https://www.spreaker.com/show/historically-thinking-conversations-abouenHistoryCopyright Al Zambonehttps://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/c3215e3621f2efdd5996a0f838896d28.jpghttps://www.spreaker.com/show/historically-thinking-conversations-abouWed, 01 Mar 2023 23:23:50 +0000Al ZamboneAl Zambonefeeds@spreaker.comConversations about historical knowledge and how we achieve itcleanepisodichttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-305-degrading-equalityhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83689Mon, 27 Feb 2023 09:00:43 +0000Al ZamboneIn 1835, Oberlin College in Ohio determined that it would admit black students. A very few other colleges did at the time, but Oberlin was unique in that it chose to do so as an explicit matter of college policy. At Oberlin, and a few other places...4736cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-304-mass-expulsionhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83680Mon, 20 Feb 2023 09:00:07 +0000Al Zambone “At the start of the twelfth century,” writes Rowan Dorin, “western European rulers almost never resorted to the collective expulsions of wrongdoers from their domains; ecclesiastical authorities evinced little concern about the Jewish communities...3837cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-303-victorian-jacobiteshttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83659Mon, 13 Feb 2023 09:00:57 +0000Al ZamboneOn a January night in 1897, a crowded Episcopal church in Philadelphia was the stage for a curious ceremony. In the Church of the Evangelists, located in south Society Hill just ten or so blocks from Independence Hall, a gaggle of clerics unveiled a...3220cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-302-tudor-englandhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83657Mon, 06 Feb 2023 09:00:23 +0000Al ZamboneOn 11 October 1537, Henry VIII finally received the son for which he had been waiting for decades. The day before the future Edward VI was born, friars, priests, livery companies, and the mayor and aldermen of London all processed through the city...3758cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-300-wild-problemshttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83510Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:48:27 +0000Al Zambone Welcome to Episode 300 of Historically Thinking!  Design theorists popularized the idea of “tame problems” and “wicked problems.” “Tame problems” are answers to questions  like how to get to Chicago, or how to increase the battery life of a cell...4122cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-299-the-good-countryhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83614Thu, 05 Jan 2023 09:00:11 +0000Al ZamboneWhat lover of American literature doesn’t remember these haunting lines: “Tell about the Midwest. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.” Of course that was, as some of you quickly recognized, a...4063cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-298-how-the-victorians-took-us-thttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83560Mon, 19 Dec 2022 09:00:24 +0000Al ZamboneThe Victorians didn’t actually travel to the moon. But they were the first people, observes my guest Iwan Morus, to think that travel to the Moon was not only possible, but that “their science already possessed – or would soon possess – the means of...3794cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-295-new-england-fashionhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83499Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:00:27 +0000Al ZamboneWhen the Massachusetts Historical Society was founded in 1791, its august members probably did not anticipate that one day its archives would contain not only family papers, but family dresses–as well as waistcoats, wigs, and at least two scarlet...5274cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-294-black-suffragehttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83469Mon, 21 Nov 2022 14:46:08 +0000Al ZamboneOn April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln addressed a crowd gathered outside the White House. He spoke not of recent  victories, or those to come, but to the shape of the peace that would follow. Now that the Thirteenth Amendment had been passed by Congress,...3278cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-292-mutinyhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83461Mon, 07 Nov 2022 22:37:24 +0000Al ZamboneIt is perhaps the greatest scandal and sea-story of the first half of 19th Century America that nearly everyone has forgotten. It led to a court martial, endless headlines, a fistfight in a meeting of the President’s cabinet, and quite possibly to the...3778cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-290-oh-dakotahttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83445Thu, 27 Oct 2022 08:00:22 +0000Al ZamboneMy guest today is Dr. Ben Jones, Director of the South Dakota State Historical Society and the South Dakota State Historian.  Ben Jones served for 23 years in the United States Air Force, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. During his service...3195cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-288-the-american-revolution-in-hhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83397Thu, 20 Oct 2022 08:00:07 +0000Al ZamboneIn 1780, captured American naval officer Joshua Barney escaped from prison in Plymouth, made his way to London, and with the help of some English sympathizers to the American Revolution was able to take the ferry to Ostend, the principal port of the...3782cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-283-two-houses-two-kingdomshttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83339Thu, 29 Sep 2022 08:00:57 +0000Al ZamboneFor centuries the Kingdom of England faced northeast, across the northern seas towards Scandinavia. Indeed, under King Canute, England was part of Scandinavia. But with the Norman invasion–even though the Normans were eponymously “North-men”–that...4247cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-279-count-the-deadhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83184Thu, 08 Sep 2022 11:14:31 +0000Al ZamboneStephen Berry begins his new book Count the Dead: Coroners, Quants, and the Birth of Death as We Know It with these two paragraphs:  This is a book about death and data or, more specifically, about the dead as data. The dead and the formerly living...3585cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-276-the-secret-syllabushttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83280Mon, 22 Aug 2022 08:00:39 +0000Al ZamboneNew college students usually get lots of advice.  “Go to office hours.” “Ask good questions.” “Declare a major as soon as you can.” “Take some time to figure out who you are.” “Get some research experience.” “Get good internships with real-life...3931cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-272-germans-without-bordershttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83136Mon, 18 Jul 2022 08:00:23 +0000Al ZamboneWhen the Bavarian naturalist Moritz Wagner travelled in the kingdom of Georgia, in 1819, he encountered there thousands of Germans, some of them living in what he described as a “ganz deutscher Bauart”, a German-designed village. They or their parents...3828cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-267-african-foundershttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83102Mon, 06 Jun 2022 08:00:46 +0000Al ZamboneIn 1609 a free man of African and European ancestry, Juan Rodriguez, left the Dutch ship Jonge Tobias anchored off Manhattan Island with “eighty hatchets and some knives” to set himself up in trading with the local Indians. Ashore in coming years he...3200cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-265-how-to-win-a-power-strugglehttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83054Mon, 23 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneYou might as well admit it; you’ve always wondered how you would do in a vicious struggle for power. Those thoughts might be prompted by an over-long project planning meeting for a new software produce, an angry meeting of a humanities department with...3711clean265fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-264-the-persian-versionhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83052Mon, 16 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneSome 5,000 years ago nomadic peoples of central Asia settled on the Iranian plateau. Their descendants would be the nucleus of an extraordinary empire that reached north to the lands of their ancestors, eastwards to India and China, and west as far as...4450cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-263-the-man-who-understood-demochttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83050Mon, 09 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneThis is the second and final part of my conversation with Olivier Zunz about his new biography of Alexis de Tocqueville, The Man Who Understood Democracy, just published by Princeton University Press. When last we left Tocqueville, he had just...4707cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-259-in-praise-of-good-bookstoreshttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=83003Mon, 11 Apr 2022 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneThe sociologist Edward Shils said or wrote somewhere that one of the three principle means of education were bookstores—preferably a used bookstore. Shils, for two generations a student and then faculty member at the University of Chicago, spent a lot...3912cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-258-the-pursuit-of-perfectionhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82548Mon, 04 Apr 2022 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneBritain in the 1840s should have been, observes Simon Heffer, a time of great social improvement. Instead it was a country that was beset by poverty, unrest, assassination attempts on young Queen Victoria and her Prime Minister, and fears of...4161cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-257-inventing-a-new-world-orderhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82985Mon, 28 Mar 2022 08:00:30 +0000Al ZamboneIn 1814, representatives of the grand coalition that had defeated Napoleon gathered in Vienna. There in meetings and balls–interrupted only by Napoleon’s 100 days after his return from exile on Elba–they developed a new order for Europe that connected...3474cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-256-the-war-that-made-the-roman-https://historicallythinking.org/?p=82634Mon, 21 Mar 2022 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneOn the coast of Greece there is an ancient monument that no-one pays very much attention to; and yet it marks one of the most consequential battles in the history of Rome, or really all of Europe. It was ordered to be built by Augustus, first Emperor...3286cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-254-saving-yellowstonehttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82819Mon, 07 Mar 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneIn 1871 an expedition entered the territory now encompassed by Yellowstone National Park. Led by doctor and self-taught geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, it was to be the first scientific expedition into that mysterious place. But it was also,...4046cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-252-the-great-war-and-modern-medhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82543Mon, 28 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneFrom the first weeks of the Great War, in August 1914, medical practice was overwhelmed, not simply by the mass casualties produced by the war, but the types of trauma to which human bodies were being subjected. The result was a transformation over...4042cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-251-the-history-of-technology-frhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82693Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al Zambone“My underlying goal,” writes my guest Tom Misa, “has been to display the variety of technologies, to describe how they changed across time, and to understand how they interacted with diverse societies and cultures. There’s no simple definition of...4291cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-250-amber-waves-of-grainhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82445Mon, 21 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneGrain traders wandering across the steppe; boulevard barons and wheat futures; railroads; the first fast food breakfast; and war socialism. It's all crammed into this discussion of wheat, and what it wrought, with Scott Nelson. Scott Reynolds Nelson...4205cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/behind-the-book-the-family-that-lost-amehttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82560Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneThe Howe famly was at the heart of Britain’s long eighteenth century. Connected to the Hanoverian ruling family by blood, they were addicted to Whig politics, high society, warfare and statecraft, and writing letters. In no less than four wars, Howe...4860cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-249-postcards-from-the-pasthttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82541Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al Zambone“Postcards,” writes today’s guest Lydia Pyne, “have left an indelible imprint on the history of human communication, unmatched by any other material medium. They owe their success to the decentralization of their manufacture as well as the physical...2647cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-248-athenshttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82493Thu, 10 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneIn 510 BC, an obscure Greek city located literally on a backwater revolted against its tyrant. This was not extraordinary; such things happened regularly in the many Greek city-states. What followed however was extraordinary, and even world-changing....3549cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/behind-the-book-down-the-road-to-the-cedhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82443Thu, 20 Jan 2022 09:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneThis is the first in a new series of podcasts. Long time listeners will remember that when my book Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life was published, I did a number of podcasts with experts delving into aspects of Daniel Morgan’s life—from the place...2751cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-241-doing-the-researchhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82435Mon, 10 Jan 2022 12:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneSo what