Date sent: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 From: "Pier M. Larson" <PML9@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
I second the comments of Randall Pouwels with regard to the disillusionment with virtually all world history textbooks. The problem lies precisely with the stereotypical and selective model into which history is packed: that of civilization. We now extend civilization to all the continents, yet the model itself is seriously flawed in that it focuses attention to and privileges societies which are urbanized, have permanent architecture, powerful state systems, systems of writing, and the like. If we study African Civilization we focus on Egypt and perhaps the West African empires of yore; yet what about the people of the forest? the hunters of the savanna? In quest for civilization we privilege northern India over the south. The iterations are endless, and students are socialized into a stale paradigm rather than challenged to think critically.
I teach the history of civilization as an idea in my world history course and use epics and novels, a "great books" approach, lecturing to provide important background. I have the students research definitions of "Civilization" in a whole gamut of textbooks and discover for themselves how the concept structures historical knowledge, limiting, constraining, and stereotyping our knowledge of the past. Most of them come through with a keen ability to recognize when historical narratives are structured by the inane stereotype of barbarians attacking civilized society or by the valuation of societies with metal/writing/wheels and the sometimes subtle devaluation of societies without those characteristics.
I would appreciate news of similar strategies, successes and failures by others teaching in this fashion.
Pier M. Larson
Penn State University
Date sent: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 11:23:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Brasil <brasil@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
I agree with Randall pouwels that most World Civilizations textbooks are a disappointment. One problem that has not been raised is the uneven quality, where some areas a dealt with realy well and others are not. This seens to me, to be the result of turning West Civ. into world civ textbooks, without adding any members to the team--or adding one or two members and expect that they will experts on all major nonEuropean cultural areas.
Paul Brasil
brasil@humanitas.ucsb.edu
Date sent: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 14:12:02 -0500 (CDT) From: Terrance Lewis <tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com> > From: "Pier M. Larson" <PML9@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
>
> I second the comments of Randall Pouwels with regard to the
> disillusionment with virtually all world history textbooks.
I am very curious as to how you define civilization, since you apparently include every possible type of human activity/lifestyle/technology under the term. If what you are saying is that we should abandon the teaching of history (based on written sources) and civilization (based on urbanism), in favor of teaching anthopology, that is certainly a defendable position, one that I would even enjoy seeing, but to remove what little meaning terms have does not seem to me to be the best way to do it.
-*-+****************************************************+-*- < tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com LEWISHISTORY@delphi.com > < Terrance L. Lewis, History Program, Social Sciences > < Southern University at New Orleans > -*-+****************************************************+-*-
From: RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu Date sent: 20 Sep 94 15:01:24 CST
One solution to the problem of teaching a non-Western perspective in World History might be to supplement available textbooks with paperbacks on African, Oceanic, or Pre-Colombian civilizations. Longtime favorites (though presented admittedly through rose-colored glasses) on Africa, for example, have been the writings of Basil Davidson. Particularly useful for undergraduates is his _African Genius_, especially if read in conjunction with his film series, _Africa_. Otherwise, I recommend highly P. Bohannon and P. Curtin's _Africa and Africans_. If nothing else, such material will present students (and some of their profs) with some highly stimulating frameworks for (i) comparing Western civ. with non-Western model(s), and (ii) reformulating our ideas about civilization generally.
Randall L. Pouwels
Department of History
University of Central Arkansas
RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu
From: RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu Date sent: 20 Sep 94 15:23:10 CST
> I am very curious as to how you define civilization, since you
> apparently include every possible type of human
> activity/lifestyle/technology under the term. If what you are saying
> is that we should abandon the teaching of history (based on written
> sources) and civilization (based on urbanism), in favor of teaching
> anthopology, that is certainly a defendable position, one that I
> would even enjoy seeing, but to remove what little meaning terms have
> does not seem to me to be the best way to do it.
>
> -*-+****************************************************+-*- > < tlewis@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com LEWISHISTORY@delphi.com > > < Terrance L. Lewis, History Program, Social Sciences > > < Southern University at New Orleans > > -*-+****************************************************+-*-
I admit I can't give you a ready-made answer to this, Terry. (Though give me a few hours, and I might.) However, several thoughts immediately do occur to me.
First, professors should make it clear to their students what model they're working with, namely the EUROPEAN model, and after they've been exposed to one or two alternatives, why not let them answer that question themselves? Excellent brain-tickler for all concerned. Then proceed from there in your course. As, for instance......
