The year 2013 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of E. P. Thompson's "The Making of the English Working Class" (1963). Throughout the year, essays, articles, and conference panels--indeed, whole conferences--explored the legacy of this influential historian and his most monumental work. 2013, coincidentally, also marked…

Howard Zinn's "A People's History" of the United States has few peers among contemporary historical works. With more than 2 million copies in print, "A People's History" is more than a book. It is a cultural icon. While most historians aim to examine the full historical record, Zinn picks and chooses from it. Writing persuasively, he hides the…

The public debates on history education that occurred in many countries over the past decades have given rise to the idea that people live in an age of "history wars". While these wars are primarily fought on a national level, they are increasingly looked at as a global phenomenon. In most cases, they are the expression of tensions between the…

On May 4, 2006, French and German cultural ministers announced the publication of "Histoire/Geschichte", the world's first secondary school history textbook produced jointly by two countries. Authored by a team of French and German historians and published simultaneously in both languages, the book's release drew considerable public…

Most teachers hope to make a difference in the lives of their students, but whether they accomplish this with any regularity is often left unclear. With a topic like the Holocaust, the stakes are greatly raised. In this essay, the author discusses the place of the Holocaust in the liberal arts. He argues that the content of Holocaust education…

"The History Teacher" originated in a movement to reform history education that grew up among historians in both schools and universities in the 1960s. The call went out to raise the intellectual level of history teaching by having students analyze primary sources in open-ended discussions and thereby, "become their own historians." Teaching with…

Professor Howard Zinn was arguably America's best-known historian, despite the dismissive if not caustic response his book, "A People's History of the United States," elicited from historians. In Zinn's narrative the protagonists of history are "blacks, Indians, women, and working people of all kinds ... ordinary people trying to…

In teacher's idealized history classroom, students are abuzz with questions. They are eager to jump into a serious analysis of primary sources. They relish additional opportunities to engage historiographical debates. They are, as teachers like to say, "thinking historically." While there are few easy ways to create these idealized…

Curricular questions of what and how knowledge should matter take on particular urgency when the knowledge at stake refers to cultural devastation in history. Whereas narratives of progress and discourses of "protecting the child" continue to dominate the public imaginary, a number of curriculum theorists have begun to explore the multiple ways in…

In this essay, the author comments on the life and the contributions of author Gary Nash. Everyone is thanking him for his remarkable engagement with the schools, as a writer of outstanding textbooks and materials for teachers developed through his work as director of the Center for Teaching History in the Schools, and, of course, the National…

Historians work in a discipline with few inherent concepts and are obliged to draw upon many fields in recreating the past. Yet authors of most school history texts, state and national standards and curriculum materials seldom incorporate economic analysis in their work. Just look at state standards that include Adam Smith and John Locke but draw…

Criticisms of Howard Zinn's work on U.S. History are examined in the context of increasing emphasis on the idea of "American exceptionalism" in contemporary political and cultural discourse, and particularly the insertion of American exceptionalism into revised social studies standards for the state of Texas. Analysis focusing on the…

Few scholars have achieved the level of recognition and respect among the wider public as Howard Zinn. This should not come as a surprise, given the "unconventional" ways that Zinn embodied and enacted his scholarship. He often took his teaching and writing into those seemingly restricted spaces of popular protest, converting words into…

This paper presents a discussion of Howard Zinn's intellectual and political ideas. Through the analysis of selections from his immense body of work, several interrelated themes emerge. Drawing more attention to these notions of dissent and democracy is crucial to revitalizing education at all levels and vital to advancing the public discourse…

One of the most challenging problems faced by teachers of history is how to give voice to the vast majority of people who lived in the past. People's knowledge of history tends to center on the great and important because they are tied to extant written records, almost all of which were produced by and/or about people of high stature in society.…