does research mean to you? Does it mean looking for someone somewhere on the internet who agrees with you? Then you should really listen to this podcast. This is another of our continuing series on the “moves” of historical thinking, or what...2976cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-239-the-chicken-and-the-egg-or-whttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82376Mon, 27 Dec 2021 09:00:39 +0000Al ZamboneThis is one of the last in our year-long series about the skills of historical thinking, and today our focus is on one of simplest, but perhaps also the most contentious. It is Change and Causality. Defined in the form of a question it’s to ask “What...3269cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-237-a-brave-and-cunning-prince-ohttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82397Mon, 13 Dec 2021 09:00:44 +0000Al ZamboneAt about 8 in the morning on March 22, 1622, warriors of the chiefdoms making up the Powhatan confederacy attacked the settlements of the colony of Virginia. By nightfall, the devastating attacks had killed between a quarter and a third of the English...4463clean237fullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-236-let-me-put-that-into-contexthttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82380Tue, 07 Dec 2021 19:38:38 +0000Al ZamboneGreat podcast title, right? Those words still trigger a sort of survival reflex in me, based upon experience with an eminent professor. When he said those very words, you could bet that he would be talking for at least the next ten minutes, seemingly...3193cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/bonus-episode-the-higher-ed-scene-with-mhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82366Wed, 01 Dec 2021 16:38:48 +0000Al ZamboneSometimes, Higher Ed can feel like a battle. But not because of COVID, or CRT, or POTUS, or FL GOV...it's because someone in the administration asked the faculty if they might be so kind as to fill in for cafeteria staff. Now that's going too...3499cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-234-the-fall-of-robespierrehttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82342Mon, 15 Nov 2021 11:00:45 +0000Al Zambone“We seek an order of things in which all the base and cruel passions are enchained, all the beneficent and generous passions are awakened by the laws; where ambition becomes the desire to merit glory and to serve our country; where distinctions are...2845cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-233-generation-mythhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82340Mon, 08 Nov 2021 11:00:26 +0000Al ZamboneEach year millions and millions of whatever currency you’d care to have are spent explaining generations to one another. Inherent in that expensive explantation is the idea that people born at about the same time are basically alike, and very...3320cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-230-what-the-amish-can-do-for-ushttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82306Mon, 25 Oct 2021 08:00:58 +0000Al ZamboneWhen people speak of “the Amish” they are using a very simple term that covers over rather than reveals. It’s a term that applies to forty affliations or subgroups, each with a distinctive way of life—from dress and carriages, to technological and...4343cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-229-mr-jefferson-and-his-univershttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82235Thu, 21 Oct 2021 08:00:00 +0000Al ZamboneAlumni of the University of Virginia enjoy pointing out that while Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone declares his foundation of that university as his third great achievement, it does not so much as mention his presidency of the United States. Jefferson...3803cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-224-disruptionhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82160Mon, 20 Sep 2021 08:40:59 +0000Al ZamboneHistorians are always interested in how things change over time, and it helps for the survival of the profession that most things do. But there are certain moments in history when things don't just change, they change so radically that it feels like...4622cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-223-climbing-denalihttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82157Mon, 13 Sep 2021 17:00:48 +0000Al ZamboneDenali, the mountain formerly sometimes known (but not by Alaskans) as Mt. McKinley, is one of the most impressive mountains in the entire world. It is not only the highest mountain in North America, it is the highest northern-most mountain. That...3916cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-222-the-chemistry-of-fearhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82103Thu, 09 Sep 2021 17:00:16 +0000Al ZamboneThe wrong food can kill you. The right kind of food can help you live longer. Additives are unnatural. Unnatural food is unhealthy food. These are assumptions that many or most of us have today about the things we eat. That we believe eating to be a...3636cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-221-prohibition-wasnt-americanhttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82100Mon, 06 Sep 2021 10:31:49 +0000Al ZamboneCarrie Nation was, of course, a prohibitionist. But so was Leo Tolstoy, Czar Nicholas II, and Vladimir Lenin; in fact, the first nation to prohibit the sale of alcohol was Russia. The first Socialist Prime Minister of Sweden was an advocate for...4574cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-220-from-the-archive-the-first-t
This is one of the many conversations about college that Historically Thinking has done that we think of as Higher Ed: A Guide for the Perplexed. You can find numerous conversations there which will hopefully illuminate areas that for many people are very obscure indeed.  (But why the University of Chicago has bagpipes amongst its traditions...this will forever remain a mystery locked in a closet. We just don't want to know.)]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=82166Wed, 01 Sep 2021 17:08:53 +0000Al ZamboneFor many colleges, this is the first week of class. And that means for both new teachers and new students, it's the beginning of one of three weeks that will influence the rest of their year, and their time in college. Believe us, it's science, as...
This is one of the many conversations about college that Historically Thinking has done that we think of as Higher Ed: A Guide for the Perplexed. You can find numerous conversations there which will hopefully illuminate areas that for many people are very obscure indeed.  (But why the University of Chicago has bagpipes amongst its traditions...this will forever remain a mystery locked in a closet. We just don't want to know.)]]>2871cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-210-very-personal-history
One of the results of that discovery, and the years spent not only learning about his father but reviewing his own life, is Damon’s new book A Round of Golf with My Father: The New Psychology of Exploring Your Past to Make Peace with Your Present. As one friend of Damon’s has written, it is “a gripping detective story, a deeply touching personal memoir, a critique of developmental psychology, a compendium of life-giving maxims, and a celebration of disciplined life review.” William Damon is Professor of Education at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence.