Why not be a little more subtle with students? Instead of talking/thinking about "civilization" -- i.e. "The" civilization --- why not substitute "civilizations," thus starting immediately to imply the existence of alternatives, especially alternatives that will invite comparisons? And, I suppose in partial answer to your challenge, this would not necessitate abandoning the conventional model of civilization, merely an exercise in changing attitudes, which, after all, is half the battle of educating young minds.
And presenting alternative models doesn't have to mean abandoning "history" and "civilization" for anthropology. My sense is that other civilizations have histories equally valid with our own and equally worth knowing. However, they require more effort in coming to know them.
Randall L. Pouwels
Department of History
University of Central Arkansas
RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu
Date sent: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 09:06:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Brasil <brasil@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
Has anyone used Jaroslav Krejci's _Before the European Challenge, The Great Civilizations of Asia and the Middle East_ in a World Civ. Survey? I am interested to know how students reacted to it.
Paul Brasil
UCSB
brasil@humanitas.ucsb.edu
Date sent: Wed, 21 Sep 94 10:06 EDT From: "Pier M. Larson" <PML9@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
With respect to Terrance Lewis' question about how I define civilization: This is a difficult topic for anyone teaching World Civ., especially if, like myself, they find definitions of civilization highly dissatisfying in the first place. My method is rather to "explore civilization."
By exploring civilization I mean several things:
Civilization will not die easily; nor may it even die. Western identities (and now increasingly identities of Western-trained intellectuals across the world) are tied to understanding history through the lens of civilization. The barbarians are always some "others." Barbarians never wish to study history as civilization, of course, for they are devalued. And this is precisely the problem with the paradigm.
I hope that helps to answer the question of how I define civilization. Organizing a course this way has its difficulties, especially if the class is of great size, because discussion is absolutely critical here. I struggle with the problems, especially because I grope along a path which few teaching world history travel.
As an aside, and because I am relatively new to H-World, could anyone inform me if there has been any discussion/debate about the work of Martin Bernal on these wires?
Cheers,
Pier M. Larson
Penn State University
History
From: RANDYP@cc1.uca.edu Date sent: 21 Sep 94 13:30:18 CST
Pier Larson's very creative methods for discussing civilization strike me as brilliant, especially since they (i) stimulate discussion, (ii) allow students to recognize the problems and involved (and shortcomings of any such attempts), and (iii) force them to sharpen their own ideas.
In response to Ken Wolf (and somewhat less so to T Lewis), any heuristic device meant to teach the question of "civilization" to undergrads, especially underclassmen and women, is going to have severe analytic shortcomings (and hence very open to criticism). For what it's worth, though, I start my World Civ. I course with the socalled agrarianate (i.e. pre-industrial) civilizations that developed out of the Neolithic revolutions, wherever (and whenever) they occurred -- i.e. the Fertile Crescent, India (Hindu civilization), China, Africa, and Mexico. I make it a point, when reading our text (McKay, Hill, Buckler), that all these civilizations developed common characteristics despite the surface (i.e. urban, industrial, commercial, literate, etc.) differences. By this, I mean they share(d) a "mode of production" based largely on rural, peasant food production; a close relationship with their natural environments that was "pre- scientific," a notion of time that was conditioned by the natural cycles (cyclic) of their environment; religions that stressed nature gods and spirits; an emphasis on control of nature through ritual appeasement of the nature deities; the existence of a class of religious specialists who, among other things, performed sacrifices, divined, and forecast the changing seasons; and the crucial role played by extended kinship networks in defining the place of the individual and in defining the community.
Next, we move on to looking at Western Civ., starting customarily with the Greeks and the Romans. This, of course, constitutes the "humanistic" model, characterized by such things as the notion of citizenship; a greater stress on individual identity; citizen participation in government; the importance of literacy in defining "history," literature, and law; anthropomorphic gods; and a noticeably heavier stress on "rationalism" (as opposed to "religion") on solvcing the mysteries of life, human survival, and the universe.
Of course, these stereotypes can and do break down somewhat when one examines various civilizations in detail -- but not completely. And one sees elements of "agrarianism" in, say, Roman civilization, and definite humanistic traits in Hinduism or an African village. However, these models do give students a handle on the multitude of information to which they're exposed in their textbooks and, for the more thoughtful ones (or at least the less passive ones), something to challenge.
