The simplest and most widely held definition of Social Darwinism is the application of concepts of biological evolution to social and moral development. More specifically, it is social evolution through "survival of the fittest" in a "struggle for existence" in which the strong prevail and the weak are defeated and disappear. Social Darwinism…

Most students today are not able to distinguish between the notion of "race" as a social construct and the pernicious, false belief that "race" is a biological reality. The American Anthropological Association has adopted a policy that the word "race" should always be put in quotation marks because, as a social and not biological construct, there…

In spite of a strong and long-standing commitment among historians to the Humboldt ideal of an intimate connection between research and teaching in higher education, questions about the role of history and how it is used in society rarely seem to receive much attention in history classes. Against this background, the present article first…

A historical fact is like a fata morgana, "always less than what really happened." Even consensus does not establish truth; otherwise history is merely the version of the past that people agree to accept. The students who participated in the acclaimed 5th Street Cemetery Necrogeographical Study innocently found themselves clashing with accepted…

Harkness teaching is the pedagogy of all history classes and, indeed, of all classes in all disciplines at Phillips Exeter Academy (PEA). It can be somewhat difficult to arrive at an exact definition of "Harkness teaching." Loosely speaking, Harkness teaching is leading student-centered discussions in class, finding ways to get students to make…

On an April morning in 1775, seventy-seven Lexington farmers took a stand on their town common and started a revolution. Generations of townspeople have honored these yeomen soldiers--the Battle of Lexington is re-enacted at dawn every April 19th--and generations of schoolchildren have learned the story of Lexington and Concord. Perhaps because of…

This article utilizes "Brown v. Board of Education," which is traditionally taught in college and K-12 history courses as the case that both started the discussion about and ended the practice of segregation in schools, to highlight "testimonios of coalition" as a framework for historical analysis. First, the authors demonstrate how the fight for…

World history has become part of the "revolution in historical studies" since the 1960s, and a fast-growing area of college teaching in recent years. This article reports the author's research on his own world history-based course at Fisk University under the rubric of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). This SoTL research suggests…

For many semesters, the author taught an introductory class titled "The Global Perspective: The World since World War II." In this article, she describes a successful approach she found for teaching first-year and non-major students to enjoy reading about the world and to appreciate a global perspective. She chose a source-based approach and she…

Lesson planning is a critical task in the education of pre-service teachers, but the author has often questioned the extent to which traditional lesson plan formats truly contribute to the teaching and learning of history. Since current research in history education calls for an emphasis on building "historical thinking" skills and content…

Closing the "breach" or "distance" between teachers and historians has become a focus in teacher education and has gained greater prominence in the research on preservice teachers. Overall, most educational researchers now believe that a definition of historical knowledge includes not only a basic understanding of the facts, but also an…

As in any historical endeavor, periodization is an attempt to manage change, and present it coherently, by noting points where key breaks in framework occur. In world history, periodization has come to convey, particularly, shifts in the pattern of interactions and contacts among many, though not always all, major societies. In this article, the…

Old textbooks are one resource for teaching about the evolution of historical interpretation. Some libraries contain collections of U.S. history textbooks spanning multiple years and some schools even keep older textbooks used in past years. Recently, the author used a book by Kyle Ward entitled "History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How…

In this essay, the author comments on the life and the contributions of author Gary Nash. Everyone is thanking him for his remarkable engagement with the schools, as a writer of outstanding textbooks and materials for teachers developed through his work as director of the Center for Teaching History in the Schools, and, of course, the National…

In this article, the author appropriates from Clint Eastwood's film simply to organize a few remarks on his experience working with Gary Nash on the project to develop the U.S. national standards for history back in the mid 1990s. Sound bites are a powerful political tool, and it did not take them long to realize that the attacks on the standards…