Section A
Jules R. Benjamin, chpt 1, “The Subject of History”

1. In Jules R. Benjamin’s words: “Looking for the signs of history in the world around us is something like the task of the geologist or archeologist” (Benjamin 1).  How is that the case?

2. What kinds of questions does Benjamin say preoccupy the historian once he/she has chosen his/her topic?

3. What is a philosophy of history?  How have philosophies of history differed over the ages?  Why have they differed?

4. What are the merits of the progressive school of history?  How accurate is its description of historical change?

Section B
5. Why is it that historians who have studied the Reconstruction era in America have differed so much?  In other words, how is it that historians, looking at the same evidence, can come to such diverse conclusions?

6. Name two different fields of research and describe the evidence used in them and the kinds of analyses done.

7. What does Benjamin note as some of the practical applications of history?

Section C
E.H. Carr, “The Historian and His Facts” (CP)

8. Describe E.H. Carr’s point about the  clash between Lord Acton and Sir George Clark.  What’s the nature of their differing opinions about history?

9. Carr writes that the “nineteenth century was a great age for facts” (Carr 5).  Could that be said of any age?  What does he mean here?

10. Carr asks: “What is a historical fact?” (7)  Why does that matter as a question?  How does he answer it?

11. Why and how do historians “select” facts?

Section D
12. Explain how the example of ancient Greece shows the limits of facts.  What sort of history, based on the facts, do we have of this place and time?

13. Quoting another historian, Carr notes that “All history is ‘contemporary history,’ . . . meaning that history consists essentially in seeing the past through the eyes of the present . . . .” (22)  How might that be the case?  What examples could be offered to prove that point?

14. Carr claims that few nineteenth-century historians cared or knew much about medieval history.  Why?  What does that tell us about the nature of writing history?

15. Carr concludes his essay by saying a little about how historians “do” history.  How do historians work, in Carr’s view?

Section A
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., chpt 9 in A Life in the Twentieth Century (CP)

1. Based on Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s description, what was Harvard’s curriculum like in the 1930s?  How does it seem to differ from college curriculum today?

2. Describe the influence that Schlesinger’s tutors at Harvard, Perry Miller and F. O. Matthiessen, had on him.  What did he value in their scholarship and teaching methods?

3. Schlesinger recalls that “These were the great days of the Harvard history department.”  How was that so?

Section B
4. Explain some of the political and social views that dominated the Harvard scene in the 1930s.  How did these shape Schlesinger?

5. What was his research and writing process like as he composed his thesis and then translated it into a book?

6. What was it about history that captivated the young Schlesinger?

Section C
John Hope Franklin, chpt 5 in Mirror to America (CP)

7. John Hope Franklin remarks, “A day, and often an hour, didn’t go by without my feeling the color of my skin. . .” (62)  Explain what he means by this.

8. In what sense was the educational experience of Franklin and Schlesinger different?

9. What was the nature of Franklin’s relationship with his professors?

Section D
10. What was it about history that attracted Franklin?

11. How did Franklin’s Harvard career shape him as a historian?

Section A
*1. How does John Lewis Gaddis use the metaphors of landscapes and maps to talk about the field of history?

2. Gaddis uses Caspar David’s painting of The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.  What insight does he draw from it?

3. In the first chapter Gaddis argues “that the direct experience of events isn’t necessarily the best path toward understanding them . . . .” (4)  What does he mean by that?  Are there examples from history that might illustrate his point?

Section B
4. “[D]espite their obvious utility,” Gaddis declares, “there’s no such thing as a single correct map” (33).  Explain this statement and describe how it relates to history.

*5. John Lewis Gaddis writes that historians "might better justify their own existence. Historians ought to be as adept as the practitioners of other disciplines are at defending their methods—but they aren't" (Gaddis 50).  Why does he argue that point?  And, how does he weave this defense of history through the book?

Section C
6. In Gaddis’s view, in what sense is history true?

7. What does Gaddis think of the historians E.H. Carr and Marc Bloch?  How do they guide his work?

*8. In 2002, Richard Bernstein reviewed Gaddis’s book in the New York Times.  Berstein asks: “Is history science? Mr. Gaddis draws on recent theories of chaos and complexity to substantiate the argument that contrary to the common conception, it is, or at least it uses the same methods as the natural sciences. It isn't that history has changed over the years, become more scientific, but that science has become more historical.”  How does Gaddis argue that history is a science?  Is it a strong argument?

Section D
9. Describe how Gaddis compares history to the social sciences: economics, sociology, political science, etc.

10. In his final chapter, “Seeing Like a Historian,” Gaddis writes about “oppression” and “liberation.”  How does he apply those terms to history?

