Undergraduate History Courses Research Articles

Medieval urban history and the history of political thought

One of the problems of urban history is the fearsome range of expertise that the urban historian is supposed to appreciate, if not master. Belaboured, rightly, by archaeologists, geographers, and architectural historians, we have begun to open our eyes to the evidence of the physical environment of medieval towns, but that is not the half of it. In order to understand urban institutions one needs to be a religious historian, an economic historian, a legal historian; and if one were ever to make sense of everything that is included in the ‘social history’ of towns, then social anthropology, historical demography, and sociology are only three of the battery of foglamps that would be needed to penetrate our cloud of unknowing. The subject which I now wish to add to the list of those we are supposed to cover does not even have the attraction of sounding new and modish and exciting. The history of political thought has, after all, formed a part of undergraduate history courses in this country ever since they began, and it is traditionally one of the least popular and least satisfactory parts of them, especially for the sort of students who may go on to be interested in urban history: those who relish the exact, the local detail, the reality of topography, the ability to connect the documents of the past with visible phenomena in the present.

The Development of Africana Collections in British Learned Libraries

Africana, according to a recent American definition, consists of “trade publications, scholarly books, government publications all of which are designed to facilitate the working of governments both directly and indirectly”. Here, Africana is given a more specific meaning and refers to collections of material concerned with African studies designed to be consulted mainly for educational purposes. British universities and institutes with such collections tend to place emphasis on the behavioural sciences: politics, economics and sociology. Options in African history in single-subject undergraduate history courses are widely offered in this country, although only the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, and the University of Birmingham offer African studies as a specialist undergraduate subject. Recent years have seen some imaginative developments: Sussex University students can study a subject against a background of African society, culture and history, whilst Kent offers a course in English with African and Caribbean studies.

Douglass C. North’s The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790-1860 Revisited

Douglass North’s The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790-1860, while not the most controversial of the works of “new economic historians” in the 1960s, was among the first and was probably the most widely used of any of these in undergraduate history courses. In addition to its widespread use—possibly the first introduction of many history students to an economic approach to their subject—it framed, if not originated, a number of hypotheses about the process of American economic growth and about various specific relationships which have been and remain the basis of empirical work. In examining its importance the question is not just whether on certain specific points North was right, but also whether the book generated important hypotheses for empirical testing. In these latter regards here clearly was an important book, and, while it may seem to be incomplete or to fail on some specific issues, we should add that even now it is often unclear what the “right” answers might be.

Perspectives on the Present: An Innovative Undergraduate History Course

DESPITE their training and education, historians can be compelled to be as present-minded as the most callow freshman. Western Illinois University may well be a microcosm of the present situation. Traditional liberal arts subjects have gone out of fashion, as students flock to majors that appear to promise a job after graduation. History courses are no longer required of all graduates. Our students display indifference about the past, and they are intolerant of unstimulating teaching. More than that, they reveal a perceptible desire to be entertained in the classroom. This desire may have been strong in other

Images of Society: An Experimental Interdisciplinary Course Using Historical Novels

ONE distinct advantage of teaching in a small college is the relatively short time span between the conception of an idea and the execution of it in a new course. Under our flexible Colloquium heading, I rather quickly put into practice a combination of my ideas concerning the use of novels in history courses. I proposed to expand the use of novels beyond that of supplementary reading, a normal procedure in history courses, and instead construct an entire course around novels, giving credit in either English or history. The course was described as History in Fiction: Images of Society, and involved recurring themes as they appear in nineteenth and twentieth century British, continental, and some Asian novels. For several years, I have thought that a strong alliance exists between the literature of a particular period and the historical developments or characteristics of that era. Reading novels in undergraduate history courses, and teaching novels as a graduate assistant in history courses where professors included novels, convinced me that in whatever way one chooses to view society, literature has always provided a window to look into an era, or a mirror to reflect an era.