Randall L. Pouwels
University of Central Arkansas
Date sent: Wed, 21 Sep 94 20:56:49 CST From: Ken Wolf <A23211F%MSUMUSIC.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Thanks to Randall Pouwells for his distinction between agrarian and humanistic "types" of civilizations. I wish that more textbooks were bold enough to make such distinction, though I understand why they do not. I would enjoy hearing for others of you who use "large" themes of this sort in your teaching of world history; if there are enough of us, perhaps we could write an interpretive text, electronic or otherwise??
Ken Wolf, Department of History
Murray State University
Murray, KY 42071 (502) 762-6582 or 762-2232
e-mail <A23211f@MSUMUSIC.Bitnet>
Date sent: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 09:31:53 -0700 (PDT) From: <ruth@violet.berkeley.edu>
I am extremely averse to the idea of using the word civilization at all, in teaching or in my language more generally: it's so freighted with the baggage of its own history that I beleive it is irredemable, and impossible to delink from its opposite, "barbarism." Engaging with the term civilization, even in the expanded ways that many people on this list propose, still leaves us with the idea that there are people/cultures/classes which are "uncivilized"/"barbaric". In addition, the term "civilization" refers to an achieve and non-dynamic situation, rather than a process of cultural negotiation and development. It's an inherently teleological term. Why not just throw it out altogether.
I highly reccomend the definition of the term in Raymond Williams' _Keywords_. For those who are stuck with the term because it is used in textbooks, perhaps this is something which you could xerox for your students.
Ruth Mostern
ruth@violet.berkeley.edu
I agree with Bruce Macbain. Most of these courses (world civ. or world history) are taught primarily by historians and not anthropologists or sociologists, though we must be attentive to the insights and useful contributions of all social scientists, including psychologists.
Civilization need not be seen as the opposite of barbarism. It is a matter of how we define terms for our students and the best textbooks do not make such a contrast. Civilization is an attractive (even necessary) term for historians because it does imply -- whatever its precise definition -- a group of people whose life has reached a level of complexity which is beyond that of a "society" or a "culture" as those terms are used by anthropologists in most cases. We need to be able to come up with definitions of civilization which do not exclude all those peoples who do not have a written language (to use one favorite definition long used by historians), which is not terribly Eurocentric, but which still makes a useful distinction and allows students to discriminate between the Australian aborigines and the Greek city-states (or the Incas and Aztecs).
Ken Wolf, Department of History
Murray State University
Murray, KY 42071 (502) 762-6582 or 762-2232
e-mail <A23211f@MSUMUSIC.Bitnet>
I want to add to Daniel Segal's comments about the all-original-source approach to teaching world history. The pressure which the course does put on the students goes beyond good note-taking skills or high attendance rates. It can force her/him actively to reflect on historical method, on the creation of historical narrative. Such a course depends, of course, to a large extent on the lecturer for "contextualization" of the original sources or documents, and the kind of context that lecturer chooses to give. I think this method has the important advantage that it does not undermine itself by sending students off to consult textbooks which only reinforce conceptual categories students bring with them from high school, and which we may want them to interrogate and reflect on. Questioning ideas about cultural boundaries or traditional categories does no good if it only happens in a lecture which students then pit against the more authoritative textbook (which after all they can consult all the time, and which can even replace attendance at lectures).
The pressure which such an approach places on the instructor can be
relieved somewhat by a further reorientation of the course away from
"coverage" for coverage's sake and toward a thematic approach, something
which I suspect most instructors do already as a matter of course.
Pieter M. Judson
History Dept. Swarthmore College
(610) 328-8136
FAX (610) 328-8171
I have an additional and more specific thought about the notion that some societies are less "historical" or of less historical interest than others. In a recent post, Bruce MacBain turned from Australians to "Trobriand Islanders" as his example. This reminded me that at the 1993 meeting of the World History Association, Fred Damon (University of Virginia) gave a fascinating paper titled "The Kula Ring as a World System." Damon demonstrates the importance of looking at the Kula Ring both to gain a comparative vantage on the "world system," and to understand the relationship between processes of global integration and local-level variation.