Section A
1. Why does Mark Gilderhus describe early human beings as having no history?  What was their existence like?

2. How and why did historical consciousness arise?

3. What role did Jewish peoples play in the origins of historical understanding?

Section B
4. In what sense did the Greeks develop a critical history that differed from earlier ways of thinking about the past?

5. How did Roman history diverge from Greek history?

6. How did early Christianity contribute to historical understanding?

Section C
7. What was the nature of Augustine’s philosophy of history? What sort of influence did he have on later writers and chroniclers?

8. Why was the idea of providence so important for pre-modern historians?

Section D
9. According to Heather Cox Richardson, why do historians study historiography?

10. How does the history of the American West illustrate the changing contours of historiography?  What accounts for the various ways historians have understood an era, person, or a place?

11. Why does Richardson compare historiography to American movies?

Section A
William Zinsser, “Writing English as a Second Language,” The American Scholar (Winter 2010) (CP).

1. How does William Zinsser differentiate English from languages like Spanish and Arabic?

2. Explain what Zinsser means when he draws the distinction between Latin and Anglo-Saxon-inflected English.

3. Zinsser writes: “What are your best tools? Your best tools are short, plain Anglo-Saxon verbs. I mean active verbs, not passive verbs.”  What examples does he give of active and passive verbs?  Why does he disparage passive voice?

Section B
4. Zinsser focuses quite a bit on clear writing.  What are the signs of clear prose?

5. “Writing is learned by imitation,” Zinsser declares.  What does he mean by that and how might it apply to historians?

“How to Teach the Writing of History: A Roundtable,” Historically Speaking (January 2010) (CP).

6. Stephen Pyne claims that history is a book culture.  What does that mean and why does it matter?

7. How does Pyne answer his question: “What standards might apply?” (15)

8. How does Pyne conduct his writing course?  What does he want to accomplish?

Section C
9. What does Michael Kammen think makes a historian a good writer?

10. Kammen cites J. H. Hexter, who wrote: “in the best writing of history, analysis and narrative do not stand over against each other in opposition and contradiction; nor do they merely supplement each other mechanically” (18). Explain that statement.

Section D
11. Jill Lepore advises in a handout on writing: “Every argument worth making begins with a question” (19).  What are some good historical questions?

12. Explain Lepore’s “fish” metaphor?  How does she use it?

13. Why does John Demos write, “Without much recognizing it, historians have—for several generations now—downgraded the writing part of their task”? (21)

14.  Why does Demos challenge Pyne’s claim that history “be sharply distinguished from fiction”? (21)

Section A
Benjamin, chpt 4 “Building a History Essay”
1. What counts as “clear writing” in Jules Benjamin’s view?

2. How might you apply Benjamin’s “Preparing to Write” questions to your topic?

3. When examining your sources, what kinds of questions should you ask yourself?

Section B
4. Benjamin writes about the basics of a thesis.  Provide two additional examples of good history theses. (This could be from any period or could involve any subject).

5. What distinguishes a good from a bad thesis?

6. What are the characteristics of a good introduction?

Section C
7. What makes a sentence either clear or unclear?

8. Why is it a bad idea to use the passive voice?

9. What is the basic object of a conclusion?

10. When proofreading a paper, what should you be looking for?

Section D
Benjamin, chpt 5 “Preparing Specific Writing Assignments,” pgs 63-79
11. What do we learn when we read a primary vs. a secondary source?

12. What makes for a good book review?

13. PowePoint presentations can too often become PowerlessPointless presentations.  What sort of advice should you keep in mind as you develop a presentation?

Section A
1. What are some of the questions a historian could ask about the context and importance of Samuel Pepys's Diary?

2. What did Pepys first make of the London fire?

3. Based on Pepy's Diary, why did the fire spread as it did?

Section B
4. Judging from Pepys, how did Londoners react to the fire?

5. How does the London Gazette piece on the fire differ from Samuel Pepys's diary entry? What might account for differences in these two documents?

6. For the writer of the London Gazette article what role did God or providence play in the calamity?

Section C
7. After looking at the first map (with color and inset) what can one say about how and where the fire spread?

8. How did the future street map (inset, top left) differ from what had been destroyed in the fire?  Why did authorities create the new design?

9. What kind of scene of the fire does the second map present?  Does this representation match the descriptions in the Gazette and Pepys's Diary?

Section D
10. Thomas Brooks wrote of the divine lessons of the 1666 fire.  What sense did he make of the devastation?

11. How did Brooks use scripture?

12. Compare Brooks's worldview with that of modern westerners.  How do people in the West respond to tragedy today?  What accounts for the changed view?

