chaos
of September 11 (what is this event anyway which even
does not have a proper name?!) U.S. "civilization" was
prompted to come out of their "splendid isolation" -
maybe some good may still come out of the mess.

What's to be done? (quoting Lenin) Obviously relying
only on a Nike-like slogan: "Just do it" seems too
candid. Here is a thought from a European historian
and educator.

If you compare the number of hours a student will
spend studying History during his schooling in Europe
and in North America, you may be amazed at the
difference. Obviously, if on top of the small amount
of hours dedicated in the States to history, the
American student will spend part of his time studying
Native American, Black, or Women studies, in order to
be one hundred percent PC, than there is not much time
left for proper historical studies and the "world"
gets forgotten at the tail of the programs. Changing
the emphasis or the focus to account for the dual
relationship of the U.S. and the world means to review
priorities and seriously reshuffle programs,
schedules, curricula, etc... Do you see anyone in the
States willing to take the lead on this issue and go
to battles? Where will all the good will and the
creativity spurred by the present forum be 2-3 years
from now without official backing?

Does that sound too pessimistic? Let me then remind
you of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers: "mankind
are more disposed to suffer while evils are
sufferable"
- which is why I have my doubts about the long-term
results of this hue-and-cry raised since September 11.

But it is also true that I would so love to be proved
wrong!

Ouriel RESHEF
American School of Paris
oreshef@asparis.org


=====


__________________________________________________
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Date:         Tue, 27 Nov 2001 15:31:59 -0500
Reply-To:     rob.kroes@hum.uva.nl
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         kroes 
Subject:      Re: Internationalizing American History
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Given our shared interest in the problems of how to internationalize American History, and given my vantage point here as a visiting academic in the
Boston area, the following idea may be topical. I am struck by the fact, as many of you maust be, that a leading American newspaper, one also that
prides itself on its cosmopolitanism - the New York Times - has a daily section called "A Nation Challenged." There are many more examples in the press
of this construction of  the United States as the party solely targeted and affected by international terrorism. It would be fascinating, in teaching
situations,  to confront students with this particular journalistic response to September 11th and to present them with a selection of European press
responses (given the language problem this would have to be mainly British). Taking it from there, students could then engage in similar comparative
research for earlier international crises. It might serve as a teaching strategy to make them aware of this ingrained nationalizing tendency in the
American media.

Rob Kroes
University of Amsterdam

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Date:         Tue, 27 Nov 2001 14:26:55 -0700
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Kristin Hoganson 
Subject:      Re: Reply to Internationalizing U.S. History Forum
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Hello,

I'd like to reply to the posting by Ouriel Reshef and
specifically to the following remark:


"Obviously, if on top of the small amount

> of hours dedicated in the States to history, the
> American student will spend part of his time studying
> Native American, Black, or Women studies, in order to
> be one hundred percent PC, than there is not much time
> left for proper historical studies and the "world"
> gets forgotten at the tail of the programs. Changing
> the emphasis or the focus to account for the dual
> relationship of the U.S. and the world means to review
> priorities and seriously reshuffle programs,
> schedules, curricula, etc..."

I do not regard the effort to internationalize the study
of U.S. history as something that would imply forsaking
Native American, Black, or women's history for "proper" topics
(presumably political economy, diplomacy, and so forth).

Rather, I see the internationalizing movement as being on the cutting
edge of contemporary scholarship because it can improve our
understanding of a wide range of topics -- including the ones that
Reshef dismisses as PC.

Last year I taught a senior seminar in which students had to write
research papers connecting local history (that is, the history of Champaign
County, Illinois) to international history.  (I got papers on everything
from Olympic athletes to immigrants, war protestors, and agricultural
development initiatives.)  Now I am starting to put together an undergraduate
class called The United States in an Age of Empire (it will run from
roughly 1865 to 1920) and a graduate class called Global America.
Each of these will pay some attention to international
relations history.  But what the internationalizing movement has
inspired me to do is to go beyond international relations history
as traditionally conceived and to consider cultural, social, and other
developments in a more international context.  I want my students
to question whether any topic merits an exclusively domestic approach
AND to debate what should be included under the rubric of
international relations history.

Kristin Hoganson
Assistant Professor of History
The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
hoganson@uiuc.edu

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Date:         Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:05:45 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Barbara Keys 
Subject:      foreign English-language newspapers
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Rob Kroes suggested having students read foreign newspapers as a means of
internationalizing U.S. history.  Such news sources can be an excellent way
to help students understand how the U.S. is viewed abroad--a particularly
important task, obviously, in the aftermath of September 11.  Despite the
language barrier, there are many resources available online that can be
used for assignments along these lines.  There are links to hundreds of
global newspapers online at http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/, including
many in English.  I'm also appending two resources that people might find
useful:  a list of foreign English-languages newspapers compiled by
colleagues at Franklin and Marshall College and a Slate.com article
reviewing Middle East English-language news sources.