 

For Further Investigation

Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Joseph Amato, Jacob's Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History

Episode 50: Family History is Knowing Yourself--a conversation with Joseph A. Amato]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=82075Thu, 17 Jun 2021 16:07:16 +0000Al ZamboneOne California afternoon William Damon received a call from his daughter. A sleepless night had led her to do a little internet sleuthing, and the result was Damon discovering that the father he had thought died in World War II had in fact not only...
One of the results of that discovery, and the years spent not only learning about his father but reviewing his own life, is Damon’s new book A Round of Golf with My Father: The New Psychology of Exploring Your Past to Make Peace with Your Present. As one friend of Damon’s has written, it is “a gripping detective story, a deeply touching personal memoir, a critique of developmental psychology, a compendium of life-giving maxims, and a celebration of disciplined life review.” William Damon is Professor of Education at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence.

 

For Further Investigation

Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Joseph Amato, Jacob's Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History

Episode 50: Family History is Knowing Yourself--a conversation with Joseph A. Amato]]>3686cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-205-can-there-ever-be-history-fo
“Patriotic history is more suspect these days than it was when I was its young student, 50 years ago,” writes Eliot Cohen. But, he continues, “civic education is also inextricably interwoven with patriotism, without which commitment to the values that make free government possible will not exist” since “civic education depends not only on an understanding of fundamental processes and insttitions, but on a commitment to those processes and institutions…”

These are observations contained in Cohen’s contribution to a new title from Templeton Press, How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow's Schools, edited by Michael J. Petrilli and Chester E. Finn, Jr. With me to discuss this essay, civic education, and the possibility of teaching history for the common good are Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of the History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, himself a former public school social studies teacher, and Eliot Cohen, Dean and Robert E. Osgood Professor of the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

We've never tried anything like this on Historically Thinking before--getting together people who disagree about some things, but also respect one another and have a basis from which to reach agreement. But we think that you'll like the result.


