AP United States History Summer Assignment: Whose History?

Transcription

1 AP United States History Summer Assignment: Whose History? [I]f all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed if all records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. from Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell History, it has been said, is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of interpretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is constantly changing. There is nothing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among themselves on basic questions like the causes of the Civil War or the reasons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each generation asks different questions of the past, each generation formulates different answers. The past thirty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of the scope of historical study. The experiences of groups neglected by earlier scholars, including women, African-Americans, working people, and others, have received unprecedented attention from historians. New subfields social history, cultural history, and family history among them have taken their place alongside traditional political and diplomatic history. from Give Me Liberty!: An American History (2005; th ed.) by Eric Foner As these quotations suggest, the study of history, including U.S. history, is no matter the impression given by some textbooks inherently political (and polemical!). It is a constant, ongoing process a war, even between competing historical interpretations. Often these polemics, whether they are repudiations of a traditional national mythos or apologetics for war and aggression, are more useful (not to mention more interesting!) perspectives on the past than those offered by a committee of textbook authors determined to disguise inevitable biases or present a supposedly ideologically neutral account of the past. The two main texts whose representative first chapters, along with prefatory material and selections from their readers (separate companion guide volumes of primary sources), form the core focus of your reading in the summer assignment are most definitely histories of the first, polemical, nature histories which are unabashedly clear in presenting their agenda. The first of these two is Howard Zinn s A People s History of the United States (reader: Voices of a People s History of the United States). Originally published in 1980, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove for the thirty-fifth anniversary edition released last year in 2015, this is arguably one of the most important critical historical texts illustrating, and indeed to a large (possibly single-handed) extent, influencing the changes place in U.S. historiography in the past over thirty years (which Eric Foner references in the second quotation above). The second is A Patriot s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen (reader: The Patriot s History Reader). First published in 2004 and updated and re-released in a tenth anniversary edition, this text bills itself as the definitive conservative history survey, and is arguably as much of a reaction to those very changes in historiography noted by Foner and influenced by Zinn, as they were to traditional histories. Besides the excerpts of these two works, you will also be asked to examine everything from their covers, testimonial quotations, dedication(s), author bios, provided bibliographies (both bibliographies of the authors other works and ones they may provide), suggested readings, contents, overall style, and any other significant features and details you may notice on the pages provided to for these texts.

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3 Instructions You are being sent, in PDF form, the relevant excerpts from the following texts: (1) A People s History of the United States: 1492-present Howard Zinn (1980, 2015) o (1a) Voices of a People s History of the United States Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove (2004, 2014) (2) A Patriot s History of the United States: Columbus s Great Discovery to War on Terror Larry Schweikart, M Allen (2004, 14) o (2a) The Patriot s History Reader: Essential Documents for Every American Larry Schweikart, Michael Allen (2011) Answer the series of questions provided (next page) as you first examine and then read the texts as described below. You aren t being asked to write one singular essay or paper (unless you prefer to respond to the questions in that format), so please respond with full sentences, specific citations, and most importantly your own commentary and thoughts. Read the questions before and during your reading as a guide, as some require you to answer before reading, etc. Examine the covers, testimonial quotations, dedication(s), author bios, provided bibliographies (both bibliographies of the authors other works and ones they may provide), suggested readings, table of contents, overall style, and any other significant features and details that stand out to you of the two main texts (A People s History of the United States by Howard Zinn and A Patriot s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart) and their document anthology readers. Read the noted selections (below) from A People s History (and its reader) and A Patriot s History (and its reader) a total of about 67 pages. [Note: the point of this assignment is not to memorize all of the facts you encounter in these pages. Read (and annotate / take notes for yourself), but don t get bogged down in details; the main task is to note bias the author s perspective, ideology, methodology, etc. as it is expressed through their own presentations of the first topics they address in their histories.] A People s History of the United States [32 pages] Introduction to the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Edition (2015) by Anthony Arnove pg. xiii-xxii (10 pages) Chapter 1: Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress pg (22 pages) Voices of a People s History of the United States [8 pages] Introduction pg (6 pages) Columbus and Las Casas (preface) pg (2 pages) A Patriot s History of the United States [22 pages] Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition (2014) pg. xi-xiv (4 pages) Introduction pg. xv-xix (5 pages) Chapter One: The City on the Hill, pg. 1-12, 41* (*note the reference to a familiar name on this later page) (13 pages) The Patriot s History Reader [5 pages] Introduction pg. xi-xii (3 pages) I. The Formation of the Nation pg. 1-2 (2 pages)