Barbara Keys
Franklin & Marshall College



ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWS SOURCES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The Times of India; "paper of record"
http://www.timesofindia.com/

Dawn; English-language Pakistani daily
http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/05/welcome.htm

Kompas; Indonesian paper with English available
http://www.kompas.co.id/
Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com/headlines.asp)
has better English coverage

The Guardian (UK); daily with leftist leanings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The Toronto Globe & Mail; Canada's "paper of record"
http://www.GlobeAndMail.CA/

AllAfrica.com; digest of many different African dailies, from around the
continent (English and French versions)
http://www.allAfrica.com/

Ashai English Edition; major Japanese newspaper, English version
http://www.asahi.com/english/english.html

The Star; Jordanian English-language paper
http://star.arabia.com/

Iran Daily; English-language newspaper from Iran
http://www.iran-daily.com/

Jerusalem Post; English-language version; internet edition
http://www.jpost.com/

LBCI News; links to Lebanese television and media coverage
http://www.lbcsat.com.lb/

Turkish Daily News; English-language version
http://www.turkishdailynews.com/

Gulf News Online; UAE and other Gulf states; English and great, navigable
connection
http://www.gulfnews.com/news/2001/1105/default.asp

International Herald Tribune; English w/European perspectives
http://www.iht.com/

Irish Times; perspectives from Ireland (paper of record)
http://www.ireland.com/

The Independent; London paper, lots of coverage
http://www.independent.co.uk/

Australian papers:
The newspaper in Canberra, the capital,  is at
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/
The main paper in Sydney is at http://www.smh.com.au


________________________________________________________________


From Slate.com:

international papers
A Middle East Media Primer
By June Thomas
Posted  Friday, November 16, 2001, at 7:45 AM PT


Why limit your wartime Web newspaper-grazing to the prejudices of
ethnocentric Western reporters when there is a whole world of prejudices
from ethnocentric Pakistani, Yemeni, and Egyptian reporters to consume?
Here follows a selective guide to the online English-language press of the
Arab and Middle Eastern world. Many of these papers are published for
foreign workers or for overseas consumption-a sort of PR project designed
to sell the official version of domestic events to foreign audiences-but
you can learn a lot even from pallid publications.

Bahrain
If the Gulf Daily News is "the voice of
Bahrain," the country has laryngitis. The paper limits itself to innocuous
news stories and business boosterism. Still, the Web site doesn't
completely shun controversial topics: The Nov. 11 issue
gave
the official version of the prosecution of Bahraini journalist Hafiz Al
Shaikh for undermining national unity after he criticized Bahrain-U.S.
relations in Lebanon's Daily Star.

Egypt
Al-Ahram Weekly is the English-language
arm of the Arab world's oldest newspaper,
Al-Ahram (a French version,
Al-Ahram Hebdo, is also available).
Published every Saturday, Al-Ahram Weekly has a strong
opinion section but,
like the rest of the Egyptian press, it is tightly controlled by the
ministry of information. The Web site of another Egyptian weekly, Cairo's
Middle East Times, links to stories that were
censored from its
print version. The most frequent targets for censorship are stories that
"report on human rights abuses, criticize the president or his family;
criticize the military; point out the ill-treatment of Egyptians in
'friendly' Arab countries, especially in Saudi Arabia; discuss modern,
unorthodox interpretations of Islam; or report on discrimination against
Coptic Christians."

Iran
The Tehran Times toes the official line and
avoids controversy (don't go looking for information about the ongoing
trial of liberal dissidents, for example), but it's a good barometer of
changing attitudes in Iran.

Israel
One of the most common complaints in the "International Papers" Fray thread
is a lack of balance between Israeli papers and Palestinian sources. As the
Guardian's Derek Brown
observed in
January 2001, "Israel's overwhelming advantage in firepower is matched by
its enormous superiority in wordpower." While English speakers can get a
sense of Israeli opinion from the liberal
Ha'aretz, the hawkish
Jerusalem Post, or even financial paper
Globes-all updated with impressive
frequency-there are no English-language Palestinian dailies, and other
Palestinian sources read more like propaganda than journalism (see, for
example, the news section of the monthly Palestine
Times or the summaries provided by the
Palestine News Agency). The
Jerusalem Times, an independent
Palestinian weekly, reads like a neighborhood newsletter compared with
journalistic powerhouses like Ha'aretz or the Jerusalem Post.

