A.P. United States History Mr.

Palarz

Summer Assignment 2013

Complete each set of readings and questions before moving on to the next item. Turn in all responseshand-written, pen or pencil, using both sides of lined notebook paperon the first day of class, Wednesday, August 21, 2013.
1. Why Study History? David McCullough, Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are (2005) Peter Stearns, Why Study History? (1998) Outline both the McCullough and Stearns essays. Your outline may use Roman Numerals in a traditional outline form, or a format with numbers and bullet points. Then, write a single paragraph of 7 sentences long that answers the question, Why Study History? Do not only explain that we study history to avoid repeating the past. These readings present other reasons for the study of history that you need to consider. 2. Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron (1961) After reading the story, respond to each of the following in well-constructed paragraphs (5-7 sentences each): A. Explain Vonneguts assessment of equality as a social ideal. Does the author support equality? B. In the story, Hazel says that a television announcer should get a raise for trying so hard. Does the author agree with Hazel? Explain how Hazels statement relates to Vonneguts purpose in writing this story. C. In the story, George advises Hazel to forget sad things. Explain how Georges statement relates to Vonneguts purpose in writing this story. D. Generally analyze the moral of the story. Does the author reflect a liberal or conservative perspective? To what extent E. If Vonnegut were teaching A.P.U.S.H., what expectations would he set for both the curriculum and the achievement of students? F. How does contemporary American society compare to Vonneguts fictional future America? Are we the Bergerons?

3. Alan Brinkley, American History Read Chapter 1 - 2 and supplementary articles. The supplementary articles are available for download from the course website. Complete the Study Guides for both chapters. Use all of the key terms within your essential content answers. Underline the key terms when you use them.

Why Study History?

By Peter N. Stearns People live in the present. They plan for and worry about the future. History, however, is the study of the past. Given all the demands that press in from living in the present and anticipating what is yet to come, why bother with what has been? Given all the desirable and available branches of knowledge, why insistas most American educational programs doon a good bit of history? And why urge many students to study even more history than they are required to? Any subject of study needs justification: its advocates must explain why it is worth attention. Most widely accepted subjectsand history is certainly one of themattract some people who simply like the information and modes of thought involved. But audiences less spontaneously drawn to the subject and more doubtful about why to bother need to know what the purpose is. Historians do not perform heart transplants, improve highway design, or arrest criminals. In a society that quite correctly expects education to serve useful purposes, the functions of history can seem more difficult to define than those of engineering or medicine. History is in fact very useful, actually indispensable, but the products of historical study are less tangible, sometimes less immediate, than those that stem from some other disciplines. In the past history has been justified for reasons we would no longer accept. For instance, one of the reasons history holds its place in current education is because earlier leaders believed that a knowledge of certain historical facts helped distinguish the educated from the uneducated; the person who could reel off the date of the Norman conquest of England (1066) or the name of the person who came up with the theory of evolution at about the same time that Darwin did (Wallace) was deemed superiora better candidate for law school or even a business promotion. Knowledge of historical facts has been used as a screening device in many societies, from China to the United States, and the habit is still with us to some extent. Unfortunately, this use can encourage mindless memorizationa real but not very appealing aspect of the discipline. History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it harbors beauty. There are many ways to discuss the real functions of the subjectas there are many different historical talents and many different paths to historical meaning. All definitions of history's utility, however, rely on two fundamental facts.

History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it harbors beauty.

History Helps Us Understand People and Societies

In the first place, history offers a storehouse of information about how people and societies behave. Understanding the operations of people and societies is difficult, though a number of disciplines make the attempt. An exclusive reliance on current data would needlessly handicap our efforts. How can we evaluate war if the nation is at peaceunless we use historical materials? How can we understand genius, the influence of technological innovation, or the role that beliefs play in shaping family life, if we don't use what we know about experiences in the past? Some social scientists attempt to formulate laws or theories about human behavior. But even these recourses depend on historical information, except for in limited, often artificial cases in which experiments can be devised to determine how people act. Major aspects of a society's operation, like mass elections, missionary activities, or military alliances, cannot be set up as precise experiments. Consequently, history must serve, however imperfectly, as our laboratory, and data from the past must serve as our most vital evidence in the unavoidable quest to figure out why our complex species behaves as it does in societal settings. This, fundamentally, is why we cannot stay away from

history: it offers the only extensive evidential base for the contemplation and analysis of how societies function, and people need to have some sense of how societies function simply to run their own lives.

History Helps Us Understand Change and How the Society We Live in Came to Be
The second reason history is inescapable as a subject of serious study follows closely on the first. The past causes the present, and so the future. Any time we try to know why something happenedwhether a shift in political party dominance in the American Congress, a major change in the teenage suicide rate, or a war in the Balkans or the Middle Eastwe have to look for factors that took shape earlier. Sometimes fairly recent history will suffice to explain a major development, but often we need to look further back to identify the causes of change. Only through studying history can we grasp how things change; only through history can we begin to comprehend the factors that cause change; and only through history can we understand what elements of an institution or a society persist despite change.

The importance of history in explaining and understanding change in human behavior is no mere abstraction. Take an important human phenomenon such as alcoholism. Through biological experiments scientists have identified specific genes that seem to cause a proclivity toward alcohol addiction in some individuals. This is a notable advance. But alcoholism, as a social reality, has a history: rates of alcoholism have risen and fallen, and they have varied from one group to the next. Attitudes and policies about alcoholism have also changed and varied. History is indispensable to understanding why such changes occur. And in many ways historical analysis is a more challenging kind of exploration than genetic experimentation. Historians have in fact greatly contributed in recent decades to our understanding of trends (or patterns of change) in alcoholism and to our grasp of the dimensions of addiction as an evolving social problem. One of the leading concerns of contemporary American politics is low voter turnout, even for major elections. A historical analysis of changes in voter turnout can help us begin to understand the problem we face today. What were turnouts in the past? When did the decline set in? Once we determine when the trend began, we can try to identify which of the factors present at the time combined to set the trend in motion. Do the same factors sustain the trend still, or are there new ingredients that have contributed to it in more recent decades? A purely contemporary analysis may shed some light on the problem, but a historical assessment is clearly fundamentaland essential for anyone concerned about American political health today. History, then, provides the only extensive materials available to study the human condition. It also focuses attention on the complex processes of social change, including the factors that are causing change around us today. Here, at base, are the two related reasons many people become enthralled with the examination of the past and why our society requires and encourages the study of history as a major subject in the schools.

