Sample Library Activity Components
Sample I: Importance to History.
David Golland, the author of Constructing Affirmative Action,1 is a historian of the United
States who focuses on labor and public policy in the Civil Rights Era. Constructing Affirmative
Action contradicts previous works which claimed that President Nixon was the “civil rights
president” responsible for the origins of affirmative action.2 According to one reviewer, “Golland
demonstrates that the [Philadelphia] plan was ‘developed and implemented by Johnson-era
officials’ and ‘that the changes between the original plan and the Nixon-era plan were
minimal.’”3
Part II: Individuals in Society. This should be rather self-explanatory. Choose three people
profiled in the “individuals in society” feature found in each chapter of the textbook, and in 500
words explain why you chose each person and what insights their stories gave you about Modern
European history. No need to use outside sources, but if you do, please cite them. And please cite
the textbook pages where these people’s stories can be found.
1
David Hamilton Golland, Constructing Affirmative Action (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2011).
See, for instance, Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (NY: Basic Books, 1995), and Kevin Yuill, Richard Nixon and the
Rise of Affirmative Action: The Pursuit of Racial Equality in an Era of Limits (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2006).
3
Terry H. Anderson, “Constructing Affirmative Action: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity” (Review),
Journal of American History, Vol. 99, No. 1 (pp. 1198-1199).
2