The United States History Survey Course: Challenges and Responses

N UMEROUS historians, philosophers, and politicians have declared that a nation which fails to remember its history is condemned to repeat it. Students in our schools and colleges long ago discovered that they were condemned to repeat United States history no matter how much they may have remembered. The purpose of this essay is to examine the challenges inherent in teaching the college-level United States history survey. The following observations are based on a survey of the past decade's professional literature on this subject. In order to provide a common frame of reference or model on which to project change, a traditional college-level survey course needs to be characterized briefly. The typical exposure to United States history a decade or so ago exhibited the following features: a lecture-discussion format, an ample textbook with occasional paperbacks and library readings, a lock-step chronological approach, a factual compendium, and a superficial overview. Even if this description fails to encompass exactly the conventional course then, it does provide a pattern against