Jordan
The Jordan Times publishes a lively mixture of
light filler ("Queen
urges Arab women to be proactive, innovative") and serious news
("Gov't urges US to
reconsider classifying Hamas, Hizbollah as terrorist organizations"), along
with a decent opinion section, six days a week.

Lebanon
The Daily Star is a scrappy daily with an
impassioned opinion section and an occasional press review feature, which
provides English translations from Arabic newspapers throughout the Middle
East. Despite its hard-to-read blocks of text, the weekly
Monday
Morning is also worth a spot in a Middle East-watcher's bookmarks; this
week's issue features an
interview wit
h Yasser Arafat.

Oman
Like many English-language Gulf papers, the Times of
Oman excels only in its coverage of India, Pakistan, and the Philippines,
the homelands of much of the sultanate's workforce.

Pakistan
As in neighboring India, the legacy of Pakistan's colonial past includes
some fine English-language newspapers. Dawn, whose
Web site is updated frequently to reflect breaking stories, offers reliable
news, temperate editorials, and an op-ed page that reveals the attitudes of
moderate Pakistani thinkers. (The paper also recently published a
controversial
interview with Osama Bin Laden.)
The more Islamist Nation also features strong
editorial and opinion pages. The
News International, the
English-language sister publication of Jang ,
Pakistan's largest-circulation Urdu paper, has a great Web site, though the
anti-India rhetoric in the op-ed section can be harsh. The
Frontier Post is based in Peshawar in
Pakistan's North West Frontier province, a location that allows it to
provide good coverage of events in
Afghanistan. Earlier this year,
the Frontier Post was closed down for three months after it printed a
letter some readers felt to be sacrilegious (the editors claim the letter
was planted); since the brouhaha was resolved, the paper has been keen to
proclaim its Islamic credentials.

United Arab Emirates
The UAE offers some of the liveliest English-language papers in the Gulf
region. Gulf News and the
Khaleej Times both date back to 1978, when
the increasing numbers of immigrant workers (currently as many as 76
percent of UAE residents are foreigners) made the market viable. Reflecting
their reader demographics, both papers give extensive coverage to the
Indian subcontinent. The Gulf News is particularly strong on practical
aspects of expatriate life (click
here for its
take on the UAE's liquor laws), while the Khaleej Times offers superior
editorials.

Qatar
The pioneering independent Arabic satellite TV channel Al Jazeera put Qatar
on the Middle Eastern media map. The Gulf
Times, its English-language newspaper, is less groundbreaking. The paper
provides world news with an emphasis on Southeast Asian affairs and an
opinion page that seems tireless in its efforts to praise the emir of Qatar.

Saudi Arabia
The Arab News and the
Riyadh Daily are both prototypical
don't-rock-the-boat Middle Eastern English-language dailies, although the
Riyadh Daily's editorials occasionally stray beyond hymns of praise to King
Fahd.

Yemen
The weekly Yemen Times is a middle-of-the-road
paper whose regular features include a roundup of the Arab-language Yemeni
press. The Yemen Observer, also a weekly, has a
lively news section, but beware of a level of anti-Semitism so pronounced
that a recent issue featured an anti-Israel screed by
David Duke.

Portals
If you prefer to browse through a variety of sources, several sites
aggregate regional news. Like all compilations, they're spotty, hence the
highly subjective score out of 10 for each portal. (Is there any point
visiting a site that earns a rating of 3? Only when there's a war in the
region.)


Afghan News Network offers a compilation of news
stories about Afghanistan from sources such as Reuters, the Voice of
America, and the Associated Press. The site, which says it is "run by
college students," offers an archive
of the daily compilations dating back to April 2000. (Rating: 3/10)

Afghan Online Press is a portal for news
about Afghanistan. The site includes a daily aggregation of news stories
taken from the BBC, Reuters, AP, Agence France-Presse, China's Xinhua News
Agency, and Iran's state news agency, as well as select stories from
British and Pakistani newspapers. Links are provided to radio broadcasts in
Dari and Pashtun from the BBC, Voice of America, and Deutsche Welle, as
well as the "Voice of Mujahid." In today's soft ad market, the site has an
unusual advertiser: the U.S. Navy. (Rating: 4/10)

Out There News
translates stories from media sources inside Afghanistan, including the
Afghan Islamic Press and Pashto- and Dari-language newspapers.

