Why read history?
History interests me for many reasons, not the least of which is that I am a gossip. Reading history is an honored way for a good Christian woman to receive gossip with the gloss of academia and acceptability applied. There are other reasons, but the most honest one is that I'm nosy busybody not content to know merely what my contemporaries are thinking and doing. I want to know what all people, everywhere, at all times were up to. And why.
This evening, I began Andrew Jackson v. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America by Harry L. Watson. This girl knows how to have fun on a Friday night, hunh?
I'm only a few pages in and it's the type of book best read with highlighter in hand. Thoughts of inflicting it on unsuspecting home schooled teenagers begin to surface. Visions of essay questions dance in my head.
Tea parties and Wall St. Occupiers are so 1831. Don't think so? Take it from my dear Watson:
Jackson and his supporters tended to think that the growing wealth and power of the business community might erode the equality and independence of ordinary citizens.
Sound familiar? How 'bout this:
Henry Clay and his followers often wondered if strict deference to the uninformed opinions of ordinary voters might somehow undermine the businesses that generated U.S. prosperity.
What do you think we've learned in the ensuing 180 years?
How well do you think most folks know their history?
Blessings,
Holly
History interests me for many reasons, not the least of which is that I am a gossip. Reading history is an honored way for a good Christian woman to receive gossip with the gloss of academia and acceptability applied. There are other reasons, but the most honest one is that I'm nosy busybody not content to know merely what my contemporaries are thinking and doing. I want to know what all people, everywhere, at all times were up to. And why.
This evening, I began Andrew Jackson v. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America by Harry L. Watson. This girl knows how to have fun on a Friday night, hunh?
I'm only a few pages in and it's the type of book best read with highlighter in hand. Thoughts of inflicting it on unsuspecting home schooled teenagers begin to surface. Visions of essay questions dance in my head.
Tea parties and Wall St. Occupiers are so 1831. Don't think so? Take it from my dear Watson:
Jackson and his supporters tended to think that the growing wealth and power of the business community might erode the equality and independence of ordinary citizens.
Sound familiar? How 'bout this:
Henry Clay and his followers often wondered if strict deference to the uninformed opinions of ordinary voters might somehow undermine the businesses that generated U.S. prosperity.
What do you think we've learned in the ensuing 180 years?
How well do you think most folks know their history?
Blessings,
Holly