For Further Investigation

Eliot A. Cohen, “History, Critical and Patriotic: Americans need a history that educates but also inspires," Education Next
Jonathan Zimmerman, "Civic Education in the Age of Trump: Public schools in the United States Public schools in the United States aren’t teaching students how to engage diverse opinions."]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=82047Wed, 05 May 2021 10:00:34 +0000Al ZamboneA young boy hands out  flags to the public prior to the start of the 1981 Inauguration Day parade. Source: US National Archives “Patriotic history is more suspect these days than it was when I was its young student, 50 years ago,” writes Eliot Cohen....
“Patriotic history is more suspect these days than it was when I was its young student, 50 years ago,” writes Eliot Cohen. But, he continues, “civic education is also inextricably interwoven with patriotism, without which commitment to the values that make free government possible will not exist” since “civic education depends not only on an understanding of fundamental processes and insttitions, but on a commitment to those processes and institutions…”

These are observations contained in Cohen’s contribution to a new title from Templeton Press, How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow's Schools, edited by Michael J. Petrilli and Chester E. Finn, Jr. With me to discuss this essay, civic education, and the possibility of teaching history for the common good are Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of the History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, himself a former public school social studies teacher, and Eliot Cohen, Dean and Robert E. Osgood Professor of the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

We've never tried anything like this on Historically Thinking before--getting together people who disagree about some things, but also respect one another and have a basis from which to reach agreement. But we think that you'll like the result.


For Further Investigation

Eliot A. Cohen, “History, Critical and Patriotic: Americans need a history that educates but also inspires," Education Next
Jonathan Zimmerman, "Civic Education in the Age of Trump: Public schools in the United States Public schools in the United States aren’t teaching students how to engage diverse opinions."]]>3241cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-202-talking-history-podcasting-ahttps://historicallythinking.org/?p=82037Wed, 31 Mar 2021 09:27:31 +0000Al ZamboneToday's podcast is something we haven't done for a year, a conversation with another history podcaster. A year ago, just as the pandemic was beginning to ooze out over the globe, I talked with Michael Robinson, host of the great Time to Eat the Dogs....2932cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-200-connecting-from-an-english-p
There’s no better way to discuss connecting, or any other skill of historical thinking, than to consider an exemplar of that skill. If you were trying to craft a silver teapot, you wouldn’t want to read a book about it, not even a stack of books. You’d want to watch a master craftsman at work, and be able to ask lots of questions; maybe even have a go at it yourself, under their careful and experienced eye. Today’s exemplar is the book The Ghost of Galileo…in a Forgotten Painting from the English Civil War, just published by Oxford University Press. Its author and our guest is John Lawrence Heilbron, Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is also Vice Chancellor Emeritus. Professor Heilbron is a native of the Bay Area, and earned both his AB and MA in Physics from Berkeley, before continuing on at Berkeley to take a PhD Degree in the History of Science under the direction of Thomas S. Kuhn. He has also served as Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Museum for the History of Science, and is an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. His work has ranged across the history of physics and astronomy, from Niels Bohr: A Very Short Introduction (also published by Oxford) to my favorite The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories. He now divides his time between Berkeley and west Oxfordshire, where his local is the Rose and Crown in Shilton.]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=82004Wed, 17 Mar 2021 10:00:47 +0000Al ZamboneThis is the second of Historically Thinking’s  yearlong series on the the skills of historical thinking. In our first installment this year, which was Episode 196, we heard cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham explain reading comprehension,...
There’s no better way to discuss connecting, or any other skill of historical thinking, than to consider an exemplar of that skill. If you were trying to craft a silver teapot, you wouldn’t want to read a book about it, not even a stack of books. You’d want to watch a master craftsman at work, and be able to ask lots of questions; maybe even have a go at it yourself, under their careful and experienced eye. Today’s exemplar is the book The Ghost of Galileo…in a Forgotten Painting from the English Civil War, just published by Oxford University Press. Its author and our guest is John Lawrence Heilbron, Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is also Vice Chancellor Emeritus. Professor Heilbron is a native of the Bay Area, and earned both his AB and MA in Physics from Berkeley, before continuing on at Berkeley to take a PhD Degree in the History of Science under the direction of Thomas S. Kuhn. He has also served as Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Museum for the History of Science, and is an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. His work has ranged across the history of physics and astronomy, from Niels Bohr: A Very Short Introduction (also published by Oxford) to my favorite The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories. He now divides his time between Berkeley and west Oxfordshire, where his local is the Rose and Crown in Shilton.]]>3399cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/bonus-comprehending-dante-with-guy-raffa
Here are the passages that Guy and I talk about, with Guy's brief explanations of them:

