The author designed a midterm podcast assignment to give her students in "Modern East Asian Civilizations," an entry-level survey course, the opportunity to articulate their own understanding of East Asian artifacts, the ways in which objects are seen and imbued with meaning, and what those meanings imply.

Efforts have been made among scholars from Japan, South Korea, and China since the 1980s--on both private and state initiatives--to narrow the gaps in their historiographies and to cultivate mutual understanding. This article offers an extensive discussion of the author's history project, "A Student Project of Writing a Common History…

History teachers are perhaps more concerned than those in other disciplines to make their classroom material "come alive." Students tend to perceive that learning history means memorizing facts, more so than in other disciplines. Historians consequently use a range of active learning pedagogies--handling unique archival sources, role…

Once adapted to the context of the classroom, the tenets of successful counterinsurgency offer teachers a potent intellectual framework for conceptualizing teachers' efforts to build effective active learning communities together with their students. In this article, the author describes a counterinsurgency analogy that shares essential features…

Ever since War Department propaganda films set the mold, historians have pretty much followed: the road to Pearl Harbor began in 1931 with Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Any "revision" regarding the War in the Pacific has its own set of problems--engendering controversy, often running up against patriotic sentiments and the tendency…

The author lives in a place filled with opportunities for girls like her. She is fortunate to attend school and enjoy activities like other young ladies. Her third- and fourth-generation parents encouraged her to attend Japanese Cultural School to learn about her heritage and to be proud of being Japanese-American. Her life has been filled with…

An interpretive review of recently acquired archaeological evidence of the writing, seals, and city plans of the Indus Valley Civilization. (JB)

New data on the economic history of Tokugawa, Japan necessitate revisions in traditional and Marxist interpretations, many of which are no longer consistent with the available evidence. One major outcome of recent studies is the awareness of the continuities between Tokugawa and Meiji economic growth. (RM)

Discusses objectives for college-level advanced history courses: to convey a general sense of history of the area studied, create a basis for the enjoyment of history as an intellectual pastime, and give the student a humanistic perspective on the processes of historical thinking. Provides description of history of modern China course. (Author/KC)

Explores the use of simulation and role playing activities to teach students about lifestyles, ideologies, and political relationships in Asia. A short-term role playing technique and a long-term foreign policy simulation are described. (Author/DB)

Procedures and evaluation of a simulation designed to reenact the British-Chinese Opium War negotiations are described. (DE)

In 1942, Howard Wilson, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the editor of the Harvard Educational Review, called for the "easternization of America," in reaction to what he called the "glib" talk for years about the "westernization of Asia." Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Wilson's…

Participants in an undergraduate oral history project interview Vietnam veterans in their locality as primary source material for a course in Southeast Asian history. (DE)

Improving critical thinking--defined by one expert as "reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do"--has been a frequent topic in the writing of history educators at least since the early 1970s. Attitudes and interests do support higher-level thinking and, most importantly, knowledge used in carrying it out…

Presents an interpretive study of the Armenian genocide of 1915 based on Israel Charny's societal-forces model. Argues genocides follow a pattern of long discriminatory relationships between a dominant and a dominated group. Cites the economic achievements of dominated groups as the basis. Shows the global pattern of genocide. (NL)