4 Questions for Reading and Examination QUESTIONS FOR BEFORE READING: A Scavenger Hunt for Bias How to Scan a Book for Its Secret (or Not So Secret) Political Leanings and Other Information: 1.) Judge a Book by its Cover(s): examine the covers (front and back) of each of the provided books to answer the following questions about material that you, the reader, would encounter even before opening the book: o Title: what do each of the titles suggest about the point of view, intended audience, and even bias of their respective authors when it comes to approaching a history of the United States? ( A People s History vs. A Patriot s History ) o Subtitles: note also any subtitles or other descriptions on the cover (or title page) what do they suggest? o Cover design: what does the cover design potentially suggest about the book (if anything)? Is there a piece of artwork or a photograph on the cover if so, what does it depict? (Note: there is usually a key to the cover design / art on the bottom back cover of a book). Comment in particular on the contrast between the People s reader (Voices) and the Patriot s Reader cover photo / art (hint: think about the titles of the corresponding main text of each). o Book description: look at the back cover description or synopsis of the book (this sometimes appears in the book jacket of other books, particularly hardcover editions). What descriptions in these short paragraphs about the book stand out as the most suggestive? 2.) Testimonial Quotations: look at the testimonial quotations (critic reviews selected by the publisher/author for prominent placement on the front/back cover and/or on the first pages) for each book, if there are ones. o Who are the people and journals being quoted? o Do you see any familiar names or publications? o What do you know (or think you know) about the sources of these testimonials, and what potential information does that give you about any possible ideological leaning of the work in question? (Note: this is not a research project if you do not know who a particular individual is or much about a particular publication, you can state that or make an educated guess. If you do decide to look it up to find out, for example, that the National Review is a noted conservative magazine or that The Nation is the oldest continuously running weekly magazine in the U.S. and is generally progressive / left-wing, please indicate that you consulted an outside source to find that out.) o What, if anything, do these quotations say about the book (or perhaps, the reviewer)? (Yes, of course they say that the book is great or a must-read, etc.; I m asking for things of interest in phraseology or word choice in the quotations, or, again, about from whom the quotation is coming and what this says) 3.) Dedications: look in the early prefatory pages for a dedication, something like For bubbie (your book may not have a dedication). Now, leaving aside dedications that are purely personal, i.e. addressed to bubbie or to specific people without any comments: o Note any interestingly worded dedications what does this phrasing suggest about the author 4.) Epigraph: look in the first pages of each book for an epigraph (a short quotation or group of short quotations at the beginning of a book or section of a book, intended to suggest its overall theme). Whose quotation is provided? What does the quotation say? Why do you think this was chosen as an epigraph? Discuss how the choice of this quotation fits with your inferences from other aspects of this book and its author.

5 5.) Author Biographies and Bibliographies: look for the sections either on the covers or among the first or last pages of each book on which there are About the Author sections, as well as sections that say Also By / Other Works By this also includes phrases like author of under the author s name on a cover. For multiple books on our list by the same author and for books in which there are multiple bios, make sure to look at each bio and bibliography. o What aspects of the biographies of the author stand out as being the most interesting? What assumptions might you make (right or wrong), knowing just those little bits of information about the authors backgrounds? o Name some titles of other books Also By each author. What titles stand out to you as being the most suggestive or informative? What do you think those titles indicate about the author s more specific historical (or other) interests, as well as their ideological or political leanings? 6.) Table of Contents: Look at the (Table of) Contents section in the first pages of each book. o What chapter titles or selected topics stand out to you? Comment on some of the word choice in these chapter titles and what that may say about the approach of the author in question. o Choose a chapter title and compare/contrast it to its analogous chapters in the other books, based only on the title as in the Contents what does each variant lead you to expect will be the focus of that chapter? 7.) Format: Visually scan the first chapter of each book (before reading!). Taking the first chapter as a representative chapter, note how the book is laid out. o Does the chapter consist of solid text? Are there significant numbers of set-off block quotations (excerpts from primary sources?) o Are there sub-sections with their own titles? o What do you think the layout of each book indicates, if not about the agenda of the author, then perhaps about the book s subgenre as a history book? 8.) Readers : Both of these main history texts include both the text itself, along with a companion volume known as a documentary anthology, or reader o Judging by what you can see in these readers, what do you think the function/purpose of a reader is? o Where, historically / chronologically do the readers of each author begin? What is the first document of each, and from what year or time period? How does this correspond to the first topic presented by each of those authors in the main text? o Give a few examples of documents that are common to both readers. Give a few examples of documents that are particular to each author s companion guide (that the other reader does not include). Even without knowing what these documents are or who their authors are, what does the appearance of the same document across multiple readers from divergent political perspectives suggest about those documents? What, on the other hand, does the appearance of a document in one reader, and its omission in another, suggest?