The Importance of History in Our Own Lives

These two fundamental reasons for studying history underlie more specific and quite diverse uses of history in our own lives. History well told is beautiful. Many of the historians who most appeal to the general reading public know the importance of dramatic and skillful writingas well as of accuracy. Biography and military history appeal in part because of the tales they contain. History as art and entertainment serves a real purpose, on aesthetic grounds but also on the level of human understanding. Stories well done are stories that reveal how people and societies have actually functioned, and they prompt thoughts about the human experience in other times and places. The same aesthetic and humanistic goals inspire people to immerse themselves in efforts to reconstruct quite remote pasts, far removed from immediate, present-day utility. Exploring what historians sometimes call the "pastness of the past" the ways people in distant ages constructed their livesinvolves a sense of beauty and excitement, and ultimately another perspective on human life and society.

History Contributes to Moral Understanding

History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Studying the stories of individuals and situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her own moral sense, to hone it against some of the real complexities individuals have faced in difficult settings. People who have weathered adversity not just in some work of fiction, but in real, historical circumstances can provide inspiration. "History teaching by example" is one phrase that describes this use of a study of the pasta study not only of certifiable heroes, the great men and women of history who successfully worked through moral dilemmas, but also of more ordinary people who provide lessons in courage, diligence, or constructive protest.

History Provides Identity

History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern nations encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how families, groups, institutions and whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved while retaining cohesion. For many Americans, studying the history of one's own family is the most obvious use of history, for it provides facts about genealogy and (at a slightly more complex level) a basis for understanding how the family has interacted with larger historical change. Family identity is established and confirmed. Many institutions, businesses, communities, and social units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use history for similar identity purposes. Merely defining the group in the present pales against the possibility of forming an identity based on a rich past. And of course nations use identity history as welland sometimes abuse it. Histories that tell the national story, emphasizing distinctive features of the national experience, are meant to drive home an understanding of national values and a commitment to national loyalty.

Studying History Is Essential for Good Citizenship

A study of history is essential for good citizenship. This is the most common justification for the place of history in school curricula. Sometimes advocates of citizenship history hope merely to promote national identity and loyalty through a history spiced by vivid stories and lessons in individual success and morality. But the importance of history for citizenship goes beyond this narrow goal and can even challenge it at some points. History that lays the foundation for genuine citizenship returns, in one sense, to the essential uses of the study of the past. History provides data about the emergence of national institutions, problems, and valuesit's the only significant storehouse of such data available. It offers evidence also about how nations have interacted with other societies, providing international and comparative perspectives essential for responsible citizenship. Further, studying history helps us understand how recent, current, and prospective changes that affect the lives of citizens are emerging or may emerge and what causes are involved. More important, studying history encourages habits of mind that are vital for responsible public behavior, whether as a national or community leader, an informed voter, a petitioner, or a simple observer.

What Skills Does a Student of History Develop?

What does a well-trained student of history, schooled to work on past materials and on case studies in social change, learn how to do? The list is manageable, but it contains several overlapping categories. The Ability to Assess Evidence. The study of history builds experience in dealing with and assessing various kinds of evidencethe sorts of evidence historians use in shaping the most accurate pictures of the past that they can. Learning how to interpret the statements of past political leadersone kind of evidencehelps form the capacity to distinguish between the objective and the self-serving among statements made by present-day political leaders. Learning how to combine different kinds of evidencepublic statements, private records, numerical data, visual materialsdevelops the ability to make coherent arguments based on a variety of data. This skill can also be applied to information encountered in everyday life.

The Ability to Assess Conflicting Interpretations. Learning history means gaining some skill in sorting through diverse, often conflicting interpretations. Understanding how societies workthe central goal of historical studyis inherently imprecise, and the same certainly holds true for understanding what is going on in the present day. Learning how to identify and evaluate conflicting interpretations is an essential citizenship skill for which history, as an often-contested laboratory of human experience, provides training. This is one area in which the full benefits of historical study sometimes clash with the narrower uses of the past to construct identity. Experience in examining past situations provides a constructively critical sense that can be applied to partisan claims about the glories of national or group identity. The study of history in no sense undermines loyalty or commitment, but it does teach the need for assessing arguments, and it provides opportunities to engage in debate and achieve perspective. Experience in Assessing Past Examples of Change. Experience in assessing past examples of change is vital to understanding change in society todayit's an essential skill in what we are regularly told is our "ever-changing world." Analysis of change means developing some capacity for determining the magnitude and significance of change, for some changes are more fundamental than others. Comparing particular changes to relevant examples from the past helps students of history develop this capacity. The ability to identify the continuities that always accompany even the most dramatic changes also comes from studying history, as does the skill to determine probable causes of change. Learning history helps one figure out, for example, if one main factorsuch as a technological innovation or some deliberate new policyaccounts for a change or whether, as is more commonly the case, a number of factors combine to generate the actual change that occurs. Historical study, in sum, is crucial to the promotion of that elusive creature, the well-informed citizen. It provides basic factual information about the background of our political institutions and about the values and problems that affect our social well-being. It also contributes to our capacity to use evidence, assess interpretations, and analyze change and continuities. No one can ever quite deal with the present as the historian deals with the pastwe lack the perspective for this feat; but we can move in this direction by applying historical habits of mind, and we will function as better citizens in the process.

