On March 28-29, 2009, FPRI's Wachman Center hosted 43 teachers from across the country for a weekend of discussion on teaching the nuclear age. In his opening remarks, Walter A. McDougall observed that although students today are not made to crawl under their desks in air raid drills, that atomic power remains, and it is still necessary to raise a…

This essay is based on the author's talk at the FPRI Wachman Center's History Institute for Teachers on "What Students Need to Know about America's Wars, Part 2: 1920-Present," held May 2-3, 2009. Observing that the Vietnam War was the longest and most contested conflict in American history and that it called into question many…

This essay is based on the author's presentation at the Wachman Center's July 26-27, 2008 history institute, co-sponsored and hosted by the Cantigny First Division Foundation of the McCormick Tribune Foundation. For Europeans, World War I remains the epochal event of the twentieth century. For Americans, the war falls between two much larger and…

On March 1-2, 2008, FPRI's Wachman Center presented a weekend of discussion on "China's Encounter with the West" for 45 teachers from 21 states across the country, held at and co-sponsored by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program. Sessions included: (1) China's Early Encounters with the West: A History in Reverse…

On September 29-30, 2007, FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education presented a weekend of discussion on "Teaching Military History: Why and How" for 35 teachers from 22 states across the country. The institute was held at the First Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois and co-sponsored by the Cantigny First Division Foundation.…

Provides background information and primary source documents to teach about the issues surrounding Canada's admission of U.S. Vietnam War resisters from 1965 to 1977. Includes primary sources which may serve as points of discussion. (LS)

Intended to make the issue of landmines pertinent and accessible to the classroom teacher, this curriculum unit provides material to teach elementary school students about the issue of landmines, including the problems, the politics, and the solutions. The unit helps students learn how to study current issues and how to voice their concerns about…

Although some people believed that the end of the Cold War would herald a new age of peace, the 1990s have seen more than five million people die in over 35 deadly conflicts. New technologies have made warfare ever more deadly. There is, however, a breadth of options available to prevent or control deadly conflict in the world. This curriculum…

Proposes the use of fictional "techno-thrillers" such as "Red Storm Rising" in a seminar on the topic of war. Explains how these thrillers provide descriptions of how opposing strategies and armies might interact during a future war. Provides a course reading list. (NL)

Intended to make the issue of landmines pertinent and accessible to classroom teachers, this curriculum unit helps high school students learn how to undertake an analysis of the anti-personnel landmine crisis in some of the world's most severely affected countries and consider potential programs for landmine removal, recovery, and reconstruction.…

This packet of 11 lesson plans is designed to help high school social studies classes examine socio-political issues facing the post-Cold War world. Though its multi-disciplinary approach touches upon a number of current topics, the packet's particular focus is on the wide-ranging impact of war and militarism on the planet's growing ecological…

Facing History and Ourselves is a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote a more humane and informed citizenry. As the name Facing History and Ourselves implies, the organization helps teachers and their students make…

Historically, the cold war was a watershed that separated two epochs: the time of abnormal, although compelled, partnership of two political systems and the period of peaceful coexistence with barely hidden hostility. The peacefulness of the latter, however elusive and vulnerable it was from time to time, has to be credited to the cold war, a…

This document presents a particularly challenging unit that thrusts students into the new foreign policy frontier that has developed since the end of the Cold War. The unit contains background reading and foreign policy options. The first part of the background reading introduces students to the institutions and conceptual framework of the…

Intended to make the issue of landmines pertinent and accessible to classroom teachers, this curriculum unit provides material to teach middle school students about the numbers and dangers of anti-personnel landmines placed around the world. By completing the unit, students demonstrate their achievement of several of the social studies standards…