World History
Here are two terrific books, one about Cleopatra from the Pulitzer Prize winning author, Stacy Schiff, and the other about the development of nationalism, called Imagined Communities, by the recently deceased writer, Benedict Anderson.
I'm reading Anderson's book now. The New Republic calls it "far and away the most influential study of nationalism."
Anderson does not see nationalism as an entirely negative force. He says that it inspires love, poetry, and fiction.
He traces the development of nationalism to the convergence of capitalism and print technology in the 16th century.
Print technology made it easier for people speaking different languages to understand each other and it fixed language so it was not subject to change by scribes. Print language also created what Anderson calls "languages of power." For example, he notes that there is "High German, the king's English, and, later, Central Thai" which were ... "elevated to a new politico-cultural eminence."
According to this fascinating obituary by The New Republic, Anderson led an interesting life. He spoke five languages and lived in Ireland, China, the United States, and Indonesia.
Cleopatra promises to be an equally fascinating study. Schiff won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, Great Improvisation, about Benjamin Franklin.
According to this excellent review in the New York Times, Schiff "strips away the accretions of myth that have built up around the Egyptian queen and plucks off the imaginative embroiderings of Shakespeare, Shaw and Elizabeth Taylor."
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World History
Reading for Winter Break
I'm reading Anderson's book now. The New Republic calls it "far and away the most influential study of nationalism."
Anderson does not see nationalism as an entirely negative force. He says that it inspires love, poetry, and fiction.
He traces the development of nationalism to the convergence of capitalism and print technology in the 16th century.
Print technology made it easier for people speaking different languages to understand each other and it fixed language so it was not subject to change by scribes. Print language also created what Anderson calls "languages of power." For example, he notes that there is "High German, the king's English, and, later, Central Thai" which were ... "elevated to a new politico-cultural eminence."
According to this fascinating obituary by The New Republic, Anderson led an interesting life. He spoke five languages and lived in Ireland, China, the United States, and Indonesia.
Cleopatra promises to be an equally fascinating study. Schiff won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, Great Improvisation, about Benjamin Franklin.
According to this excellent review in the New York Times, Schiff "strips away the accretions of myth that have built up around the Egyptian queen and plucks off the imaginative embroiderings of Shakespeare, Shaw and Elizabeth Taylor."
- How To Study For A Test
When I was growing up I was expected to "always do my best." I translated this to studying for my midterm exams several weeks in advance over the winter break, always doing it two or three times prior to a normal exam and even arguing post test...
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So perhaps this is a little off the normal target of this blog, but your hard work does pay off for your students. Right now I am reading Unchartered which uses Google books to look at how language has changed over time (or at least at the point...
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Steven Anderson, instructional technologist for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in Winston-Salem, NC,offers 10 good tips for using Twitter in education in this article for T.H.E. Journal.. Some of his suggestions include: Find good hastags to follow--they...
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Here's an fascinating obituary about the one of the first Jews in the recently liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. On April 9, 1944, Rabbi Herschel Schacter, attached to the Third Army?s VIII Corps, commandeered a...
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As teachers, I believe, we teach a very neat history in our class. Our textbooks have made history very neat, almost, in some cases, different than what the every day people of the time would remember. I like to ask my students why, and how...