History Is Useful in the World of Work

History is useful for work. Its study helps create good businesspeople, professionals, and political leaders. The number of explicit professional jobs for historians is considerable, but most people who study history do not become professional historians. Professional historians teach at various levels, work in museums and media centers, do historical research for businesses or public agencies, or participate in the growing number of historical consultancies. These categories are importantindeed vitalto keep the basic enterprise of history going, but most people who study history use their training for broader professional purposes. Students of history find their experience directly relevant to jobs in a variety of careers as well as to further study in fields like law and public administration. Employers often deliberately seek students with the kinds of capacities historical study promotes. The reasons are not hard to identify: students of history acquire, by studying different phases of the past and different societies in the past, a broad perspective that gives them the range and flexibility required in many work situations. They develop research skills, the ability to find and evaluate sources of information, and the means to identify and evaluate diverse interpretations. Work in history also improves basic writing and speaking skills and is directly relevant to many of the analytical requirements in the public and private sectors, where the capacity to identify, assess, and explain trends is essential. Historical study is unquestionably an asset for a variety of work and professional situations, even though it does not, for most students, lead as directly to a particular job slot, as do some technical fields. But history particularly prepares students for the long haul in their careers, its qualities helping adaptation and advancement beyond entry-level employment. There is no denying that in our society many people who are drawn to historical study worry about relevance. In our changing economy, there is concern about job futures in most fields. Historical training is not, however, an indulgence; it applies directly to many careers and can clearly help us in our working lives.

What Kind of History Should We Study?

The question of why we should study history entails several subsidiary issues about what kind of history should be studied. Historians and the general public alike can generate a lot of heat about what specific history courses should appear in what part of the curriculum. Many of the benefits of history derive from various kinds of history, whether local or national or focused on one culture or the world. Gripping instances of history as storytelling, as moral example, and as analysis come from all sorts of settings. The most intense debates about what history should cover occur in relation to identity history and the attempt to argue that knowledge of certain historical facts marks one as an educated person. Some people feel that in order to become good citizens students must learn to recite the preamble of the American constitution or be able to identify Thomas Edisonthough many historians would dissent from an unduly long list of factual obligations. Correspondingly, some feminists, eager to use history as part of their struggle, want to make sure that students know the names of key past leaders such as Susan B. Anthony. The range of possible survey and memorization chores is considerableone reason that history texts are often quite long.

There is a fundamental tension in teaching and learning history between covering facts and developing historical habits of mind. Because history provides an immediate background to our own life and age, it is highly desirable to learn about forces that arose in the past and continue to affect the modern world. This type of knowledge requires some attention to comprehending the development of national institutions and trends. It also demands some historical understanding of key forces in the wider world. The ongoing tension between Christianity and Islam, for instance, requires some knowledge of patterns that took shape over 12 centuries ago. Indeed, the pressing need to learn about issues of importance throughout the world is the basic reason that world history has been gaining ground in American curriculums. Historical habits of mind are enriched when we learn to compare different patterns of historical development, which means some study of other national traditions and civilizations. The key to developing historical habits of mind, however, is having repeated experience in historical inquiry. Such experience should involve a variety of materials and a diversity of analytical problems. Facts are essential in this process, for historical analysis depends on data, but it does not matter whether these facts come from local, national, or world historyalthough it's most useful to study a range of settings. What matters is learning how to assess different magnitudes of historical change, different examples of conflicting interpretations, and multiple kinds of evidence. Developing the ability to repeat fundamental thinking habits through increasingly complex exercises is essential. Historical processes and institutions that are deemed especially important to specific curriculums can, of course, be used to teach historical inquiry. Appropriate balance is the obvious goal, with an insistence on factual knowledge not allowed to overshadow the need to develop historical habits of mind. Exposure to certain essential historical episodes and experience in historical inquiry are crucial to any program of historical study, but they require supplement. No program can be fully functional if it does not allow for whimsy and individual taste. Pursuing particular stories or types of problems, simply because they tickle the fancy, contributes to a rounded intellectual life. Similarly, no program in history is complete unless it provides some understanding of the ongoing role of historical inquiry in expanding our knowledge of the past and, with it, of human and social behavior. The past two decades have seen a genuine explosion of historical information and analysis, as additional facets of human behavior have been subjected to research and interpretation. And there is every sign that historians are continuing to expand our understanding of the past. It's clear that the discipline of history is a source of innovation and not merely a framework for repeated renderings of established data and familiar stories. Why study history? The answer is because we virtually must, to gain access to the laboratory of human experience. When we study it reasonably well, and so acquire some usable habits of mind, as well as some basic data about the forces that affect our own lives, we emerge with relevant skills and an enhanced capacity for informed citizenship, critical thinking, and simple awareness. The uses of history are varied. Studying history can help us develop some literally "salable" skills, but its study must not be pinned down to the narrowest utilitarianism. Some historythat confined to personal recollections about changes and continuities in the immediate environmentis essential to function beyond childhood. Some history depends on personal taste, where one finds beauty, the joy of discovery, or intellectual challenge. Between the inescapable minimum and the pleasure of deep commitment comes the history

that, through cumulative skill in interpreting the unfolding human record, provides a real grasp of how the world works.

Further Reading
Holt, Thomas C. Thinking Historically: Narrative, Imagination, and Understanding. New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1990. Howe, Barbara. Careers for Students of History. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1989. Hexter, J. H. The History Primer. New York: Basic Books, 1971. Gagnon, Paul, ed. Historical Literacy. New York: MacMillan, 1989. Oakeshott, Michael. On History. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1983. Stearns, Peter N. Meaning over Memory: Recasting the Teaching of History and Culture. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. 1998, American Historical Association. Peter N. Stearns is Provost and Professor of History at George Mason University. He received a Bachelors degree summa cum laude, his Masters degree, and his doctorate in History from Harvard University.
Last Updated: July 11, 2008

http://www.historians.org/pubs/free/WhyStudyHistory.htm

April 18, 2005 Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are

By David McCullough (Note: The following is an abridged transcript of remarks delivered on February 15, 2005, in Phoenix, Arizona, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on the topic, American History and Americas Future.)