4-Page Book Review: Answer any one of the questions.  Make sure to indicate which question you are answering on your paper.

1. Stacy Schiff argues that Cleopatra’s life and legacy has often been obscured by biased historians and chroniclers. How has that been so?  How does Schiff try to recover a more true version of Cleopatra? 

2. Any biographer or historian who works with ancient sources will run into walls.  There is only so much a scholar can know about an individual who died over 2,000 years ago.  How does Stacy Schiff tell the story of Cleopatra in an imaginative way while still being true to the historical record?

3. In Stacy Schiff’s telling, what can we know about the ancient world by examining the life of Cleopatra?

Section A
Benjamin on “Plagiarism,” in A Student’s Guide to History, 118-127

1. In Jules Benjamin’s view what is the difference between an ineffective and an effective paraphrase? 

2. Describe the kinds of precautions a writer should take to avoid plagiarism.

3. What sort of questions should one ask before inserting a quote into a paper?

4. What are some of the best ways to organize one’s thoughts with notes before beginning to write an essay or research paper?

Section B
Ronald H. Fritze, “On the Perils and Pleasures of Confronting Pseudohistory,” Historically Speaking (November 2009) (CP)

5. Even without plagiarizing, history can be bad or false. Ronald H. Fritze describes some of the negative results of psuedohistory.  What are some of the examples that Fritze provides.  Why are these false histories?

6. Explain what Fritze means by the following: “But there is a dark side. Pseudohistorical ideas are used to justify racism and nasty political agendas. They provide a seemingly factual basis for the beliefs of fringe religious movements and destructive cults. Pseudohistory can sometimes bring about very real and tragic history for unfortunate acolytes.”

7. Why do pseudohistorical accounts have such widespread appeal?  Why is there an eager audience of readers for psuedohistory?

Section C
Mark Noll, George Marsden, and Nathan Hatch, The Search for Christian America (1984) (CP).
8. According to Mark Noll, George Marsden, and Nathan Hatch why did conservative American evangelicals become much more interested in history and the American founding in the 1970s?

9. What do the authors find to be problematic about evangelical interpretations of America’s roots?  Why does it matter as much as it does?

10. What are some of the “crucial questions” (p 19) that Noll, Marsden, and Hatch consider and how does that shape their overall argument?

11. The authors ask: “What is the point, some may ask, in subjecting our ideas about the past to rigorous scrutiny? Even if it turns out that the common picture of an American Christian past is inaccurate, what difference does it make?” How do they answer this important question?

Only the on-site visit this week, no classes. Read this essay, "The Past Isn't Past: The Weight of Congregational History," by Peggy Bendroth, director of the Congregational Library.

SET 10: Answer this in detail: How does Peggy Bendroth answer her question: "Who cares about history?"

Section A
1. Why did Natalie Zemon Davis write this book?

2. How does Davis set the historical scene?

3. Films that are based on books often take creative license and rework history. How does Davis compare the history of Martin Guerre with the film?

Section B
*4. What sort of evidence does Davis rely on to tell this story?  What kinds of things can historians know about the people of mid-16th century France based on that evidence?  What sort of things can’t they know?

5. Why did the Daguerre family decide to move from the Basque village of Hendaye to the French hamlet of Artigat?  How did the traditions of the two areas differ?

6. Describe how marriages were arranged in this era.  In what significant ways are marriages, and relationships in general, different in the West now?

Section C
7. Religion and folk beliefs figure largely in Davis’s book.  Why was Martin Guerre, the newly wed, thought to be bewitched?  What could be done about that?

*8. Judging from the Davis’s book, is it possible to really know the internal worlds and the mindsets of peasants who lived in 16th-century France?

9. In chapter three, Davis writes, “Bertrande’s status was much reduced by all these events” (33).  To what is she referring?  How could a peasant’s status rise or fall in this age?

Section D
10. Before Arnaud du Tilh came to Artigat, and embarked on his new life, what sort of a young man was he?  How did others think of him?

*11. How was Arnaud du Tilh able to become Martin Guerre?  Was he unique?  How should historians understand a person like du Tilh (“Pansette”) in light of others who lived at the same time?

12. How did the new Martin’s life begin to unravel in Artigat?  What was the nature of his family quarrel?

Section A
1. How did the 16th-century French legal system treat fraud, or, what we now call identity theft?  We’re there precedents here?

2. Under what principles and with what notions of “fairness” did French law operate during the early modern era?

3. Pansette seemed to be blessed with a remarkable memory and a gift for storytelling.  What did contemporaries make of that talent?

