Studies In General History

Considering studying history at university? Wondering whether a history degree will get you a good job, and what you might earn? Want to know what it’s actually like to study history at degree level? This book tells you what you need to know. Studying any subject at degree level is an investment in the future that involves significant cost. Now more than ever, students and their parents need to weigh up the potential benefits of university courses. That’s where the Why Study series comes in. This series of books, aimed at students, parents and teachers, explains in practical terms the range and scope of an academic subject at university level and where it can lead in terms of careers or further study. Each book sets out to enthuse the reader about its subject and answer the crucial questions that a college prospectus does not.

A look at how to teach history in the age of easily accessible—but not always reliable—information. Let’s start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichés: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percent of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious. With the Internet at our fingertips, what’s a teacher of history to do? In Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), professor Sam Wineburg has the answers, beginning with this: We can’t stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-question snoozefest. If we want to educate citizens who can separate fact from fake, we have to equip them with new tools. Historical thinking, Wineburg shows, has nothing to do with the ability to memorize facts. Instead, it’s an orientation to the world that cultivates reasoned skepticism and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg lays out a mine-filled landscape, but one that with care, attention, and awareness, we can learn to navigate. The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands. Praise for Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone) “If every K-12 teacher of history and social studies read just three chapters of this book—”Crazy for History,” “Changing History . . . One Classroom at a Time,” and “Why Google Can’t Save Us” —the ensuing transformation of our populace would save our democracy.” —James W. Lowen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Teaching What Really Happened “A sobering and urgent report from the leading expert on how American history is taught in the nation’s schools. . . . A bracing, edifying, and vital book.” —Jill Lepore, New Yorker staff writer and author of These Truths “Wineburg is a true innovator who has thought more deeply about the relevance of history to the Internet—and vice versa—than any other scholar I know. Anyone interested in the uses and abuses of history today has a duty to read this book.” —Niall Ferguson, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, and author of The Ascent of Money and Civilization

Excerpt from Studies in General History In teaching history in higher grades, three points must always be in mind: first, to give each student independent work; next, to subject the results of solitary, individual thought to the freest criticism and discussion in the class-room; last of all, the accepted results of the collective labor must be arranged in compact and logical order, and stowed away in memory. By the' solitary study of the individual, the mind gains power and originality; by the free lance in a free field of class-room work, the mind gains courage, sharpness, speed, and generous temper; by the strict, close sifting of study and discussion, it gains concentration, clearness, and breadth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Studies in General History They say my "Studies" are hard, and I am glad to hear it, for so in truth they should be, since history itself is hard. Our text-books in this subject have been mostly manuals of the results of this study, presented in more or less attractive literary form. They have given no chance for any genuine work; and yet the study of history demands most serious work; like mathematics, it involves logic; like language, it demands analysis and fine discrimination of terms; like science, it calls for exact observation; like law, it needs the cool, well-balanced judgment; beyond all these, it requires the highest, fullest use of the sympathetic imagination. In fact, no study is more difficult; none calls more completely on all the mental powers, none affords the mind more generous play. It is indeed easy to read and then repeat: "Magna Charta laid the foundation of English liberty"; "The Athenian people were brave, patriotic, magnanimous, and highly-cultured"; "The government of Lewis XIV. was arbitrary, corrupt, unjust, extravagant"; but to read, or even to learn such sentences as these by heart, is not to study, or even to touch the study of history; these are mere statements of the results of historical research; before he can name his work "study," the pupil must have found out some results for himself, by exercising his own powers upon the necessary "raw material" of history; let him read Magna Charta; let him see the Athenian people in action in their contemporary world; let him have the facts of French organization and administration under Lewis XIV.; let him look, and look again, like Agassiz' famous pupil at the fish, until he sees the essential spirit, purpose, or character displayed within these words and deeds and figures; thus he becomes a genuine student. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Among the considerations of the two dozen papers are the reception and development of Einstein's theory of general relativity in various institutions around the world; conceptual issues of the theory, especially themes, concepts, and principles associated with his theory of gravity; a number of tech