Harry Truman once said the only new thing in the world is the history you dont know. Lord Bolingbroke, who was an 18th century political philosopher, said that history is philosophy taught with examples. An old friend, the late Daniel Boorstin, who was a very good historian and Librarian of Congress, said that trying to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers. Were raising a lot of cut flowers and trying to plant them, and thats much of what I want to talk about tonight. The task of teaching and writing history is infinitely complex and infinitely seductive and rewarding. And it seems to me that one of the truths about history that needs to be portrayed needs to be made clear to a student or to a reader is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. History could have gone off in any number of different directions in any number of different ways at any point along the way, just as your own life can. You never know. One thing leads to another. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Actions have consequences. These all sound self-evident. But theyre not self-evident particularly to a young person trying to understand life. Nor was there ever anything like the past. Nobody lived in the past, if you stop to think about it. Jefferson, Adams, Washington they didnt walk around saying, Isnt this fascinating, living in the past? They lived in the present just as we do. The difference was it was their present, not ours. And just as we dont know how things are going to turn out for us, they didnt either. Its very easy to stand on the mountaintop as an historian or biographer and find fault with people for why they did this or didnt do that, because were not involved in it, were not inside it, were not confronting what we dont know as everyone who preceded us always was. Nor is there any such creature as a self-made man or woman. We love that expression, we Americans. But every one whos ever lived has been affected, changed, shaped, helped, hindered by other people. We all know, in our own lives, who those people are whove opened a window, given us an idea, given us encouragement, given us a sense of direction, self-approval, selfworth, or who have straightened us out when we were on the wrong path. Most often they have been parents. Almost as often they have been teachers. Stop and think about those teachers who changed your life, maybe with one sentence, maybe with one lecture, maybe by just taking an interest in your struggle. Family, teachers, friends, rivals, competitors theyve all shaped us. And so too have people weve never met, never known, because they lived long before us. They have shaped us too the people who composed the symphonies that move us, the painters, the poets, those who have written the great literature in our language. We walk around everyday, everyone of us, quoting Shakespeare, Cervantes, Pope. We dont know it, but we are, all the time. We think this is our way of speaking. It isnt our way of speaking its what we have been given. The laws we live by, the freedoms we enjoy, the institutions that we take for granted as we should never take for granted are all the work of other people who went before us. And to be indifferent to that isnt just to be ignorant, its to be rude. And ingratitude is a shabby failing.

How can we not want to know about the people who have made it possible for us to live as we live, to have the freedoms we have, to be citizens of this greatest of countries in all time? Its not just a birthright, it is something that others struggled for, strived for, often suffered for, often were defeated for and died for, for us, for the next generation. Character And Destiny Now those who wrote the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia that fateful summer of 1776 were not superhuman by any means. Every single one had his flaws, his failings, his weaknesses. Some of them ardently disliked others of them. Every one of them did things in his life he regretted. But the fact that they could rise to the occasion as they did, these imperfect human beings, and do what they did is also, of course, a testimony to their humanity. We are not just known by our failings, by our weaknesses, by our sins. We are known by being capable of rising to the occasion and exhibiting not just a sense of direction, but strength. The Greeks said that character is destiny, and the more I read and understand of history, the more convinced I am that they were right. You look at the great paintings by John Trumbull or Charles Wilson Peale or Copley or Gilbert Stuart of those remarkable people who were present at the creation of our nation, the Founders as we call them. Those arent just likenesses. They are delineations of character and were intended to be. And we need to understand them, and we need to understand that they knew that what they had created was no more perfect than they were. And that has been to our advantage. It has been good for us that it wasnt all just handed to us in perfect condition, all ready to run in perpetuity that it needed to be worked at and improved and made to work better. Theres a wonderful incident that took place at the Cambria Iron Company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the 19th century, when they were building the first Bessemer steel machinery, adapted from what had been seen of the Bessemer process in Britain. There was a German engineer named John Fritz, and after working for months to get this machinery finished, he came into the plant one morning, and he said, Alright boys, lets start her up and see why she doesnt work. Thats very American. We will find out whats not working right and we will fix it, and then maybe it will work right. Thats been our star, thats what weve guided on. I have just returned from a cruise through the Panama Canal. I think often about why the French failed at Panama and why we succeeded. One of the reasons we succeeded is that we were gifted, we were attuned to adaptation, to doing what works, whereas they were trained to do everything in a certain way. We have a gift for improvisation. We improvise in jazz; we improvise in much of our architectural breakthroughs. Improvisation is one of our traits as a nation, as a people, because it was essential, it was necessary, because we were doing again and again and again what hadnt been done before. Keep in mind that when we were founded by those people in the late 18th century, none of them had had any prior experience in either revolutions or nation-making. They were, as we would say, winging it. And they were idealistic and they were young. We see their faces in the old paintings done later in their lives or looking at us from the money in our wallets, and we see the awkward teeth and the powdered hair, and we think of them as elder statesmen. But George Washington, when he took command of the continental army at Cambridge in 1775, was 43 years old, and he was the oldest of them. Jefferson was 33 when he wrote the Declaration of

Independence. John Adams was 40. Benjamin Rush one of the most interesting of them all and one of the founders of the antislavery movement in Philadelphia was 30 years old when he signed the Declaration. They were young people. They were feeling their way, improvising, trying to do what would work. They had no money, no navy, no real army. There wasnt a bank in the entire country. There wasnt but one bridge between New York and Boston. It was a little country of 2,500,000 people, 500,000 of whom were held in slavery, a little fringe of settlement along the east coast. What a story. What a noble beginning. And think of this: almost no nations in the world know when they were born. We know exactly when we began and why we began and who did it. In the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington hangs John Trumbulls great painting, The Declaration of Independence, Fourth of July, 1776. Its been seen by more people than any other American painting. Its our best known scene from our past. And almost nothing about it is accurate. The Declaration of Independence wasnt signed on July 4th. They didnt start to sign the Declaration until August 2nd, and only a part of the Congress was then present. They kept coming back in the months that followed from their distant states to take their turn signing the document. The chairs are wrong, the doors are in the wrong place, there were no heavy draperies at the windows, and the display of military flags and banners on the back wall is strictly a figment of Trumbulls imagination. But what is accurate about it are the faces. Every single one of the 47 men in that painting is an identifiable, and thus accountable, individual. We know what they look like. We know who they were. And thats what Trumbull wanted. He wanted us to know them and, by God, not to forget them. Because this momentous step wasnt a paper being handed down by a potentate or a king or a czar, it was the decision of a Congress acting freely. Our Failure, Our Duty We are raising a generation of young Americans who are by-and-large historically illiterate. And its not their fault. There have been innumerable studies, and theres no denying it. Ive experienced it myself again and again. I had a young woman come up to me after a talk one morning at the University of Missouri to tell me that she was glad she came to hear me speak, and I said I was pleased she had shown up. She said, Yes, Im very pleased, because until now I never understood that all of the 13 colonies the original 13 colonies were on the east coast. Now you hear that and you think: What in the world have we done? How could this young lady, this wonderful young American, become a student at a fine university and not know that? I taught a seminar at Dartmouth of seniors majoring in history, honor students, 25 of them. The first morning we sat down and I said, How many of you know who George Marshall was? Not one. There was a long silence and finally one young man asked, Did he have, maybe, something to do with the Marshall Plan? And I said yes, he certainly did, and thats a good place to begin talking about George Marshall. We have to do several things. First of all we have to get across the idea that we have to know who we were if were to know who we are and where were headed. This is essential. We have to value what our forebears and not just in the 18th century, but our own parents and grandparents did for us, or were not going to take it very seriously, and it can slip away. If you dont care about it if youve inherited some great work of art that is worth a fortune and you dont know that its worth a fortune, you dont even know that its a great work of art and youre not interested in it youre going to lose it.

