| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 175 words from this article are provided below; about 370 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past. By Sam Wineburg. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. xiv, 255 pp. Cloth, $69.50, ISBN 1-56639-855-X. Paper, $22.95, ISBN 1-56639-856-8.)

Historians, especially academic historians, who normally avoid the literature on history education for its banality, thin research base, or ideological cant will overlook this book at their peril. Sam Wineburg, professor of cognitive studies in education and adjunct professor of history at the University of Washington, brings both a burning concern for the state of history instruction and a wide knowledge of history to his research agenda. That agenda is to understand how teachers and students of history think--what he calls their 'historical cognition'--when working within their discipline. He also seeks to discover how, on the basis of knowledge of that cognition, we might become and create better teachers. Wineburg's methods, sure to be appealing to historians, are more ethnographic than sociological, and the discursive presentation of their results bears the kind of humanistic weight usually lacking in educational research. . . .

There are about 370 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.