WorldNews.com aggregates news feeds about a huge
selection of regions and cities. Although the
mini-sites lack the human touch (the selections are clearly automated) and
some of the news sources lack journalistic balance, they can be useful;
see, for example, Middle East Daily or
Afghan Daily. (Rating: 5/10)

Zawya.com is a business and finance portal for the
Middle East and North Africa that aggregates some useful collections of
stories from the English-language Arab press, including an outstanding
roundup of
editorial pages (you can also choose to see
editorials from specific sources, e.g., the
Jordan Times, grouped on one page),
press digests from several North African and
Middle Eastern nations, as well as a list of links to
wire services and
publications. (Rating:
7/10)

Perhaps the most effective, if not the quickest, way to access foreign
newspapers is to do what I do when compiling "International Papers": Page
through the papers of whatever countries you're interested in.
OnlineNewspapers.com is probably the best
one-stop source.

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Date:         Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:50:14 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Tom Ewing 
Subject:      Teaching world history using foreign newspapers
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I'd like to echo the earlier recommendations about using English-language
newspapers to teach world history.  I've assembled a similar list of 35
online newspapers from various regions on a webpage, which provides links
to the daily newspapers.  This website also provides some suggestions about
using these newspapers in classrooms, as well as some cautionary advice
about possible problems The url for this website, called "Newspaper around
the world," is:  http://www.majbill.vt.edu/history/ewing/Global_newspapers.htm

I found these links through www.onlinenewspapers.com, which is a very
useful starting point. I decided to create my own website, however, rather
than send students to this site, because a number of links are broken, and
some are misdirected.  But if you are interested in dong your own search,
or have students who can read languages other than English, this website is
an excellent place to begin.

If you find this site useful, or have suggestions, please let me know.  It
is a work in progress.
Tom Ewing
Department of History, Virginia Tech


*************************

E. Thomas Ewing
Department of History
Major Williams 430
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061
(540) 231-8366
Homepage: http://www.majbill.vt.edu/history/ewing/index.htm

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Date:         Fri, 30 Nov 2001 20:20:42 -0500
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
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From:         Thomas Bender 
Subject:      End of the Month Observations
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Dear  Colleagues:
The past month of exchanges on the subject of thinking about and teaching
American history in a way that locates it in the larger international and
global context, that addresses the relations of American national history
to other histories,  has been rich and informative.  The ideas have been so
many and so diverse that I cannot pretend to summarize them at the end of
our month.  Yet that very diversity of observations and proposals reveals
the possibilities and the thinking already being done at all levels. I did
want to make a few concluding remarks about our discussion, however.

1. It was both encouraging and important that we had participation from
both U.S. based teachers  and teachers of American history abroad.  Any
effort to overcome historiographical parochialism has much to gain from
regular contact, even if only electronically, with an international body of
scholars.  It would be even better if exchange programs could allow
teachers of American history, at all levels, to spend a period of time
abroad living and teaching American history  in a foreign context.  It was
equally important that the conversation crossed all levels of
teaching-four-year college, community college, high school.  We are all in
it together, and the need to coordinate the way we present history over the
years in a sequence of institutions will require more interaction between
college, community college, and K-12 teachers than has been the case.

2. My sense is that there is a great deal of commitment, but that the
revolution being undertaken is a moderate one as well as a pluralistic one.
 For many reasons that makes sense to me.  There is a need for teaching
materials, though we learned of some extremely valuable ones through the
course of the discussion.  Carl Guarneri's  AMERICA COMPARED,  David
Russo's AMERICAN HISTORY FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE, and news of  the
textbook in the works by Tom Osborne and others.  And there were good ideas
about readily available primary sources from newspapers. A book, FROM THE
FOREIGN PRESS, edited by R.E. Weber, and also published as AS OTHERS SEE
US.  And we gained a wonderful list of English language foreign newspapers
with websites.  No doubt other things are on the way-and on the basis of
many of the comments, it seems some of the participants ought to be doing
some of these themselves.