We have to do a far better job of teaching our teachers. We have too many teachers who are graduating with degrees in education. They go to schools of education or they major in education, and they graduate knowing something called education, but they dont know a subject. Theyre assigned to teach botany or English literature or history, and of course they cant perform as they should. Knowing a subject is important because you want to know what youre talking about when youre teaching. But beyond that, you cant love what you dont know. And the great teachers the teachers who influence you, who change your lives almost always, Im sure, are the teachers that love what they are teaching. It is that wonderful teacher who says Come over here and look in this microscope, youre really going to get a kick out of this. There was a wonderful professor of child psychology at the University of Pittsburgh named Margaret McFarland who was so wise that I wish her teachings and her ideas and her themes were much better known. She said that attitudes arent taught, theyre caught. If the teacher has an attitude of enthusiasm for the subject, the student catches that whether the student is in second grade or is in graduate school. She said that if you show them what you love, theyll get it and theyll want to get it. Also if the teachers know what they are teaching, they are much less dependent on textbooks. And I dont know when the last time you picked up a textbook in American history might have been. And there are, to be sure, some very good ones still in print. But most of them, it appears to me, have been published in order to kill any interest that anyone might have in history. I think that students would be better served by cutting out all the pages, clipping up all the page numbers, mixing them all up and then asking students to put the pages back together in the right order. The textbooks are dreary, theyre done by committee, theyre often hilariously politically correct and theyre not doing any good. Students should not have to read anything that we, you and I, wouldnt want to read ourselves. And there are wonderful books, past and present. There is literature in history. Lets begin with Longfellow, for example. Lets begin with Lincolns Second Inaugural Address, for example. These are literature. They can read that too. History isnt just something that ought to be taught or ought to be read or ought to be encouraged because its going to make us a better citizen. It will make us a better citizen; or because it will make us a more thoughtful and understanding human being, which it will; or because it will cause us to behave better, which it will. It should be taught for pleasure: The pleasure of history, like art or music or literature, consists of an expansion of the experience of being alive, which is what education is largely about. And we need not leave the whole job of teaching history to the teachers. If I could have you come away from what I have to say tonight remembering one thing, it would be this: The teaching of history, the emphasis on the importance of history, the enjoyment of history, should begin at home. We who are parents or grandparents should be taking our children to historic sights. We should be talking about those books in biography or history that we have particularly enjoyed, or that character or those characters in history that have meant something to us. We should be talking about what it was like when we were growing up in the olden days. Children, particularly little children, love this. And in my view, the real focus should be at the grade school level. We all know that those little guys can learn languages so fast it takes your breath away. They can learn anything so fast it takes your breath away. And the other very important truth is

that they want to learn. They can be taught to dissect a cows eye. They can be taught anything. And theres no secret to teaching history or to making history interesting. Barbara Tuchman said it in two words, Tell stories. Thats what history is: a story. And whats a story? E.M. Forster gave a wonderful definition to it: If I say to you the king died and then the queen died, thats a sequence of events. If I say the king died and the queen died of grief, thats a story. Thats human. That calls for empathy on the part of the teller of the story and of the reader or listener to the story. And we ought to be growing, encouraging, developing historians who have heart and empathy to put students in that place of those people before us who were just as human, just as real and maybe in some ways more real than we are. Weve got to teach history and nurture history and encourage history because its an antidote to the hubris of the present the idea that everything we have and everything we do and everything we think is the ultimate, the best. Going through the Panama Canal, I couldnt help but think about all that I had read in my research on that story of what they endured to build that great path, how much they had to know and to learn, how many different kinds of talent it took to achieve that success, and what the Americans did under John Stevens and George Goethals in the face of unexpected breakdowns, landslides and floods. They built a canal that cost less than it was expected to cost, was finished before it was expected to be finished and is still running today exactly the same as it was in 1914 when it opened. They didnt, by present day standards for example, understand the chemistry of making concrete. But when we go and drill into those concrete locks now, we find the deterioration is practically nil and we dont know how they did it. That ingenious contrivance by the American engineers is a perfect expression of what engineering ought to be at its best mans creations working with nature. The giant gates work because theyre floating, theyre hollow like airplane wings. The electric motors that open and close the gates use power which is generated by the spillway from the dam that creates the lake that bridges the isthmus. Its an extraordinary work of civilization. And we couldnt do it any better today, and in some ways we probably wouldnt do it as well. If you were to take a look, for example, at whats happened with the Big Dig in Boston, you realize that we maybe arent closer to the angels by any means nearly a hundred years later. We should never look down on those people and say that they should have known better. What do you think theyre going to be saying about us in the future? Theyre going to be saying we should have known better. Why did we do that? What were we thinking of? All this secondguessing and the arrogance of it are unfortunate. Listening To The Past Samuel Eliot Morison said we ought to read history because it will help us to behave better. It does. And we ought to read history because it helps to break down the dividers between the disciplines of science, medicine, philosophy, art, music, whatever. Its all part of the human story and ought to be seen as such. You cant understand it unless you see it that way. You cant understand the 18th century, for example, unless you understand the vocabulary of the 18th century. What did they mean by those words? They didnt necessarily mean the same thing as we do. Theres a line in one of the letters written by John Adams where hes telling his wife Abigail at home, We cant guarantee success in this war, but we can do something better. We can deserve it. Think how different that is from the attitude today when all that matters is success,

