Nov 10, 2006

Welcome to History 566

by Cliopatria

I posted awhile back asking readers to suggest readings for my graduate seminar in early American history. I've now finished that syllabus. I've attempted to bring together the various historiographical strands that have emerged over the last generation to give students an accurate picture of how large and varied the study of early America is. I suppose this is as close to a" canon" for early American history as I've been able to come. It has its flaws; any student who asks me to examine him will also have to read another, as yet to be determined, list.

Because the syllabus is so long I posted it over at my other space.

Question, comments, complaints (and maybe even congratulations?!) are welcome here or there!

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More Comments:

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 11/13/2006

I'm not sure what you mean by "theories." I would say rather that these are "interpretations" of early American history, which is, of course, what historians do.

This is a course designed to introduce graduate students to a body of secondary literature, so primary sources would be inappropriate. (I'll be teaching a research seminar in Spring 2008 that will do that.)

John H. Lederer - 11/13/2006

I did not comment in a timely manner so this is irresponsible, but why an almost exclusive reliance on secondary materials.

It would appear that the course will not be so much about early American history as theories about early American history.

I am not arguing for primary original records as the exclusive readings, but a heavy salting of actual documents from colonial and revolutionary America might provide a better basis for evaluating the theories.

S J - 11/11/2006

Rebecca,
Thank you so much for this. I've read some of the stuff on the reading list (I'm taking a similar course right now), but there is a fair amount of material on here I haven't read or even heard of . . .

Anyway, thank you, very helpful.