Dan Segal
dsegal@bernard.pitzer.edu
In reply to Joe Hawes' posting, let me express myself more clearly. I had in mind pre-colonial Australian aborigines. I could just as well have said Trobriand Islanders. In fact, I find them fascinating because I like anthropology, but that is a different discipline from history with a different set of questions. Anthropological insights are sometimes very usefulto us historians, I have no wish to deny that. My point is simply that to confuse history with anthropology, to pretend that there is no civilization, only "cultures", is not helpful in our endeavor to understand the world historically.
Bruce Macbain [bmacbain@mecn.mass.edu]
I want to add to Daniel Segal's comments about the all-original-source approach to teaching world history. The pressure which the course does put on the students goes beyond good note-taking skills or high attendance rates. It can force her/him actively to reflect on historical method, on the creation of historical narrative. Such a course depends, of course, to a large extent on the lecturer for "contextualization" of the original sources or documents, and the kind of context that lecturer chooses to give. I think this method has the important advantage that it does not undermine itself by sending students off to consult textbooks which only reinforce conceptual categories students bring with them from high school, and which we may want them to interrogate and reflect on. Questioning ideas about cultural boundaries or traditional categories does no good if it only happens in a lecture which students then pit against the more authoritative textbook (which after all they can consult all the time, and which can even replace attendance at lectures).
The pressure which such an approach places on the instructor can be
relieved somewhat by a further reorientation of the course away from
"coverage" for coverage's sake and toward a thematic approach, something
which I suspect most instructors do already as a matter of course.
Pieter M. Judson
History Dept. Swarthmore College
(610) 328-8136
FAX (610) 328-8171
Bernal's BLACK ATHENA is indeed an interesting book. The title, however, is somewhat misleading. The debt owed to Egypt by the Classical and Middle Eastern world has been acknowledged since Herodotus. Egypt's Nile flows north into the Mediterranean. It is most likely that the life of the Egyptian in antiquity as today was lived in the Nile Delta region (Lower Egypt) and that the Egpytian, in so far as he looked beyond himself at all, looked north toward the lands around the Mediterranean rather than south into Africa proper. The fact that so much of what we know comes from Upper Egypt is a result of Egyptian death and burial. The hieroglyphic signs for Nubia and Nubianl end with the ideogram of "a man with arms tied behind the back" (Gardiner A13), which usually signifies "enemy." Yes, Egypt is located on the African continent. But when we use Pharaonic Egypt to advance an Afrocentric view of Civilization, we speak a langage, I fear, that the pharaohs would neither appreciate nor understand.
Warren Blackstone
WarrenB923@Aol.com
Look, folks. I don't mean to come over as a remnant from another era, but in the entire discussion of "world-history" we have not seriously entertained european literature! Did Europe suddenly cease to be part of the World? Heck, if we are looking for literature on the colonial experience, why not study (AND ANALYZE) early reports from Spanish, French and English explorers in the "new world". Why not study Jesuit accounts of missions to the far east? I've no objection to adding other materials (in fact I even considered doing a study of French West Africa from the Africans point of view) but why concentrate on extra-European work to the exclusion of the part of the world about which we know the most?
C J GARTON-ZAVESKY
GARTONJ@hcl.chass.ncsu.edu
Dear Colleagues:
I am writing with two questions related to the use of textbooks for teaching a two semester sequence of world history.
At one of the schools where I teach we are again evaluating the nature of our world history offering and several questions about textbook selection have come up. We recently had an outside consultant review our entire history curriculum and suggest changes, including changes in the world history offering. In particular, one text used by a senior professor (Kevin Reilly's The West and the World, 2nd ed.) came in for extremely harsh criticism from the consultant who said it was "written at so elementary a level that I would hesitate to call it a college text." As you can imagine, this has caused quite a stir in the department. I told the chair that I would try to conduct an informal survey on the net to see what the general opinion was regarding this text, if any. What do you think of this text? Do any of you use it? Any responses to this query would be appreciated, as evidence of use or non-use at the college level would help us in our discussions.
The other question I have is about the use of common texts for world history courses taught by multiple instructors. At Bradford College, we currently leave textbook selection up to the individual instructor, although we are contemplating trying to choose a common text. At the other school at which I teach, Bentley College, we do use a common text, although additional readings are assigned at the discretion of the individual instructors. How do other schools handle this issue, and how do you guarantee that different sections are comparable in terms of level of difficulty and content? Is this an issue for you, or not?
Thank you very much for your thoughts on these issues. Just as an aside, we briefly toyed with the idea of dumping a text altogether, assigning primary documents and laying out the basic framework through weekly lectures, but we have decided we don't really have the faculty resources to accomplish this successfully, so for the immediate future anyway we have decided to stick with using some kind of text.