being number one, getting ahead, getting to the top. However you betray or gouge or claw or do whatever awful thing is immaterial if you get to the top. That line in the Adams letter is saying that how the war turns out is in the hands of God. We cant control that, but we can control how we behave. We can deserve success. When I read that line when I was doing the research on the book, it practically lifted me out of my chair. And then about three weeks later I was reading some correspondence written by George Washington and there was the same line. I thought, wait a minute, whats going on? And I thought, theyre quoting something. So, as we all often do, I got down good old Bartletts Familiar Quotations, and I started going through the entries from the 18th century and bingo, there it was. Its a line from the play Cato. They were quoting something that was in the language of the time. They were quoting scripture of a kind, a kind of secular creed if you will. And you cant understand why they behaved as they did if you dont understand that. You cant understand why honor was so important to them and why they were truly ready to put their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor on the line. Those werent just words. I want to read to you, in conclusion, a letter that John Quincy Adams received from his mother. Little John Adams was taken to Europe by his father when his father sailed out of Massachusetts in the midst of winter, in the midst of war, to serve our country in France. Nobody went to sea in the wintertime, on the North Atlantic, if it could possibly be avoided. And nobody did it trying to cut through the British barricade outside of Boston Harbor because the British ships were sitting out there waiting to capture somebody like John Adams and take him to London and to the Tower, where he would have been hanged as a traitor. But they sent this little ten-year-old boy with his father, risking his life, his mother knowing that she wouldnt see him for months, maybe years at best. Why? Because she and his father wanted John Quincy to be in association with Franklin and the great political philosophers of France, to learn to speak French, to travel in Europe, to be able to soak it all up. And they risked his life for that for his education. We have no idea what people were willing to do for education in times past. Its the one sustaining theme through our whole country that the next generation will be better educated than we are. John Adams himself is a living example of the transforming miracle of education. His father was able to write his name, we know. His mother was almost certainly illiterate. And because he had a scholarship to Harvard, everything changed for him. He said, I discovered books and read forever, and he did. And they wanted this for their son. Well, it was a horrendous voyage. Everything that could have happened to go wrong, went wrong. And when the little boy came back, he said he didnt ever want to go across the Atlantic again as long as he lived. And then his father was called back, and his mother said youre going back. And here is what she wrote to him. Now, keep in mind that this is being written to a little kid and listen to how different it is from how we talk to our children in our time. Shes talking as if to a grownup. Shes talking to someone whom they want to bring along quickly because theres work to do and survival is essential: These are the times in which genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is

raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. Now, there are several interesting things going on in that letter. For all the times that she mentions the mind, in the last sentence she says, When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. In other words, the mind itself isnt enough. You have to have the heart. Well, of course he went and the history of our country is different because of it. John Quincy Adams, in my view, was the most superbly educated and maybe the most brilliant human being who ever occupied the executive office. He was, in my view, the greatest Secretary of State weve ever had. He wrote the Monroe Doctrine, among other things. And he was a wonderful human being and a great writer. Told to keep a diary by his father when he was in Europe, he kept the diary for 65 years. And those diaries are unbelievable. They are essays on all kinds of important, heavy subjects. He never tells you who he had lunch with or what the weathers like. But if you want to know that, theres another sort of little Cliff diary that he kept about such things. Well after the war was over, Abigail went to Europe to be with her husband, particularly when he became our first minister to the court of Saint James. And John Quincy came home from Europe to prepare for Harvard. And he had not been home in Massachusetts very long when Abigail received a letter from her sister saying that John Quincy was a very impressive young man and of course everybody was quite astonished that he could speak French but that, alas, he seemed a little overly enamored with himself and with his own opinions and that this was not going over very well in town. So Abigail sat down in a house that still stands on Grosvenor Square in London it was our first embassy if you will, a little 18th century house and wrote a letter to John Quincy. And heres what she said: If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world and obtaining knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. That you have never wanted a book, but it has been supplied to you. That your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have turned out a blockhead. How unpardonable it would be for us with all that we have been given, all the advantages we have, all the continuing opportunities we have to enhance and increase our love of learning to turn out blockheads or to raise blockheads. What we do in education, what these wonderful teachers and administrators and college presidents and college and university trustees do is the best, most important work there is. Citizenship isnt just voting. We all know that. Lets all pitch in. And lets not lose heart. They talk about what a difficult, dangerous time we live in. And it is very difficult, very dangerous and very uncertain. But so it has always been. And this nation of ours has been through darker times. And if you dont know that as so many who broadcast the news and subject us to their opinions in the press dont seem to know thats because were failing in our understanding of history.

The Revolutionary War was as dark a time as weve ever been through. 1776, the year we so consistently and rightly celebrate every year, was one of the darkest times, if not the darkest time in the history of the country. Many of us here remember the first months of 1942 after Pearl Harbor when German submarines were sinking our oil tankers right off the coasts of Florida and New Jersey, in sight of the beaches, and there wasnt a thing we could do about it. Our recruits were drilling with wooden rifles, we had no air force, half of our navy had been destroyed at Pearl Harbor, and there was nothing to say or guarantee that the Nazi machine could be defeated nothing. Who was to know? I like to think of what Churchill said when he crossed the Atlantic after Pearl Harbor and gave a magnificent speech. He said we havent journeyed this far because were made of sugar candy. Its as true today as it ever was.
Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu.

