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ple. A particular Guide would suggest articles or stories that supported his or
her point of view.
Oral histories and personal stories abound on the Web. Many university
and high school communities as well as libraries have launched efforts to col-
lect oral histories of U.S. veterans. The results are rich community websites in
which living people reported their own experiences of the war. Oral histories
can also be present in the classroom. The best history teacher I ever had was a
man who had been a prisoner of war during World War II. His first statement
to the class was, “everything is relative.” By that he did not mean that all belief
systems were equal, but rather that historical events are connected to all kinds
of forces - political, economic, cultural, religious - and so the understanding
of history deepens when these dependencies are understood.
Biographies and autobiographies provide emotionally rich sources for un-
derstanding how and why things happened in the past. Examples include The
First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H. W. Brand, and A
Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic by Henry Mayer, and
Marie Curie: A Life by Susan Quinn.
We all know the old saw, “History is written by the winners.” In that context
alternative views take on even greater importance. When I was young, colonial-
ism and Westward Movement were presented only from the perspective of the
dominant cultures involved. It has only been through my personal studies that
I have managed to understand a little about the “losers” in such events. If we
are not teaching about the Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee or The Burning
Times in our studies of history, then we are exhibiting a harmful bias. The fact
that actions have (often unintended) consequences is a key to understanding
how the world works.
The following suggestions may be rejected out of hand by the dyed-in-the-
wool historian. Historical fiction offers many opportunities to see the complex-
ity of history in an entertaining context. Examples include Huckleberry Finn by
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder,
Fever 1793 by Laura Halse Anderson, Gardens in the Dunes by Leslie Marmon
Silko, and GatesofFire:AnEpicNoveloftheBattleofThermopylae by Stephen
Pressfield. Looking even farther out, speculative historical fiction stretches the
mind and helps us see that history was not inevitable or pat. For those willing
to try it, I would recommend the first three topics of the Alvin Maker series by
Orson Scott Card, in which an alternative America is depicted from the days of
the revolution forward.
Of course, confusion about truth value is the danger of using such mate-
rials in the classroom. By suggesting these unorthodox ways of approaching
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