Item Number 000187 - Original Query
Date: October 4, 1994
From: Sara W. Tucker, <zztuck@acc.wuacc.edu>

I am very interested in hearing what other schools are doing about offering both western and world civ surveys. We currently offer surveys world, European, and US. And this is very definitely the result of our own individual departmental history: when we added world 3 years ago, we wanted to see how it went, and not all Europeanists wanted to assume the burden of learning huge new areas to teach a try-out course. But World is picking up speed (helped by having the 101-102 designation - as well as great teaching, of course!), some retirements are on the horizon, and we are starting to think about curriculum changes down the road. So I would like to hear from those of you really happy with whatever mix of surveys you have - and also from anyone that got rid of European survey and is sorry. Also what year breaks, and how many semesters?

Sara W. Tucker           e-mail: zztuck@acc.wuacc.edu  
Professor of History     fax: (913) 231-1084           
Washburn University      voice: (913) 231-1010 x 1319  

Topeka, Kansas 66621

Item Number 000203 - Reply #1
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994

Here at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo, we teach the US survey and the world survey. I was not here when the decision was made, so I don't know what the considerations and arguments were. Although I am a Europeanist, I am very happy teaching the world surveys. After very heavy preparation time at first, it becomes more manageable all the time. The rewards are that even when I am teaching about Europe, I am doing so much more competently because I know so much more about the contexts (world-wide) in which European events took place. We do the world surveys as a three-semester sequence here, breaking at approximately 1100 and 1800. I like this very much, except that not all publishers put out texts which break this way. Overall, in this small world, I really believe in teaching the world survey over the European one, giving our students a better understanding and a broader view of the past.

Carol Loats
University of Southern Colorado
loats@starburst.uscolo.edu

Item Number 000204 - Reply #2
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994

On my return to a community college classroom after an hiatus as Dean of Admissions and Records at Cypress College I was faced with exactly your situation. In the past, when I was professing full-time I often used Stavrianos' Global History for Western Civ to sneak in the "world" concept before it was a popular idea. (My Ph.D. is in modern Japanese culture and I am an Asianist by choice, and proclivity, too.) As you know, community college students are even more varied in background, training, and, sadly, talent, than UC students but those who enrolled in my classes were a cut above the norm and they enjoyed both volumes of Stavrianos over the course (no pun intended) of the two semesters most enrolled in. The volume is an early attempt to deal with history in a global sense and the writing style will not be very challenging to a lower division UC student but a good supplementary reading list (Stavrianos' chapter-ending bibliographies are not bad) combined with whatever lecture style/discussions/media presentations you employ should do the job. I am very interested to hear how you fare; I retired in June thinking I had stayed in administration too long now that world history, which I strongly believe in for the students' sake if not necessarily our own research interests, is surging to the fore. Private sector research does not have the stimulation teaching does, although it does have its moments.

Ganbare, Sandy McLeod
almcleo@eis.calstate.edu

Item Number 000208 - Reply #3
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994

Excuse my confusion, but why must there be a dichotomy between european and world history? I don't mean to suggest that they are one and the same thing. Instead, there is a good deal of validity to the idea that we only encounter the world when we look beyond our own european borders. World events only become important when we recognize that the world is out there to be discovered. Marco Polo's expeditions serve as a good jumping off point for discussions of Asia, and Spanish and English voyages of discovery mark a similarly sensible point of departure for wider discussions of the world. Did President Clinton know, when he nominated his fourth Supreme Court nominee that he had just appointed the Chief Justice of the World Court? NO. I submit that it only makes sense to study other cultures as they intersect with our own.

Yes, I may be forced to back down from such a position, but my first question stands --- why must we choose between European and World History?

Carol Garton-Zavesky
North Carolina State Univ
GARTONCJ@hcl.chass.ncsu.edu

Item Number 000209 - Reply #4
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994

Carol Loats writes (Reply #1), in conclusions, about this subject:

> in this small world, I really
> believe in teaching the world survey over the European one, giving our > students a better understanding and a broader view of the past.

Myopic as I am, this seems to me to be the core argument for world civ/history (and I don't think they are exactly the same thing!) as the best choice.

Melvin E. (Mel) Page--History       pagem@etsuserv.east-tenn-st.edu
East Tennessee State University     fax:   (615) 929-5373
Johnson City, TN  37614             voice: (615) 929-6802

Item Number 000214 - Reply #5
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994

I have to disagree with Carol Garton-Zavesky. Perhaps Marco Polo's travels and Spanish and English voyages of discovery serve as a good jumping-off point for discussions of the non-European world, but does this imply that nothing of importance took place outside of Europe before Marco Polo, Columbus, and Francis Drake arrived?

