When universities began in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory IX described them as "wisdom's special workshop." He could not have foreseen how far these institutions would travel and develop. Tracing the eight-hundred-year evolution of the elite research university from its roots in medieval Europe to its remarkable incarnation today,…

War is one place where the complexity of victory and defeat should be explored more deeply. Unfortunately, war--whether experienced directly as a soldier in Afghanistan or a Syrian in an Aleppo suburb, or indirectly through a news item on the Internet or American television--is a near inescapable aspect of most people's daily life. Yet unless…

2015 marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. For Americans, this iconic document is a formative element of our own legal and political heritage. This "Lessons on the Law" column offers an overview of the "Great Charter," why it is significant, and what students and teachers should know about it. The article also highlights…

The author argues that in order to create space for authentic multicultural engagement in the face of Eurocentric norms, teachers should form discussion groups that follow five basic guidelines: engage, don't enrage; be comfortable with negative emotion; watch for and change unproductive language; talk about everything; and engage in classroom…

The topics of Columbus's voyages of exploration, the first encounters between Amerindians and Europeans, and the ensuing collision of their respective worlds provide ample opportunities for creative and stimulating pedagogical approaches that go beyond the stale memorization of dates, places, and names. This essay and accompanying classroom…

An article on scripted drama might seem an unlikely choice for an edition devoted to getting students talking. Surely the point about a script is that the words used are chosen and prescribed by others. However, the examples presented here by Helen Snelson, Ruth Lingard and Kate Brennan demonstrate how effectively a well-crafted script can serve…

For more than a decade, the world history course taught in the public high schools of Texas has provided the only comprehensive overview of the story of humanity to millions of students, most of whom are of Mexican descent. The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum standard for world history has been foundational for textbook selection,…

In the spring of 1540, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led an "entrada" from present-day Mexico into the region we call New Mexico, where the expedition spent a violent winter among pueblo peoples. The following year, after a long march across the Great Plains, Coronado led an elite group of his men north into present-day Kansas where,…

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…

Western historians working in the first half of the twentieth century established a scheme for writing design history that continues to influence the global histories of today. The historians Douglas McMurtrie, Lucien Febvre, Henri-Jean Martin and Lawrence Wroth believed that the modern history of visual communication began with the advent and…

This dissertation describes the teaching methods and educational philosophies of natural philosophy instructors at several of the colleges in colonial and early national North America. It finds two distinct approaches: the demonstrative, in which the instructor centers the course on visually engaging lecture-demonstrations, and the catechetical,…

The book is entitled History Wars in the Classroom: Global Perspectives and examines how ten separate countries have experienced debates and disputes over the contested nature of the subject, for example the "Black Armband" and "Whitewash" factions in Australia who adopt opposingly celebratory or denigratory views of Australian…

The odyssey of the Lewis and Clark Expedition continues to capture the hearts of those who love tales of adventure and unknown lands. In light of the bicentennial celebration that began in 2003 and continued through 2006, the popularity and aggrandizement of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their Corps of Discovery has never been greater.…

The aim of this series is to provide some facts of British history not usually given in elementary schoolbooks, together with some broad outlines of the European history of which British and American history form a part. This volume, the first in the series, consists of simple stories of all time drawn from ancient history.

The aim of this series is to provide some facts of British history not usually given in elementary schoolbooks, together with some broad outlines of the European history of which British and American history form a part. This volume, the third in the series, deals with the period of 55 B.C.-1066 A.D.