Inf. 34.70-81, 88-93: Virgil’s flip, and the 180 degree change in perspective. Through center of gravity, the world is truly upside down!
Purg. 1.1-6, 130-136: Opening verses (poem as voyage, def. of Purgatorio) and final verses of the canto, with the reed of humility (golden bough), Ulysses intratext, main theme—cleansing, renewal, hope—of the entire second cantica.
Par. 1.64-72: Blast off from Terrestrial Paradise to the Celestial realm. Glaucus simile (Ovid), neologism (trasumanar)—new language—to represent Paradise,  a place “beyond the human”..


They're conceptually difficult passages, which is why Guy chose them. We recommend that you follow along, either in your own copy made from dead trees, or online at Digital Dante.]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=82008Fri, 05 Mar 2021 15:17:24 +0000Al ZamboneThis bonus episode is with Guy Raffa, last heard in Episode 183 discussing his book Dante's Bones: How a Poet Invented Italy. It was a great conversation about Italy, and the culture and idea of Italy. But then and since I've been wanting to talk...
Here are the passages that Guy and I talk about, with Guy's brief explanations of them:

Inf. 34.70-81, 88-93: Virgil’s flip, and the 180 degree change in perspective. Through center of gravity, the world is truly upside down!
Purg. 1.1-6, 130-136: Opening verses (poem as voyage, def. of Purgatorio) and final verses of the canto, with the reed of humility (golden bough), Ulysses intratext, main theme—cleansing, renewal, hope—of the entire second cantica.
Par. 1.64-72: Blast off from Terrestrial Paradise to the Celestial realm. Glaucus simile (Ovid), neologism (trasumanar)—new language—to represent Paradise,  a place “beyond the human”..


They're conceptually difficult passages, which is why Guy chose them. We recommend that you follow along, either in your own copy made from dead trees, or online at Digital Dante.]]>3690cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/episode-197-an-independent-woman-of-the-
Lorri Glover is the John Francis Bannon Endowed Chair in the Department of History at Saint Louis University. Her previous books include Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries, and The Fate of the Revolution: Virginians Debate the Constitution. This is her third appearance on the podcast.

(The fabric in the image in the header, and in full beneath, is from Eliza Pinckney's bed canopy which featured a design of an indigo plant. As Lorri wrote me, "I love it that she slept below indigo." The fragment of the canopy now held in the Charleston Museum.)
For Further Investigation
Books and digital resources recommended by Lorri Glover

Books

"I loved this book on the history of indigo": Andrea Feeser, Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life (2013)
"For people interested in women in the Revolution, I suggest this collection of essays": Barbara Oberg, ed., Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World (2019)
"A great general overview": Matthew Mulcahy, Hubs of Empire: The Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean (2014)
"For capturing the material culture and society of 18th-century Charleston": Emma Hart, Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World (2010)

Digital Resources
"For the Pinckneys, the starting point is Connie Schulz's digital projects. Both are behind paywalls, but this is necessary to support the team's important work."

The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry 
The Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen

"Here is the entry on Eliza from the South Carolina Encyclopedia."

Photos
"And here is a link to the Smithsonian's photos of Eliza's dress." ]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=81879Wed, 24 Feb 2021 11:00:07 +0000Al ZamboneEliza Lucas Pinckney was born in 1722 on the island of Antigua in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean, one of the tinier colonies of the British Empire, and she died in 1793 in Philadelphia, the capital of the new American Republic. Those places of...
Lorri Glover is the John Francis Bannon Endowed Chair in the Department of History at Saint Louis University. Her previous books include Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries, and The Fate of the Revolution: Virginians Debate the Constitution. This is her third appearance on the podcast.

