History and Public Policy
Hist 368/668
Instructor: Arnita Jones
Fall 2008
Tuesdays 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm
Office Hours: Tuesday 3-5 and by appointment; office number to be assigned
Contact Information: 202-544-2422 x102. AU email to be assigned
Course Description
History and public policy focuses on the ways in which history and historical context are
used by policy and decision makers in various settings. Special emphasis will be given in
this course to the role of history in the federal government, including the executive
branch, the Congress, and the military. A second segment of the course centers on
history education policy, ranging from efforts to reform history curricula in the recently
independent states of the former Soviet bloc to Western European initiatives that utilize
history teaching and textbooks as resources for creating European citizenship. Also
covered is the long history of history education reform in the United States, culminating
in the history standards controversy of the 1990s. The course ends with two sessions of
the use of history in peacemaking and reconciliation efforts.
Course Methodology
In addition to the books listed below, required reading for the course will also include a
selection of articles as well as published and unpublished reports on the topics described
above. Classes will consist of short lectures, occasional guest speakers, podcasts, videos,
or other recorded presentations, along with discussion of readings and student reports.
Required Readings: Books
Richard Neustadt and Ernest May, Thinking in Time (Free Press, 1986).
Ian Tyrrell, Historians in Public, The Practice of American History 1890-1970
(University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Hanna Schissler and Y. N. Soysal, The Nation, Europe and the World: Textbooks and
Curricula in Transition, (Berghahn, 2005).
Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, Ross Dunn, History on Trial (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).
OR
Linda Symcox, Whose History: The Struggle for National Standards in the Classroom
(Columbia Teachers College Press, 2002).
911 Commission Report, various editions, 2004.
Elizabeth A. Cole, Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
Additional selected articles and reports to be made available on Blackboard.
Evaluation and Grading/Formal Requirements and Grading
Class participation: 20%
Three short analytical papers: 30%
Note: graduate students will write two short and one lengthier paper
Two of the following, which will be written and also the subject of a class report: 20%
book review;
review of a collection of articles on an approved theme;
review of a targeted website or documentary collections
oral history of individual with experience related to the content of the course
Note: graduate students will report in all four categories
Final Exam: 30%
August 27 Introduction to history and policy; discussion of course content, goals and
requirements and bibliography.
September 2 Case studies on the uses and misuses of history in policy and decision
making based on Neustadt and May, Thinking in Time.
September 9 History and policy in the federal government. Neustadt and May,
continued; selected articles, special reports. Lecture and discussion; guest speakers.
September 16 History and policy in the federal government, continued, with a focus on
the Congress. Lecture; discussion; guest speaker.
September 23 History policy in the military. Articles to be assigned.
September 30 Historians and policy making. Tyrell, Historians in Public and other
assigned reading. Lecture and discussion.
October 7 Historians and policy making continued. Tyrell continued; excerpts from
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream, pamphlets from American Historical Association
website.
October 14 History Education Policy: the end of the Cold War and globalization.
Schissler and Soysal, The Nation, Europe and the World.
October 21 History Education Policy continued, with a focus on textbook controversies
in Europe and beyond.
October 28 History Education Policy in the United States. Students may read Nash,
History on Trial or Symcox, Whose History. Focus on the history of history education.
November 4 History Education Policy in the United States, continued. Focus on the
history standards controversy and its aftermath; class will include televised debates
between historians and their critics.
November 11 Veterans Day Holiday. No class.
November 18 Policy-making and the collection of historical records. 911 Commission
Report and other readings that will center on targeted documentary collection and
declassification efforts such as those undertaken by the Kennedy Assassination Review
Board and the Shoah Foundation.
November 25 History and Reconciliation. Cole, Teaching the Violent Past: History
Education and Reconciliation will be used as well as other short readings to be assigned.
December 2
of Peace.
History and Reconciliation continued; guest speaker from U. S. Institute
December 9 Final Exam