Harrison Bergeron (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They werent only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. Some things about living still werent quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergerons fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldnt think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldnt think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains. George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazels cheeks, but shed forgotten for the moment what they were about. On the television screen were ballerinas. A buzzer sounded in Georges head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm. That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did, said Hazel. Huh? said George. That dance it was nice, said Hazel. Yup, said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They werent really very good no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the

vague notion that maybe dancers shouldnt be handicapped. But he didnt get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas. Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been. Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer, said George. Id think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds, said Hazel, a little envious. All the things they think up. Um, said George. Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do? said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. If I was Diana Moon Glampers, said Hazel, Id have chimes on Sunday just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion. I could think, if it was just chimes, said George. Well maybe make em real loud, said Hazel. I think Id make a good Handicapper General. Good as anybody else, said George. Who knows bettern I do what normal is? said Hazel. Right, said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twentyonegun salute in his head stopped that. Boy! said Hazel, that was a doozy, wasnt it? It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples. All of a sudden you look so tired, said Hazel. Why dont you stretch out on the sofa, sos you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch. She was

referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around Georges neck. Go on and rest the bag for a little while, she said. I dont care if youre not equal to me for a while. George weighed the bag with his hands. I dont mind it, he said. I dont notice it any more. Its just a part of me. You been so tired lately kind of wore out, said Hazel. If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few. Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out, said George. I dont call that a bargain. If you could just take a few out when you came home from work, said Hazel. I mean you dont compete with anybody around here. You just set around. If I tried to get away with it, said George, then other peopled get away with it and pretty soon wed be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldnt like that, would you? Id hate it, said Hazel. There you are, said George. The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society? If Hazel hadnt been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldnt have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head. Reckon itd fall all apart, said Hazel. What would? said George blankly. Society, said Hazel uncertainly. Wasnt that what you just said? Who knows? said George. The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasnt clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, Ladies and gentlemen he finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.

Thats all right Hazel said of the announcer, he tried. Thats the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard. Ladies and gentlemen said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men. And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. Excuse me she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive. Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen, she said in a grackle squawk, has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is underhandicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous. A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall. The rest of Harrisons appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the HG men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half-blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides. Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds. And to offset his good looks, the HG men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggletooth random. If you see this boy, said the ballerina, do not I repeat, do not try to reason with him. There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges. Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison

Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake. George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. My God said George, that must be Harrison! The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head. When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen. Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die. I am the Emperor! cried Harrison. Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once! He stamped his foot and the studio shook. Even as I stand here he bellowed, crippled, hobbled, sickened I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become! Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds. Harrisons scrapiron handicaps crashed to the floor. Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall. He flung away his rubberball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder. I shall now select my Empress! he said, looking down on the cowering people. Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne! A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.

Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask. She was blindingly beautiful. Now said Harrison, taking her hand, shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music! he commanded. The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. Play your best, he told them, and Ill make you barons and dukes and earls. The music began. It was normal at first cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs. The music began again and was much improved. Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it. They shifted their weights to their toes. Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers. And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang! Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well. They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun. They leaped like deer on the moon. The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling. They kissed it. And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor. Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on. It was then that the Bergerons television tube burned out. Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer. George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. You been crying? he said to Hazel. Yup, she said. What about?, he said. I forget, she said. Something real sad on television. What was it? he said. Its all kind of mixed up in my mind, said Hazel. Forget sad things, said George. I always do, said Hazel. Thats my girl, said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head. Gee I could tell that one was a doozy, said Hazel. You can say that again, said George. Gee said Hazel, I could tell that one was a doozy.

A.P. United States History Mr. Palarz Study Guide: Alan Brinkley, American History Chapter 1, The Meeting of Cultures Terms Mayans Cahokia Nationalism Smallpox Missionaries Spanish empire Dutch West India Company Merchant capitalism Martin Luther Predestination English Reformation Church of England Elizabeth I Plantation model of colonization Spanish Armada Essential Content America Before Columbus 1. When do archaeologists and anthropologists believe that human beings first arrived in North America? (3) 2. Compare the number of people living in North America and Europe at the end of the 15th century. (3; 8-9) 3. Identify the features of the most advanced American civilizations prior to the arrival of the Europeans. What crucial technologies did they lack? (3-8) Europe Looks Westward 4. During the 15th century, why did Europeans develop interest in overseas expansion? (910) 5. Identify the circumstances of Columbus voyages to the New World. When did he voyage? Where did he land? Who financed the voyages? What mistakes did he make? (11-12) Aztecs Subsistence agriculture Christopher Columbus Conquistadors Pueblo African slave trade Enclosure movement Mercantilism John Calvin Henry VIII Puritans Separatists James I Fur trade Roanoke

6. Which European nations were first to explore North America in the 16th century? Where did they explore? Which nation dominated, and what achievements had they made by 1550? (11-12) 7. How did the region of exploration come to be called America instead of, say, Columbia? 8. What enabled the Spanish to conquer the Aztecs? (12-13) 9. During the 16th century, what goals did the Spanish pursue in the New World? (12-15) 10. How did Spanish exploration and colonization from in the late 16th and early 17th centuries affect the Pueblos? (17) 11. Identify the political, economic, demographic, social, and cultural characteristics of Spanish colonial enterprises. What did the Spanish do to subjugate the Native Americans? (13-20) 12. What technologies and other cultural conditions did the Europeans introduce to the Americas as part of the Columbian Exchange. (17-20) 13. Describe the political organization of southern and western Africa prior to the arrival of the Europeans? Identify major social differences between European and African civilization. (20-23) The Arrival of the English 14. Identify the circumstances that led to the English reformation. Explain the relationship between religion and colonization. (24-26) 15. Describe the English colonial experience in Ireland, and explain how if influenced the pattern of English settlement in North America. (27) 16. Identify the patterns of French and Dutch colonization in North America. Who, when, and where did these nations colonize? What did their settlements achieve? (27-28) 17. Identify the key circumstances that influenced Englands decision to colonize North America. Explain the experience of the first English settlements. (29-30)

Supplementary Reading The following articles are available from the course website: James Axtell, The Columbian Mosaic in Colonial America; Humanities, September 1991. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Was America A Mistake? The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1992. John Noble Wilford, Discovering Columbus; The New York Times, August 11, 1991. Howard Zinn, Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress from A Peoples History, 2003.