(The fabric in the image in the header, and in full beneath, is from Eliza Pinckney's bed canopy which featured a design of an indigo plant. As Lorri wrote me, "I love it that she slept below indigo." The fragment of the canopy now held in the Charleston Museum.)
For Further Investigation
Books and digital resources recommended by Lorri Glover

Books

"I loved this book on the history of indigo": Andrea Feeser, Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life (2013)
"For people interested in women in the Revolution, I suggest this collection of essays": Barbara Oberg, ed., Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World (2019)
"A great general overview": Matthew Mulcahy, Hubs of Empire: The Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean (2014)
"For capturing the material culture and society of 18th-century Charleston": Emma Hart, Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World (2010)

Digital Resources
"For the Pinckneys, the starting point is Connie Schulz's digital projects. Both are behind paywalls, but this is necessary to support the team's important work."

The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry 
The Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen

"Here is the entry on Eliza from the South Carolina Encyclopedia."

Photos
"And here is a link to the Smithsonian's photos of Eliza's dress." ]]>4126cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/from-the-archives-episode-39-the-skills-
So it seems useful to moment to bring a golden oldie up out of the archives, a conversation with my friend Lendol Calder in which we discuss the skills of historical thinking. Note that the list could be shorter; it could be longer. But this is a list that he likes, and that I like, and it's what we're sticking with.

As I wrote way back when this was the thirty-ninth episode of the podcast, there are few better to discuss history and how to think historically than Lendol Calder, my onetime colleague in Augustana College's department of history, and a recognized authority in the scholarship of teaching and learning. A Carnegie Scholar, and the 2010 Illinois Professor of the Year, Calder shares these insights with history teachers around the country. Today, we're delighted to have him share them with us. An eminent historian once wrote to me "Lendol Calder has done more than anybody else to teach us about what history teaching is, or should be." So give Calder a listen; he has a right to his opinion.

For Further Investigation
Lendol Calder, "But What is Our Story?" (teachinghistory.org)

Sam Wineburg, "Reading Abraham Lincoln: An expert/expert study in the interpretation of historical texts." Cognitive Science, Volume 22, Issue 3, Pages 319-346.
–Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of the Teaching of the Past (Temple University Press, 2011.

Sam Wineburg, Daisy Martin, and Chauncey Monte-Sano, Reading Like a Historian: Teaching Literacy in Middle and High School History Classrooms Paperback (Teachers College Press, 2012).]]>https://historicallythinking.org/?p=81866Fri, 29 Jan 2021 21:26:30 +0000Al ZamboneWe've just begun a unique experiment, creating a year long series devoted to explain what historical thinking is, why it's important, and how to do it. The series kicked off this week with a conversation I had with Daniel Willingham about...
So it seems useful to moment to bring a golden oldie up out of the archives, a conversation with my friend Lendol Calder in which we discuss the skills of historical thinking. Note that the list could be shorter; it could be longer. But this is a list that he likes, and that I like, and it's what we're sticking with.

As I wrote way back when this was the thirty-ninth episode of the podcast, there are few better to discuss history and how to think historically than Lendol Calder, my onetime colleague in Augustana College's department of history, and a recognized authority in the scholarship of teaching and learning. A Carnegie Scholar, and the 2010 Illinois Professor of the Year, Calder shares these insights with history teachers around the country. Today, we're delighted to have him share them with us. An eminent historian once wrote to me "Lendol Calder has done more than anybody else to teach us about what history teaching is, or should be." So give Calder a listen; he has a right to his opinion.

For Further Investigation
Lendol Calder, "But What is Our Story?" (teachinghistory.org)

Sam Wineburg, "Reading Abraham Lincoln: An expert/expert study in the interpretation of historical texts." Cognitive Science, Volume 22, Issue 3, Pages 319-346.
–Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of the Teaching of the Past (Temple University Press, 2011.

Sam Wineburg, Daisy Martin, and Chauncey Monte-Sano, Reading Like a Historian: Teaching Literacy in Middle and High School History Classrooms Paperback (Teachers College Press, 2012).]]>2217cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-31https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=27091Sun, 17 Mar 2019 17:26:06 +0000Al Zambone421cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-28https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=26647Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:27:37 +0000Al Zambone449cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-27https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=26430Mon, 18 Feb 2019 23:57:40 +0000Al Zambone484cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-26The Essential Skill

Comprehension: What do the documents say and mean? Accurately reconstructs the meaning of documents. No misreadings, serious misconceptions of authors’ meanings, or relevant documents ignored.

