Last week’s curation at RealClear’s American Civics portal starts off with an op-ed at RealClearHistory by Jack Miller Center faculty partner Jonathan Den Hartog. He explains how teachers can make the study of history dramatic again for their students. Popular culture too often portrays history as a boring subject in which students read dull textbooks that catalogue the lives of people who died long ago. He urges teachers instead to have their students explore American history by asking difficult questions and reading original documents and key texts. He also notes that teachers should show students that elections in the past have been every bit as contentious as ones today. As Den Hartog concludes, all citizens “have a responsibility to think clearly and respond well in our moment” and “develop the virtues necessary to participate actively in self-government.” In the most recent edition of the “Claremont Review of Books,” Diana Schaub reviews David Hackett Fischer’s recent work, “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals.” Schaub calls the work “a magisterial volume” that “fits within this welcoming template of founding as a widely shared and ongoing process.” She describes the book as “an antidote to race pessimism, for it provides irrefutable evidence of the resilience, creativity, and contribution of the nation’s African founders.” Fischer’s central claim, Schaub says, is that “the American experiment emphatically and provably included African founders: men and women, some remarkable, some ordinary, who brought ideas, dispositions, and skills from their African countries of origin.” Despite the evils of slavery, she notes that the institution did not fundamentally define the nation. It was due to people of all races working to live up to the principles of the American founding that America eventually threw off its shackles and embraced the moral logic of its founding. Essential Reading Diana Schaub, Claremont Review of Books Who founded the United States? Although Americans give special accolades to a few indispensable individuals, we clearly... In the News Anil Hurkadli, Education Week Michael Barone, RealClearPolitics Joshua Zeitz, Politico Greg Orman, RealClearPolitics No Labels, RealClearPolicy Scot Faulkner, Constituting America Ricardo Kaulessar, NorthJersey.com Roger Thompson, Counterpunch Bill Bush, Columbus Dispatch John Inazu, Law & Liberty Bobby Miller, National Review Patrick Garry, Constituting America Jonathan Den Hartog, RealClearHistory Rebecca Burgess, Law & Liberty C. Bradley Thompson, Substack Civics 101 Today is the second part in our series about the state of civic education in the US... CSPAN Kathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, talked about the importance of civics... Close Read Podcast Wilfred M. McClay, the Victor Davis Hanson Chair of Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College... Carl Cannon's Great American Stories It's Friday, August 25, 2023, the day of the week when I pass along quotations intended to be inspiring or ... The 1956 Republican National Convention was a first for San Franciso, a city not yet synonymous with liberal politics. Nor, ... It's Friday, August 18, 2023, the day of the week when I pass along quotations intended to be inspiring or ... |