by Joseph R. Stromberg

 Dear WSN,

Usually I try and make a point of not bothering with online news articles and commentary and/or mixing it in with my own scholarly concerns.  But columns like this force me to cross the line occasionally.  I try to make it a point to read things on both the political Right and Left.  That’s one reason why I continue to be interested in the WSN listserv and more progressive sites on the Net.  I even take great interest in the progressive, psychological prognoses of the Psychohistory list at Topica.com.   And, I even like to look in on such conservative web locales as Toogoodreports, Drudge, and LewRockwell to see what they have to say about the “issues” of our modern day.  In all of this, I’ve had the fortune of being able to find good points in a variety of studies, perspectives, and political ideologies.

 

Even Stromberg here has had some very interesting essays in the past; but this column isn’t one of them.  I don’t agree with it all!  World History and “civilizations” (“complex societies” as they’ve been referred to on H-World) are good.  It’s important to study them and the studies which examine them are of great significance also, both intellectually and ideologically/ politically.  Going back to a soley Western canon will not help our students in the least, it won’t help scholarship, and it won’t help society.  It’s vital not only to remember the Classics of the Eastern and Western world, but also to remember the importance of social science and world history in our curricula of higher education.  It’s especially important to remember the significance of World(-)Systems analysis and its methods.  Stromberg’s model can’t account for any of this latter material, and it’s a shame.  All he can do is rant about the state of (world) history classes in college and harken back to a so-called “Golden Age” of Western Civ. studies where teachers ‘really’ taught, students ‘really’ learned, and in his eyes there was a real curriculum with real content.

 

… which leads me to my underlying point.  Based on what you all can get from the article, what is it that Stromberg should be really railing against here? … (media-like politicization of issues in our college classrooms which ignores all other aspects of teaching/learning world history, the (for lack of a better term) “Disneyland-ization of higher ed. and the corresponding lack of learning that can take place with it, or something else I haven’t covered).  What do you all think?  I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Best!

 

Luke R.

 

Universal World Civilization Syllabus

by Joseph R. Stromberg

http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg35.html

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