3. The most pressing question, in some ways, was the worry, raised more
than once, that students are insufficiently prepared in American history by
the time they reach college to allow the extension of the territory of U.S.
history surveys. There are several issues embedded here. One goes back to
my earlier point, working toward a better coordination among levels. (There
is a project, the National Council on Education and the Disciplines, based
at the  Woodrow  Wilson Fellowship Foundation, that is seeking to improve
the relations between grades 10-12 and the first two years of college
history.)  There is also an implicit assumption that in such a situation
one must stick to the basics.  But that assumes that the opening of the
territory of history being proposed is somehow at odds with the basics or
even different from the basics ("unbasic"), a point challenged directly by
Mary Dudziak, Kristin Hoganson, and others.  It may be that including the
"outside" with the "inside" enriches understanding of both. In fact that
connection is at the heart of the project to internationalize the study of
American history. Historical explanation, I assume, demands that we operate
at whatever scales are relevant.  There is something of a continuum, but no
events are utterly hermetic. If international conditions help explain the
Civil Rights movement, as  Dudziak has shown, gender issues affect foreign
policy, as Hoganson has shown. One could go on.  And there is one more very
important point.  My sense is that students are quite aware and interested
(if not really knowledgeable) about the larger world. We can draw upon that
interest, as well as the special interest and, often, knowledge and
perspectives of the increasing numbers of foreign-born students in our
classes.

4. The international dimension seems especially important after September
11, but important for more than foreign policy. Very big domestic issues
have been raised by September 11, from urban history, to immigration, to
religion, to the Constitution.  An internationalized American history will
embed our history-all aspects of it-in histories larger than the national
narrative (without erasing that narrative; rather genuinely historicizing
it) in so far as they are relevant. (In New York, I was struck that it
never occurred to anyone in the media writing and talking about the
destruction of 16 acres of lower Manhattan to see that history as part of a
history that includes London, Dresden, Hiroshima, Warsaw in World War II
and other cities devastated in modern historical times.)  As a teaching
device, I think the suggestion of STARTING from the outside when possible
will really make the point. (Note: that does not mean spending more time on
the outside; it does mean, however, a different architecture for the
course.)  We may also have to reclaim geography as a partner of history,
something fundamental to Frederick Jackson Turner, but marginalized in
history and our educational system generally since.

5. All of this is obviously hard work, and it is clear that a number of
people all over the country and abroad are working hard. One might hope
that the Organization of American Historians and/or other historical
organizations might help out with bibliography, teaching materials, perhaps
even summer institutes.

6. A final point, repeating what I said at the outset.  The LA PIETRA
REPORT and the annual reports of the La Pietra conferences on
internationalizing the study of American history are available on the OAH
web site and at www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/icas.  And a volume of essays from
the La Pietra conferences is forthcoming by the time of the OAH meeting in
the Spring, as Thomas Bender, ed. RETHINKING AMERICAN HISTORY IN A GLOBAL
AGE.

Many thanks to you all for the stimulating month of discussion.

Tom  Bender


Thomas Bender
Director
International Center for Advanced Studies, NYU
and
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
ph:  212.998.3773
fax: 212.995.4546

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Date:         Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:19:37 -0500
Reply-To:     mark.rennella@verizon.net
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Mark Rennella 
Subject:      Language and biography in teaching U.S. history in a global
              perspective
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I have only just subscribed to this listserv, so I hope that I do not
repeat anything
already said.

One of the biggest obstacles to contextualizing American history in a
global context
is the fact that most Americans only speak English.  Lack of experience
in other
languages creates huge cultural blinders.  It is true that reading
foreign newspapers written in English is a great idea.  But if that is
not supplemented with readings in foreign languages, Americans may be
led to believe that everybody in the world thinks and expresses
themselves similarly.  I know that historians can't be expected to teach
foreign
languages, but we should advocate breaking the monolingual habits of
most
native-born Americans as much as possible.

Also:

We might use biographies of famous and important Americans who traveled
and/or
lived abroad as a quick and indisputable way to demonstrate the reality
of foreign influences on America history.  People like Thomas Jefferson,
Margaret Fuller, Henry Adams, W.E.B. DuBois, and James Baldwin could
provide great material for discussion of the history of globalization,
for instance.

Finally, thanks to Prof. Bender for encouraging this important
discussion!

Mark Rennella
(formerly from the History and Literature program at Harvard University,

now taking care of a newborn)

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:42:00 EST
Reply-To:     "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
Sender:       "U.S. History in Global Perspective Forum"
              
From:         Rick Rosen 
Subject:      Re: End of the Month Observations
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The goal of this dialogue has been enhanced immeasurably by its
internet-based format.  I'm not a historian; I'm just a human being who cares
deeply about the condition of our world.  By good fortune--and because of the
wonders of cyber-communication--I tapped into this effort.

Thanks to all who participated for your contributions!

Rick Rosen

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The goal of this dialogue has been enhanced immeasurably by its internet-based format.  I'm not a historian; I'm just a human being who cares deeply about the condition of our world.  By good fortune--and because of the wonders of cyber-communication--I tapped into this effort.  



Thanks to all who participated for your contributions!



Rick Rosen

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This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.