6 FOR READING A People s History of the United States Howard Zinn (1980, 2015) Introduction to the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Edition (2015) by Anthony Arnove pg. xiii-xxii According to Arnove, what historical events directly influenced Howard Zinn s writing of A People s History? What was the historical context of the time of its publication in 1980? Chapter 1: Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress On the very first page, Zinn contrasts the Arawak Indians with the Europeans arriving in 1492 and after (Christopher Columbus and others). What descriptions does he use for each? How does he characterize Western civilization? After the several block quotations from Christopher Columbus and his diaries, who is the next source Zinn quotes? What does this perspective add to the discussion of the European-Indian contact? At a certain point, Zinn digresses from a discussion of the particular historical topic ( Columbus, the Indians ) toward a more broad description of his approach to historiography. Where does this discussion begin, and end? How does he describe his viewpoint? Do these comments confirm, or contradict any of your suppositions in the pre-reading section? What is your response to some of his claims about the approach to history? Voices of A People s History of the United States Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove (2004, 2014) Introduction After listing a series of examples of the voices this companion volume includes, Howard Zinn comments on what he sees in common among all of them. What does he say about how these voices are traditionally represented in history? What does he suggest is the result of this? What is the importance of challenging that alleged narrative, in his mind? How does this relate to the quotation he chose as the epigraph? What does Zinn say about the notions of objectivity or facts in the study of history? A Patriot s History of the United States Larry Schweikart, Michael Allen (2004, 2014) Introduction What does the opening series of questions, and the response offered at the end of the paragraph, suggest about the approach of A Patriot s History? How would the authors, based solely on their comments in the next paragraph, respond to an immediate accusation that the opening paragraph smacks of apologetics or blind propaganda for one s own country? What do the first two paragraphs of A Patriot s History suggest about any mainstream U.S. history textbook? How does this compare to A People s History s response to what he calls, in the introduction to Voices, the orthodox histories and the standard textbooks? What are some ways you might account for such a discrepancy (years of publication 1980 vs. 2004, bias, etc.)? Do you think James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me, 1995) and Eric Foner (Give Me Liberty!, 2005) would be more likely to share Zinn s or Schweikart s/allen s characterization of mainstream textbooks? How does A Patriot s History directly characterize Howard Zinn and A People s History of the United States? Is this a compliment or a criticism (or both)? How does this characterization of Zinn accord with his own description of his approach to history as you read above?

7 Chapter One: The City on the Hill, Turn to the grey information box beginning on p. 8 and continuing to p. 10, followed by Sources what is the question posed that defines the topic of this examination? What does the posing of that question and its specific wording suggest about what Schweikart and Allen are attempting to argue here? What, in short, is their answer to the question? What do you think is the takeaway message they are trying to convey by answering the question in that way? How might a critic, like Zinn, respond to the posing of such a question? Note: I excluded the material between pages 13-40, simply because it covers the early colonial period and is not as immediately relevant to the points of comparison with A People s History, etc. Read from the bottom of p. 40 to the chapter s end on p. 42. In what ways is this comparable to the digression in Chapter 1 of A People s History to discussing historical methodology? In what ways is this discussion markedly different? How does the text here characterize Howard Zinn? How do you think Howard Zinn might respond, based on his remarks relating to his own approach to history above? The Patriot s History Reader Larry Schweikart, Michael Allen (2011) Introduction and I. The Formation of the Nation A Patriot s History of the United States, like A People s History of the United States, begins at or around the year 1492, with the contact between Europeans and Indians upon Columbus s voyage and after. However, unlike Voices of a People s History of the United States, the companion / reader to A People s History, which begins its documents with Columbus and Las Casas, The Patriot s History Reader begins with The Formation of the Nation and the 1620 Mayflower Compact. What are some reasons to explain this arguable discrepancy? How might Schweikart and Allen account for it and explain it? How might Zinn? Looking at the table of contents (again) of The Patriot s History Reader, what do you notice about the sources of the documents as contrasted with those of Voices of a People s History? Take the last two sections of each (Voices Ch. 23 & 24, and The Patriot s History Reader Part VI and VII): how many U.S. Presidents and their speeches are the sources for Voices? How many U.S. Presidents and their speeches are the sources for The Patriot s History Reader? Think back to the contrasts you noted in the titles (People s vs. Patriot s) and on the cover art of these two readers.