Even if "it only makes sense to study other cultures as they intersect with our own" - a questionable proposition in any case - do cultures intersect only with explorers and conquerers? What about the trade and cultural and technological exchange that took place, for example, along the silk route before Marco Polo? And did these other cultures spring our of nowhere when Europeans encountered them? Or did they have long and rich histories of their own, which are worth studying for their own sake?

Robert Entenmann
St. Olaf College
entenman@stolaf.edu

Item Number 000223 - Reply #6
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994

Re: the World vs. European survey debate, perhaps I'm late to the dance here, but it seems to me that NOBODY wins when we choose one at the expense of the other. Trying to jam a history of every culture on the globe or, -uh, just the "major" ones, in a single-year framework simply does not do justice to any of them. It's hard enough to try to do a useful, "minimally comprehensive" European survey in two semester.

Where I teach, we require what we call "World Cultures" (essentailly an overview of non-Western cultures in spite of the all-inclusive name) one year and offer European another year. Certainly, students have to learn to live in a world of variety, and World Cultures combats ethnocentrism. But it's equally important that they understand the roots of our Western value system. A single-year course trying to cover all of this -- especially on a collegiate level -- doesn't serve anybody's needs.

Richard Oberdorfer
Norfolk Academy
oberd_r@cs.odu.edu

Item Number 000224 - Reply #7
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994

It's interesting that the Western Civ/World Civ debate is now being pursued on both lists simultaneously. Things are getting a bit confusing !

I would like to suggest a view different from those I have seen expressed so far--namely, that the two courses need not be seen as competitors at all if it is recognized that they really have quite different purposes. First, the traditional Western Civ (or European History) course has nothing to apologize for. Like Islamic Civ, or Chinese Civ., or Indian Civ., it examines in detail a single historical tradition, and one whose importance is beyond argument. Any student will be the richer for taking Western Civ. A World Civ. survey, on the other hand, ought to be more than just Western Civ. with a hasty glance at the rest of the planet. World History deals with a unique set of questions. Some of these are:

(1) What is a 'civilization'? Is the term useful at all? (2) What do practitioners of comparative history do? What sorts of

insights can come from cross-cultural comparisons of, say, the ancient Near East and Mesoamerica, or the West and China? (3) What is the evidence for the theory popularized by McNeill and others

that the most interesting things happen at the interfaces between civilizations?
(4) How was Western colonialism experienced by the colonized? (5) What can we learn from new perspectives like world ecology?

Others will be able to expand this brief list. A course explicitly structured around these global topics would not only cover a lot of history but, equally importantly, would demonstrate to students what is special about the sub-discipline of World History.

It may be objected that this is all too abstruse for a lower level survey course, but I wonder if it would be perceived by students as any harder than, say, Chemistry or Intro. to Economics. Certainly there is a limit to how deeply into these questions one can delve in a survey course, but they can, at least, be introduced, to be revisited later in upper level courses.

Perhaps some history departments are doing this already; if so, it would be instructive to hear from them. With a course such as I have described the question of redundancy within the department disappears. World Civ., Western Civ., and all the other "Civ.'s" would complement and support one another.

I would be interested to know what others think about this.

Bruce Macbain
Lesley College
bmacbain@mecn.mass.edu

Item Number 000234 - Reply #8
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994

I guess I'm pleased that Richard Oberdorfer has some counter thoughts to what I, and others, have had to say on this issue:

> Re: the World vs. European survey debate, perhaps I'm late to the > dance here, but it seems to me that NOBODY wins when we choose one > at the expense of the other. Trying to jam a history of every culture > on the globe or, -uh, just the "major" ones, in a single-year > framework simply does not do justice to any of them. It's hard > enough to try to do a useful, "minimally comprehensive" European > survey in two semester.

I think there is a problem with this kind of thinking, however, about any survey course, most especially about world--even "western"--ones. The key comes in the idea of "minimally comprehensive," which is always the problem. Historians are all too frequently loathe to think in broad, generalized terms. Our graduate training pushes us far from such approaches. And we are, although many of us (self included!) still very much tied to the names/dates/significance syndrom of historical knowledge.

After twenty years teaching surveys (US/western civ/world/Africa) I have come to the conclusion that I do neither my students' learning nor my teaching any good by trying to fool myself into thinking that I can--even that I should!--be comprehensive in what I teach. How can I! It is, after all, history, about which there are always an infinitie number of details which might be taught.

The real issue, of course, is selection. Or, as I once heard William McNeill say in a small gathering, arriving at "the appropriate level of generalization." The question is clearly: What is APPORPRIATE? I always wonder if, when we hold out for some kind of comprehensiveness, we are not REALLY holding out for some kind of canon, some kind of assumed correct list of what it is we and the students must, ABSOLUTELY MUST, know. Yet I don't think that serves us or the students very well. We, and they, need frameworks in which to use the innumerable "facts"--that comprehensive set of data--which seems so all important.