Reflection Question Use Chapter 1 and the supplementary reading to answer the following question: 1. To what extent is European colonization of the New World a tragic episode in history? Identify the different perspectives taken by historians on this issue. Consider the benefits of historical progress as well as the European impact on the indigenous people and ecosystem of the Americas. (5 paragraph essay)

Recommended Films (Optional) For the recommended films, Black Robe is the instructors personal favorite. Do not watch an Rrated film without your parents permission. This portion of the assignment is OPTIONAL and will be graded for EXTRA-CREDIT. The Mission (1986; PG) Black Robe (1991; R) 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992; PG-13) 1. Analyze the films perspective toward Native American and European civilization, as well as the relationship between the two. Does the film favor one or the other? (5 paragraph essay.)

A.P. United States History Mr. Palarz Study Guide: Alan Brinkley, American History Chapter 2, Transplantations and Borderlands Terms Jamestown Virginia Company Tobacco Indentured servants Pocahontas Royal Colony Charter Colony Plymouth Plantation William Bradford Massachusetts Bay Colony Congregational Church Anne Hutchinson King Phillips War New York Colony William Penn Pennsylvania Colony Georgia Colony Dominion of New England Leislers Rebellion Essential Content 1. Identify the basic characteristics of the North American English colonies. (33) The Early Chesapeake 2. Explain the circumstances encountered by the early settlers of Jamestown. Why and how did its fortunes change? (34-36) 3. Identify the crops which proved profitable to the colonial enterprise. (36) 4. Characterize the relationship prior to 1650 between the Virginia colony and the Powhatan Indians. (37) 5. Explain the life conditions encountered by indentured servants. To what extent did the indentured servants contribute to the Virginia colony? (36-37) 6. Identify the principal characteristics of the Maryland colony. (38-39) 7. Explain the consequences of the Maryland Act Concerning Religion in 1649. (39) John Smith Lord De La Warr Headright system Powhatan Indians Maryland Colony Proprietary Colony Bacons Rebellion Mayflower Compact John Winthrop Theocracy Roger Williams Pequot War English Civil War Quakers Carolina Colonies Caribbean Colonies Navigation Acts Glorious Revolution Coodes Rebellion

8. Explain the causes and consequences of Bacons Rebellion. In particular, how did it influence the relationship between social classes and the institution of slavery? (39-40) The Growth of New England 9. Identify the principal goals, characteristics, and early history of the Puritan separatists. Describe their relationship with local Indians. (40-41) 10. Identify the principal goals, characteristics, and early history of the Massachusetts Bay colony. (42-45) 11. Explain the reasons for dissent within Massachusetts Bay, and identify the settlements established by dissenters. (44-8) 12. Identify the circumstances and outcome of the Pequot War and King Philips War. (4448) The Restoration Colonies 13. Assess the impact of the English Civil War and, ultimately, the Stuart Restoration on colonization. (48-50) 14. Identify the circumstances and characteristics related to the establishment of the Carolinas. (48-50) 15. Summarize the history related to the establishment of New Netherland, New York, and New Jersey. (50-51) 16. Identify the key beliefs of the Society of Friends, and the concepts of law in Pennsylvanias Charter of Liberties. (51-52) 17. Characterize the relationship between Pennsylvania and the Native American Indians of the region. (52) 18. To what extent had Pennsylvania emerged as a prosperous and peaceful colony by the end of the 17th century? (52) Borderlands and Middle Grounds 19. Explain the circumstances which led to the establishment of Georgia. (57)

The Evolution of the British Empire 20. How did British mercantilism and the 17th century Navigation Acts affect the economic position of the North American colonists? (59-60) 21. Explain the legacy of the Dominion of New England and the impact of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in North America. (61)

Reflections 1. To what extent does the history of 17th century North America indicate conflict between Native Americans and settlers? (Where Historians Disagree, 58-59) (3-5 paragraph essay.) 2. Which played a greater role in determining the characteristics of the 17th century colonial societygeography or the background of the settlers themselves? (3-5 paragraph essay.)

Recommended Films The New World (2005) Pocahontas (1995) There is no essay option for either of these films.

Chart: Regional Comparison of the Colonies Fill in appropriate content for each of the following:
Southern Colonies Virginia, Maryland, South and North Carolina, and Georgia Colonists initially settled in Virginia under a __________ ___________ to the ________ Company. Stock holders and settlers expected profits from ________ and _________. Middle Colonies New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware __________ initially settled the region known as New ___________, followed by the ___________, and finally the ___________. New England Colonies Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island ______________ initially settled the first colony at ___________ (later incorporated into Massachusetts). Strict rules for adhering to a godly community led to dissenters leaving and establishing other colonies in the New England region ______________, familyoperated farm and business economy dependent upon small farmers and merchants. ___________ provided most labor on their farms and in their businesses. _________ society based upon white ownership of property Church members and landowners provided colonial governance, often through ______ rule and _____ meetings.

___________ economy based on single crops, mainly ____________ and ________.

_____________ economy dependent upon small farmers, craftsmen, and merchants. Families and __________ _________ provided most labor on small businesses and small farms. _____________ society based upon diverse cultures, languages, and religions Small land and business owners provided colonial governance, often through colonial _____________.

A significant population of _______ provided most labor for the large plantations. Socially-stratified, bi-racial society of ______ _______and enslaved _________. Wealthy elite ________ owners provided colonial governance.

People lived in widelydispersed settlements on large and small ____________ as well as small farms. Traditionally ___________ viewpoints formed the foundation for colonial political, economic, and religious policies Religious affiliation was ____________________ and the church played a minor role in politics and the economy.

People lived in small, dispersed settlements.

People lived in close-knit, clustered ________ and towns.

_______________ cultural, economic, political, and social traditions formed the foundations for diverse political, social, and economic policies Religious affiliation was _________ and religion played a ________ role in politics and the economy.

Strict religious adherence to the idea of a perfect, ________ community formed the foundation for political, economic, and social policies Religion was __________ in origin although little true uniformity existed among all practitioners and dictated the political, social, and economic lives of the colonists.