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Review
| History Matters: A Student Guide to U.S. History Online, by Alan Gevinson, Kelly Schrum and Roy Rosenzweig. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005. 147 pp. $13.95, paper.
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| History has begun to matter to Americans. A war abroad and instant internet news has brought history into our homes. Genealogy, one of the top three hobbies in America, has brought personal history to our hearts. The internet, the digitized archive, the electronic library, and the virtual museum have broken down barriers of time, space, and locality and offered dramatic possibilities about learning and teaching history. A helpful little book, forthrightly named History Matters, can jump-start the journeys of both amateur and professional historians. History Matters, a title appropriately derived from the collaboration between the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the American Social History Project at the CUNY Graduate Center, is a descriptive catalogue listing of 250 websites. The editors use a selective, yet broad approach in identifying and organizing the 250 sites into general topic areas and nine time periods. The array of websites include social and cultural history as well as the familiar bastions of political, legal, and economic history. From Columbus to the IMac, from Jefferson's DNA to the diary of a midwife, the history which surrounds us is here to be found. Many sites contain visual materials which are startling. A legend adeptly tips one off about the website's contents: printed material, videos, images, fees for subscription. The Library of Congress' American Memory archive is often cited as it is one of our nation's richest heritage resources. |
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To be sure, the challenges and opportunities of internet based learning are numerous. This little book's introductory sections, which teach the reader how to evaluate a website, as well as how to locate, use, and document sources, are valuable. History Matters begins with an important discussion of historical research, primary and secondary sources, plagiarism, and proper citation. It helps develop good habits. It is very practical and user friendly. The sources in this book are easily adaptable for all class settings, all levels of teaching, and a wide range of subjects. Teachers may want to visit the website called "The History Teacher's Bag of Tricks". They will find, however, that for the most recent period of history, a few important topic areas were overlooked, though they may be imbedded as subtopics in some sites:: rock and roll, suburbia, history of disasters, spying and forensics, independent film, globalization, domestic violence, and sports history, to name a few. One historic site that needs its own citation is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire designed by Cornell University, one of the best teaching sites ever developed. Using this book teachers and students can have fun with history. Along the way they can learn the unique cognitive skills of the discipline: how to make choices, how to examine opinions, how to tell a story, and how to make sense of your own life. The editors are to be thanked for producing a very useful book. |
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| SUNY Empire State College |
Barbara Kantz |
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