Section B
*4. How does God, religion, and magic figure into the story of Arnuad Du Tilh?

5. How did the new Martin’s family and judicial officials try to verify his true identity?

6. What was the final verdict and how was it carried out?

Section C
*7. How was a peasant’s life limited by his or her circumstances?  In the world of today, does poverty limit the horizon of men and women in the same ways that it did in the 1500s?

8. Describe how the history of the du Tilh case was told and retold over the decades.

9. Why were so many readers in this age and even in later era’s so fascinated by the strange case of du Tilh?  Why was his story told and retold for centuries to come?

See this 1737 account in English of the Martin Guerre case.

Section A
1. In the intro to his book, David Lowenthal writes that the past is all around us.  What does he mean by that?

2. What is the point of the phrase "the past is a foreign country"?  Why, in Lowenthal's view, does that take on new resonance in the modern era?

3. How did Renaissance humanists reconcile "their admiration for the past with their own creativity"? (Lowenthal 75)

4. How did scholars during the 15th and 16th centuries come to see the past as very different from the present?

Section B
5. How do Americans contemporary compare or contrasts the accomplishments of the present with those of the past?  How do individuals make judgments about today based on the actions and events of yesterday?

6. Explain what Lowenthal means when he writes: "Historical change thus validated present departures from past models" (79).

7. What did it mean for a Renaissance artist to copy an ancient work of art? How is even the word "copy" different to us now?

8. In what sense was the Renaissance age, as Lowenthal puts it, defined by "humanists' relationship with the past"? (86)

Section C
9. Many early modern historians and men of letters viewed the world as subject to decay, or a downward trajectory.  How did such an understanding of change over time shape a view of the past?

10. How and why did westerners reject the idea of decay and replace it with the notion of progress?

11. Why did a new veneration of science cause some to reject the supposed wisdom of the ancients?

Section D
12. Why was the French Revolution a major turning point for how westerners perceived history?

13. Lowenthal observes the Victorian tension in architecture between "copyism" and "originality" (101) Describe this tension.

14. How does Lowenthal use the "father" and "son" analogy to speak about Americans' relationship with history?

Section A
Mark T. Gilderhus, “Philosophy of History: Speculative Approaches” (CP)

1. According to Mark T. Gilderhus, what is a philosophy of history?

2. Does history have a direction or a general pattern?  How have various scholars answered that question over the ages?

3. How did G.W.F. Hegel come to understand the hand of God in history?

4. How did the historical view of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels compare to earlier Christian notions of history?  What patterns did Marx find in history?  How did later historians use Marx’s perspective?

Section B
6. In what sense was Oswald Spengler’s history “heavy with fate”? (62)

7. Describe the way that Arnold Toynbee compared civilizations over the ages.  What accounted for one society or culture thriving and another stagnating or declining?

8. What did Sigmund Freud judge to be the historic nature or significance of religion?

9. How did Reinhold Niebuhr use irony to make sense of history?

Section C
Mark T. Gilderhus, “Philosophy of History: Analytic Approaches” (CP)

10. What is the difference between a speculative and an analytical philosophy of history?

11. Describe the influence that positivism had on historical inquiry in the 19th century.

12. What were some of the distinguishing features of the idealist approach to the philosophy of history?  How did positivist and idealist historians disagree with one another?

Section D
13. What are some of the problems historians encounter when they try to write objective history?

14. Explain what Isaiah Berlin was trying to illustrate with the example of the fox and the hedgehog. (87)

Section A
Heather Cox Richardson, “Historical Theory,” in “Richardson’s Rules of Order” (unpublished MS) (CP)

1. In the beginning of this selection Heather Cox Richardson boils theory down to the essentials.  In essence, what is theory?

2. Why are so many historians and students in history classes reluctant when it comes to using theory in history?

3. Describe some of the theories that dominated in the 1980s.  How might these have been employed to explain past events?

Section B
4. Richardson writes, "historical theory gives us new tools to examine the past."  Unpack that statement.

5. How should students, in Richardson's view, approach theory?

Section C
“Space, Knowledge, and Power”: An Interview with Michel Foucault, 1982 (CP).

6. According to Michel Foucault, how can one read architecture as a kind of historic document?  What does architecture in the 18th century tell us about the political order of the day?

7. How does Foucault explain the evolution of the city in France?

Section D
8. In Foucault's view, what is the relationship between space and power?  How do railroads fit into his understanding of that relationship?

9. Describe what Foucault means when he says that "nothing is fundamental" (247).

10. How does Foucault summarize postmodernism as it relates to history and architecture?  In Foucault's estimation, does history have a direction?