really curious for ppl who live in the US/went thru the school system here...what's ur favorite part of US history to learn about? and bonus do u have a fav US history book?
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i also love learning about the fascinating philanthropy of the robber barons & creation of public libraries. revolutionary war was a fave of mine as well as the civil war. also a huuuuge john quincy adams fan.
i actually haven't read a people's history, only dunbar-ortiz's an indigenous people's history! it sounds like it covers a lot of good stuff, but a blurb i found says it's pro-mark twain????
oh god i remember so little about the revolutionary war i feel like i start paying attention somewhere around 1830. this is a weak point of mine i should probably fix
oh wow idk why i feel like it was a big part of my high school curriculum :0 it's such an interesting era and like. has staggering consequences for our modern world..if u read any good books on it lmk!
it always felt like we spent so much time on 18th and 19th century stuff that we always sped thru the 20th! but yeah i’m especially fascinated by cold war era art and propaganda, “cold warriors” is a good one about literature :)
absolutely intrigued by everyone really remembering gilded age history like wow...it really had everything to offer: dancing and fun, moral reformers, economic depression, labor activism, The Great War, the evils of the free market, etc ...iconic
i really only had the one US history class and the only other memorable part are the territory coloring sheets we did for the korean/vietnam war abt which side had how much territory (same teacher LOL)
we were def the only us history class that did it at mine LOL the normal us history classes were doing normal exercises and then the Other us history classes were getting indepth black slavery lessons from a lowkey racist teacher (long story) and stuff like that...
I really enjoyed (not really the right word but I don't have a better one atm) when we covered the Civil Rights movement in elementary school. It had a really big impact on me as a kid, especially on growing up in the South. I knew a lot of the places they talked about which made it feel realer than
that's so interesting!! yeah learning about the CRM also def drew me to history but now that u say that, i do think some of the places (but not all) felt abstracted to me simply bc i learned it in the north/have barely ever been to the south. i imagine it would feel really different otherwise
I grew up in Georgia, but I have a lot of family in Montgomery and Birmingham in Alabama, plus a grandmother who was around there when desegregation was happening. It was always the realest feeling history to me :]
If you ever visit let me know! I'd be happy to show you around 😌 Ive lived here my whole life 👍 also have a mom obsessed with National Parks so if you like nature I know where all of it is 😂😂😂
Some of the most interesting things in American history to me were;
John Brown, he was an abolitionist. Yellow journalism is pretty interesting to me as well. Honestly, the stock market crash of 1929 is also pretty interesting. These are just some of the things I thought were interesting in school.
I enjoyed learning about the Cold War, specifically cultural diplomacy. Also the industrial revolution. As a kid I read a ton of the Dear America books.
Books: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, American Arsenal by Patrick Coffey, The Wise Men by Walter Isaacson
I majored in International Relations so the majority of what I studied was military history. If you're cool with less of a US focus, I can send you a longer list haha
For Liberty ane Glory by James Gaines
Conflict after the Cold War by Betts
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
Terror in the Name of God by Jessica Stern
Innovaters by Walter Isaacson
for me i always looked forward to the unit that covered the 1920s through the buildup of ww2. my professor actually gave me some vintage vinyls from the 60s that compiled tons of radio recordings the 1920s through the start of the atomic age,
the dust bowl is something that always interested me but it was always skimmed over in class & i Knew it was awful obviously, but “the worst hard time” by Timothy Egan comes highly recommended bc it goes into all the details about how hellish it truly was
that's amazing!!!!! love when history teachers pair primary and secondary sources instead of just relying on a textbook. students should get to form their own readings of primary sources...!
right!!! i feel like textbooks are increasingly beginning to sanitize history so it was almost like a breath of fresh air to hear these recordings :’-) i’m not sure if this was ever digitized but the vinyl i have is called “I Can Hear It Now” Edward R. Murrow, 1919-1949, 30 Years of Audible History
(I have to also admit I have a *very* strange schooling history, weird weird mix of types of schools, so my education was definitely atypical, as I've since learned.)
iroquois history, mccarthyism, new england whaling, and the history of torture as employed by the united states…very different concepts i know 😭 in terms of like books i read in school it’d be howard zinn’s a people’s history.
basically nathaniel philbrick’s entire bibliography. also moby dick which is fictional but contains large sections of straight up non-fictional and science writing on whaling.
it can be as specific as like. the vietnam war drafts. or as broad as the gilded age. or geographic like the history of mississippi. or really defined like 1970s new york. idk...i can't believe ive never asked this bc i find it so fascinating what ppl r drawn to
Choosing more niche options than the big wars or major movements: I loved reading about the 1920s flappers, the retaliation against the prohibition, and the evolution of jazz music! Also Marsha P Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie, and Lou Sullivan were amazing people
all those r amazing topics...the music one sounds so interesting, ive only read a couple of histories of music/sound...i don't know some of those activists so ill have to go look them up! thank u 4 sharing!! also lol prohibition era was wild, actually one of the richest and craziest periods to study
I think I'm biased bc I just really loved my 4th grade teacher, but we studied california history and I enjoyed learning about both the gold rush and the missions. probably helped that I actually lived in the place we were learning about 😅 overall I always preferred world history to US, though
loving history because of a teacher is awesome though & it makes my heart warm. and i see! both of those (gold rush + missions) are deeply global histories that connect europe, the colonial US, native nations, and asia so i can see also why you would like that topic/time period
yeah! also I just realized you asked favorite topics in general, not just what we learned in school lmao. the last history book I remember reading and LOVING was "season of the witch" which follows san francisco history from the 1960s through the 1980s. super engaging read, highly recommend
at risk of being lame ill just say late 20th modern US is my favorite lol...specifically postwar histories that relate domestic policing and race histories with US global imperialism, the cold war, and labor. it's not what i study but i really like learning about it!
i have lots of book recs as always but im shy so u will have to dm me with your specific interest sorry. i will blanket rec floating coast, which is stupidly good in terms of method, writing, and content
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i actually haven't read a people's history, only dunbar-ortiz's an indigenous people's history! it sounds like it covers a lot of good stuff, but a blurb i found says it's pro-mark twain????
John Brown, he was an abolitionist. Yellow journalism is pretty interesting to me as well. Honestly, the stock market crash of 1929 is also pretty interesting. These are just some of the things I thought were interesting in school.
Books: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, American Arsenal by Patrick Coffey, The Wise Men by Walter Isaacson
Conflict after the Cold War by Betts
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
Terror in the Name of God by Jessica Stern
Innovaters by Walter Isaacson
I really loved "What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in United States" by Dave Zirin if you're looking for something a little different.
i'm so fascinated by new england whaling like now i want to know about that too. do you have any recs for books/literature?