 

The Six Core Skills

Question to Thesis: What questions make historical sense of these documents? Asks a good historical question, which is then answered in the form of a thesis that makes a significant claim.

Connecting: How does a document fit into a bigger picture? Connects information from various sources: compares & contrasts, corroborates testimony, observes interesting links.

Evidence: How do I know what I claim to know about my question? Reasons inductively from
Cognitive facts or cases to a general conclusion; reasons deductively from authoritative statements to an unknown;
Skills allows evidence to correct preconceived opinions; supports thesis with evidence.

Multiple Perspectives: How might others plausibly interpret this evidence differently? Considers more than one point of view; rebuts or concedes objections to thesis.

Aware of Limits: What do I not know that I need to know? What problems remain? Is appropriately self-critical; admits contrary evidence; qualifies arguments; recognizes limits to one’s historical knowledge.

Sourcing: What is this document good for? Identifies sources, contextualizes & assesses documents for bias, reliability, relevance, point of view.

 

The Four Advanced Skills

Change/Causality: What has changed, and why? Recognizes and explains notable change over time. Attentive to multiple causation; avoids simplistic monocausal explanations.

Context: What background knowledge helps us understand the documents? Provides accurate, helpful background knowledge that helps to interpret texts in context.

Research: Where can I find more evidence? Uses relevant, significant sources found on one’s own: in other books, on scholarly web sites, etc.

Narrative: How can I make sense of the evidence with a story? Uses the conventions of narrative art to give intelligible meaning to evidence from the past.]]>https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=26349Tue, 12 Feb 2019 12:52:47 +0000Al ZamboneAn Inventory of the Skills of Historical Thinking The Essential Skill Comprehension: What do the documents say and mean? Accurately reconstructs the meaning of documents. No misreadings, serious misconceptions of authors’ meanings, or relevant...The Essential Skill

Comprehension: What do the documents say and mean? Accurately reconstructs the meaning of documents. No misreadings, serious misconceptions of authors’ meanings, or relevant documents ignored.

 

The Six Core Skills

Question to Thesis: What questions make historical sense of these documents? Asks a good historical question, which is then answered in the form of a thesis that makes a significant claim.

Connecting: How does a document fit into a bigger picture? Connects information from various sources: compares & contrasts, corroborates testimony, observes interesting links.

Evidence: How do I know what I claim to know about my question? Reasons inductively from
Cognitive facts or cases to a general conclusion; reasons deductively from authoritative statements to an unknown;
Skills allows evidence to correct preconceived opinions; supports thesis with evidence.

Multiple Perspectives: How might others plausibly interpret this evidence differently? Considers more than one point of view; rebuts or concedes objections to thesis.

Aware of Limits: What do I not know that I need to know? What problems remain? Is appropriately self-critical; admits contrary evidence; qualifies arguments; recognizes limits to one’s historical knowledge.

Sourcing: What is this document good for? Identifies sources, contextualizes & assesses documents for bias, reliability, relevance, point of view.

 

The Four Advanced Skills

Change/Causality: What has changed, and why? Recognizes and explains notable change over time. Attentive to multiple causation; avoids simplistic monocausal explanations.

Context: What background knowledge helps us understand the documents? Provides accurate, helpful background knowledge that helps to interpret texts in context.

Research: Where can I find more evidence? Uses relevant, significant sources found on one’s own: in other books, on scholarly web sites, etc.

Narrative: How can I make sense of the evidence with a story? Uses the conventions of narrative art to give intelligible meaning to evidence from the past.]]>536cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-25 ]]>https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=25876Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:02:22 +0000Al ZamboneThis is is an artist's imagining of what Washington's second inaugural address was like, not of his only visit to the Senate; if GW had a sword with him on that occasion, he might have thought about using it.   ]]>693cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-25_1https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=25601Mon, 21 Jan 2019 18:40:25 +0000Al Zambone484cleanfullhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/11924219/commonplace-book-24https://a8bb9b86de.nxcli.net/?p=25456Tue, 15 Jan 2019 00:25:13 +0000Al Zambone441cleanfull