Category Basics
How to Think Like a Historian
These three short videos from Professor Benjamin Park of Sam Houston State University help us understand the historian’s process. How to Think Like a Historian (Even If You’re Not One) “What makes a history book reliable? How do historians know which sources to trust and which to toss? In this video, historian Benjamin Park breaks […]
The Art of War
This book by Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini was written in 1838. This version was translated by Capt. G. H. Mendell and Lt. W. P. Craighill of the US Army in 1862. You can read it for free here and here. Jomini served under Napoleon in the French army and appointed himself as a theorist of […]
Ordeal of the Union: Fruits of Manifest Destiny 1847-1852
This book by the eminent historian Allan Nevins is the first volume in his magisterial 8-volume work covering, Ordeal of the Union, The Emergence of Lincoln, and The War for the Union. Ordeal of the Union also serves as the overall title for the series. Unfortunately, Professor Nevins passed away before he could complete the […]
How Should Americans Understand the Civil War?
This article by Professor Gary W. Gallagher appeared in North and South magazine, Volume 2, Number 3, March, 1999, pp. 9-18. He writes, “There are at least two important–and very different–ways for all of these people to try to understand the era of Civil War. The first relates to what the issues and events of […]
Was the Civil War Really the “First Modern War”?
This interview with Professor Earl Hess is from the latest [November 2023] issue of Civil War Times magazine. “No larger collection of artillery had ever been brought to a war’s battlefields in the Western Hemisphere before the Civil War. More than 200,000 men, trained and educated like no other subset of soldiers in this war […]
This Civil War Weapon Changed the Face of Warfare
This article comes from the June 2023 issue of Civil War Times magazine. “The breechloading seven-shot, metallic-cartridge rifles invented by Christopher Miner Spencer were the most innovative and reliable repeaters of the conflict. The deadly weapons were the precursor to modern assault rifles. Spencer was born in 1833, and grew up in Connecticut, a hotbed […]
The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast Episode 116: Historical Thinking for a Democracy
In this episode, host Professor John Fea discusses historical thinking with Zachary Cote, a former middle school social studies teacher who is now the Executive Director of a new nonprofit organization, Thinking Nation, dedicated to helping facilitate teaching historical thinking at the K-12 level. Check out their website at this link. The episode’s description reads, […]
Sort Fact from Fiction Online with Lateral Reading
Lateral reading will help you find out if the website you’re looking at is credible. This video tells you how to do it. The video’s description reads, “Free Civic Online Reasoning lessons, assessments and videos are available at https://cor.stanford.edu/ Lateral reading is a powerful digital literacy strategy to combat fake news. Based on research with […]
The American Civil War: Obsolete Myths and Real Questions (Andrew Zimmerman, PhD)
Here’s Professor Andrew Zimmerman of George Washington University dispelling myths about the Civil War. The video’s description reads, “This lecture will introduce some of the most interesting and important questions historians of the American Civil War are asking today. These include: what role did slaves themselves play in the end of slavery? How did the […]
Student of the American Civil War 
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