Why primary sources?
I’m often asked why we have chosen to focus our publishing efforts on primary sources. The obvious reason, of course, is that these sources help us better understand the key events and people in any given period. It’s one thing, for example, to learn that about the federal government’s role in kicking American Indians off their land in the 1800s and “removing” them to reservations; it’s quite another to read a president’s own words justifying such actions–Andrew Jackson, in 1830, in his Indian removal speech. Likewise, it’s one thing to learn that Abraham Lincoln was a gifted orator who wrote his own words (unlike virtually every modern president); it’s quite another to read his Gettysburg Address or second inaugural speech and see for yourself the force of his ideas and the poetry in his writing.
The benefit of using primary sources to teach and learn history is, of course, the reason that they are at the heart of history education. And yet we all know the tired refrain from generation after generation of students: “history is boring!” All those infernal dates and names. Still, with a good and knowledgeable teacher, history becomes instantly compelling and alluring. Yesterday I was watching C-Span’s Book TV coverage, specifically the In Depth program. The guests yesterday were two prominent historians, Richard Norton Smith and Douglas Brinkley. With each question, the pair treated viewers to countless historical anecdotes, touching on events and people and themes in American history in ways that were consistently funny and engrossing and interesting. Who knew, for instance, that Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs are apparently captivating, so much so that many people have wondered if they weren’t in fact written by Mark Twain?
This, too, is something that we’ve tried to capture in our publishing efforts: the skill of a historian making a primary document come alive with smart and accessible analysis. You can see this focus in our encyclopedias (”The accompanying text is clear and intelligent, making the documents themselves appear more accessible and alive,” said Booklist about Milestone Documents in American History), our e-newsletter for history educators, and our Milestone Documents blog (featuring our “team of experts” blogging about primary sources). We consider ourselves lucky to be working in this arena, and we have just scratched the surface of finding ways to assist students, teachers, and librarians.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
[…] I like what Douglas Brinkley said about him on the Book TV “In Depth” program that I recently blogged about (and I paraphrase): If you only read his book and no others, you would be left with an unbalanced […]