Lecture 1: History and Mythistory

The lecture provides a working definition of History and a rationale for its study. It also lays out a model, or interpretation, for application to subjects studied throughout the course. Warning: students often tend to disregard introductory lectures such as this because they are heavy on theory and light on facts. Don’t make this mistake. Ideas and terms from this lecture will be used and tested.

Outline of Lecture
Introduction	Most people say they hated History in school, but public interest in History is abundant and growing.
What Is History?	We’re dealing with History as as subject, as an academic discipline. It is one of those disciplines called the Humanities. The Humanities study the human condition through texts, or documents. In History we try to understand human events by examining their origins.
What Is History Good for?	History, simply put, is experience. Experience, History, is important first as a tool for making decisions, for judgment. It has another important purpose, too: identity. History tells us who we are.
Themes for the Course	What is an American? In this course we look for the origins of American nationhood. They lie in the American people(s), the American environment, and the American constitution.

Assignments
Tocqueville	Introductions to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America—learn how the book came to be and why it is considered important
WWW	Uses and Applications of History, Prof. Isern’s page, which ties closely to lecture content
Film Review	No film recommendations pertaining to this lecture.
Book Review	Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me	Have some fun with this—figure out all the stuff we’re teaching you wrong in the course!
	Thelen, Presence of the Past	These four books are recommended only for History majors or people with a serious interest in the state of History, because they deal with matters of theory and the profession rather than with the story of American history.
	McNeill, Mythistory
	Krieger, Ranke: The Meaning of History
	Becker, Everyman His Own Historian
	Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer	A classic in the literature of the early republic, Crevecoeur’s Letters are cited here because they furnish the big question for the course: “What is this American, this new man?”
	Cross, Justin Smith Morrill	A sound and recent biography of the founder of America’s land-grant universities.

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