Well, enough babble on this...what think you all?

Melvin E. (Mel) Page--History       pagem@etsuserv.east-tenn-st.edu
East Tennessee State University     fax:   (615) 929-5373
Johnson City, TN  37614             voice: (615) 929-6802

Item Number 000235 - Reply #9
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994

Melvin Page put into words much better than I could what I have concluded, after some thirty years of laboring at the task, is the best, and for me the only, way to teach world history/civilization. The textbooks usually supply more factual material than the average student can handle. Usually they are long on facts and short on interpretive framework. If I can provide the students with an intellectual sound interpretive framework upon which to hang and understand that material I consider it a job well done.

Don Olliff
History Department
Auburn University
ollifdc@mail.auburn.edu

Item Number 000738 - Reply #10
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995

From time-to-time H-World has looked at elitism in the CONTENT of world histo ry teaching. Looking at elitism and world history teaching from a different perspective the field is refreshingly non-elitist. Despite the professional prominence of a few pioneers (such as Stavrianos at Northwestern and McNeill at Chicago), the teaching of world history has bubbled up, not seeped down from the loftier academic peaks. Who writes world history textbooks? Except for the earlier mentioned pioneers, few of the authors have been faculty at major research institutions until very recently. Instead most teach at what for ma ny years had been teacher-training colleges as well as community colleges and so forth. Perhaps because world history teaching has been identified with survey teaching the most prestigious colleges and universities have been conspicuous by their obscurity in the world history teaching movement. I say this as one who belongs to a generalization that read R. R. Palmer for Western Civ.

David Fahey
Miami University
DFAHEY@MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU

Item Number 000240 - Reply #11
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 09:24:44 PCT

(edited for response)
> Undergraduate courses tend to be focused on the name/date/significance > paradigm, partly by habit, but also partly because new students DO need to > get a grip on the fundamental outlines of history before they can sensibly > begin to analyze, evaluation, correlate, etc..... >
> Graduate studies, on the other hand seem to have become increasingly > narrow-focussed, almost to the point of obscurity. Which means that the > people who are being trained to (hopefully) teach the next generation are, > as Mel notes above, imbued with a specific rather than a generalist > attitude....
>
> Bruce Retallack
> brucer@hookup.net

Well, the goal (except perhaps for those select few who teach only higher-level classes) is to keep it basic at the basic level! How often have we seen somebody teaching a course (say, post-1945 America) go more and more into the "background" of the period, and so teach less and less about what they are supposed to teach (in one case -- in a different course -- the professor never actually got to the start of the time frame he was supposed to cover). Many other instuctors just seem to look at the survery (of whatever subject) as a chance to teach the parts they're most interested in teaching. And that is certainly a disservice to the students.

"T"
tlewis@new-orleans.Neosoft.com
Terrance L. Lewis, PhD History Program Southern University at New Orleans

Item Number 000247 - Reply #12
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994

Melvin Page is absolutely right when he is critical of fact- driven "comprehensive" approaches to history classes. I put "minimally comprehensive" in quotes only to suggest that it's hard to stress the themes and patterns I'd like to emphasize even in a full-year Western Civ course.

I teach at the secondary level and have seen teachers who think their courses should be driven by how much they cover. Especially at this level, such an approach does the subject and the students a disservice. We need to excite their interests and show them that there are understandable as well as interesting patterns evolving. Some people never leave the trees long enough to see the forest. (Perhaps obsessions with things like the A.P. exams are to blame, but that of course is a whole 'nother issue!)

Richard Oberdorfer
Norfolk Academy
oberd_r@cs.odu.edu

Item Number 000248 - Reply #13
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994

In a decade or two I suspect that most world history surveys will be organized comparatively without a geographical core (Western Europe, an expanding Middle Eastern ecumene, etc.) or a categorical core such as literate civilizations. At least for modern world history (which is what I teach) I don't see how one can omit Western Europe and North America.

The Chinese definition of world history--everything that is not Chinese history--doesn't work for me. There is no part of the world including Western Europe/Western civ which is outside. How to implement this version of world history is perplexing, especially for somebody who wants the course also to serve to introduce the discipline of history and help various general education "skills" objectives. In short run there is less of a problem. In a transitional generation almost anything, even Western civ, supplemented by "non-Western" chapters, is a step in the right direction. I should add that H-World subscribers have diverse student bodies & teacher/student ratios.

David Fahey
dfahey@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu

[an error occurred while processing this directive]