Steven Hoffman
Bradford and Bentley Colleges
shoffman@bentley.edu
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 17:49:42 -0500
This is my first semester in college, and in my freshman honors history class my professor requires Kevin Reilly's "The West and the World". Although I have had some interest in history, it is not my favorite subject (sorry!). My near-apathy toward history is probably caused by history books that are seemingly written for students, but actually are only understood by others with a degree in the history field. However, Reilly's book is the opposite. It is extremely interesting, and I actually enjoy reading it! Instead of the material just "passing through my brain without making so much as a pit stop", I remember, learn, and truly understand what happened in different cultures in the past. Maybe this "consultant" should try and remember what it was like to struggle through reading a difficult book, having to consult a dictionary so much that one forgets what topic is being discussed. I don't think college level readings should be "easy", which "the West and the World" is not, but neither should they be unnecessarily complicated. Thank you.
Michele Borynski
Winthrop University
Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 13:03:28 -0500
To Steven Hoffman: We have used common textbooks for all history courses which have multiple sections and are part of the general education requirements or electives. We currently have a required World Civilizations course in which we use a common text (Duiker and Spielvogel) but allow faculty wide discretion in their choice of outside readings (as long as they do have some outside required reading). We feel that we have a responsibility (since this is a required course for all students) to have a certain amount of commonality in the course and a text provides that; besides, the spirited debates we have over textbooks every three to four years helps us better define what we are trying to do in the course, as paradoxical as that might sound. (If I wanted to really freak you out, I could tell you that we also have a common final exam in the course, one which tests students over a list of "identification terms"--about 155 each semester--which the faculty arrive at in common. This, of course, involves even more spirited debate.) But generally, all this works better than you might suppose. We can get used to anything.)
Ken Wolf, Department of History
Murray State University
Murray, KY 42071 (502) 762-6582 or 762-2232
e-mail <A23211f@MSUMUSIC.Bitnet>
Hello! I read your posting in H-World, and was delighted to see an
evaluation of a textbook from a student's perspective. I am currently
teaching world history for the first time, and my textbook is an absolute
disaster. I would be very interested in looking at the Reilly book--
could you possibly let me know the name of the publisher, so that
I can request a review copy?
Many thanks,
Annette Laing
San Diego State University
Kevin Reilly, _The West and the World: A History of Civilization_, 2 vols. Harper College.
Pat Manning
Northeastern University
manning@neu.edu
Date sent: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 14:44:25 -0500 (CDT)
From: Donathon C Olliff <ollifdc@mail.auburn.edu>
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
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 14:07:13 -0500
From: Ken Wolf <A23211F%MSUMUSIC.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Murray State University
Fellow H-Worlders: I am currently serving as the coordinator of an interdisciplinary World Civilizations course taught by faculty members from the disciplines of History, Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science. Our course is a graduation requirement for all students here and is designed for freshmen. We try to insure some commonality by using a common textbook, giving students a list of about 150 terms each semester which are the basis of an objective common final given to all 30+ sections of the course, and by agreeing among ourselves that we will assign some outside reading, require a 3-5 "outside" paper of students, and give at least half of our exams in essay format.
As textbooks become larger (we are currently using Duiker and
Spielvogel), some of us have been informally discussing new methods of
course organization as a way of dealing with the large amount of
material which must be "covered" (or so we as historians tend to think).
Several of my colleagues are currently teaching the second half of the
course (since 1500) in reverse chronological order to pique student
interest. Others of us think we might favor a topical or thematic
approach to WC since 1500. Our problem is: what should our themes or
topics be? I would deeply appreciate some suggestions from you folks on
this. I should add that our faculty is very diverse in background and
what might be called political persuasions. We have oldfart Western
Civ. trained ethnocentric Europeanists as well as younger Asian,
African, and Latin Americanists as well as the non-historians. Some of
us are more open to change and to "not covering" material than others
are. It is my job to balance these competing views--and academics do
get very defensive at times, don't we?
utter the list with responses, please send them to me.
Can any of you help me out? Thanks in advance.
Ken Wolf, Dept. of History (502) 762-2232 or 762-6582 Murray State University FAX (502) 762-3424 Murray KY 42071 e-mail <A23211f@MSUMUSIC.Bitnet>
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 10:14:50 PCT
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