Kevin Stilley

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Early Western Civilization classroom resources

EARLY WESTERN CIVILIZATION – HIS1103

Prolegomena

Class #1 – Introduction

Research Paper Preparation

Class #2 – What is History?

Class #3 – Pre-History

Class #4 – Mesopotamia – Sumer & Akkad

Class #5 – Egypt

Class #6 – The Patriarchal Period

Class #7 – The Hittites

Class #8 – Western Semitic Power Grabs / David, Solomon, & Rehoboam (The United and Divided Kingdom)

Class #9 – Assyria, Babylon, the Medes & The Persians

Class #10 – Examination #1

Class #11 – “Meanwhile in Greece…”

Class #12 – Greek Mythology & Religion

Class #13 – The Persian Wars

  • — Marathon, Thermopylae, Sparta

Class #14 – Birth of Democracy

Class #15 – The Peloponnesian Wars & Alexander the Great

Class #16 – Pre-Socratic Philosophy

Class #17 – Socrates, Sophists, Plato

Class #18 – Aristotle

Class #19 – Hellenistic & Early Roman Philosophy

Class #20 – Examination #2

Class #21 – Romulus to Hannibal

Class #22 – Roman Prosperity

Class #23 – Roman Empire

Class #24 – Six Flags Over Israel

Class #25 – Roman Provinces & Israel During The Intertestamental Period

Class #26 – The Jewish War With Rome & The Destruction of the Temple

Class #27 – Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (Ancient Art, Science, Literature, etc.)

Class #28 – Western Civilization & The Kingdom of God

Class #29 – Final Examination

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Early Western Civilization midterm exam

The following is a midterm exam that I gave to my Early Western Civilization students several years ago.  How would you have performed on it?

1. What date does Susan Wise Bauer give as the approximate date for the origin of written history?

a.  300 AD
b.  300 BC
c.  3000 BC
d.  3300 BC
e.  8,000 BC

2. True or False: According to Bauer, when the Sumerian flood story was first translated, most historians assumed that the Genesis account was derived from it, but further study of the differences between the two stories suggests that they are far more likely to have arisen separately from the same source event.

3. True or False: Mesopotamia means the land “between the rivers.”

4. True or False:  Mesopotamia is the cradle of western civilization.

5. True or False: Ionia is the cradle of western philosophy.

6. Which of the following was NOT an Egyptian king?

A. Scorpion King
b. Raging Catfish
c. Noche

7. The Rosetta Stone played a role in (select one)

a. David slaying Goliath
b. Proving the large extent of the Hittite kingdom
c. God inscribing the Ten Commandments
d. Deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs
e. Preservation of the Epic of Gilgamesh

8. Place the following empires in the correct order

a. Greek
b. Medes & Persians
c. Babylon
d. Roman

9. Match the following with the most appropriate location of origin. Each answer will be used only once.

a. Epic of Gilgamesh
b. Code of Hammurabi
c. Homeric Poems

[possible answers: Babylon, Ionia, Sumer]

10. Match the definitions with the best choice of terms from the list below

a. The practice of a king assuming the identity of his predecessor
b. Refers to the name which God gives to himself
c. Using names familiar to contemporary readers rather than names in use during the historical past.
d. A human figure with the face of a bull and imprisoned in the Labyrinth
e. A foot soldier
f. Philosophy of the “living stuff”

[List of possible answers: 1. Positional succession, 2. Hoplite, 3. Anachronism, 4. Minotaur, 5. Hylozoism, 6. Tetragrammaton]

11. True of False: It would have been impossible for the Egyptians to have built the pyramids given their technological abilities. The only reasonable answer is that aliens came through a Stargate and used an energy coil called the “Caduceus Coil” to tap into the planetary energy grid in order to levitate the blocks into place.

12. Place the following in correct order, earliest to latest.

a. David
b. Sargon
c. Nebuchadnezzar

13. The birth story of which of the following is very similar to that of Moses’?

a. Sargon
b. Khufu
c. Herodotus
d. Horus
e. Terah

14. Place the following in the correct order

a. Adam
b. Eve
c. Seth
d. Noah
e. Tower of Babylon
f. Abraham
g. Period of the Judges
h. David
i. Divided Kingdom
j. Babylonian captivity

15. True of False: The Hyksos once ruled in Persia.

16. True or False: The legend of the Minotaur is an example of one of the Greek myths which has been proven to be a very precise description of an actual event.

17. True of False: The exodus of the Hebrews shows up nowhere in the Egyptian records.

18. True or false: The Egyptians did not write.

19. True or false: The Philistines kept the Israelites in a position of military inferiority by forbidding them to manufacture any sort of iron tools.

20. True or False: There was no country called Phoenicia.

21. True or False: Jeroboam was Solomon’s son.

22. True or False: Around 721 BC Sargon II wiped the political state of Israel off the map, and removed large numbers of Israelites from their homeland all the way over to the territory of the Medes. This resulted in the despised mix of peoples that the Jews later called Samaritans.

23. Match the following leaders with the location of their rule.

a. Sennacherib
b. Sheshonq
c. Rehoboam
d. Nebuchadnezzar
e. Cyrus the Great

[Possible answers: Babylon, Medes & Persians, Judah, Egypt, Assyria]

24. Match the following gods (God) with their followers.

a. Marduk
b. Horus
c. YHWH

[Possible answers: Egypt, Babylon, Hebrews]

25. True or False: The Great Pyramid of Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are two of the Seven Wonders of the World.

26. True or False: The war between the Greeks and Persians was central to the life of the Greeks, but receives barely a mention in Persian histories.

27. True or False: The Delian League and the Peloponnesian League were manifestations of the rivalry between Athens and Sparta.

28. Which of the following are historians upon which Bauer relies for material. (Select all that apply)

a. Thucydides
b. Herodotus
c. Plutarch

29. True or false: One characteristic of Orphism is that by ritual purifications and an ascetic life they hoped to win release from the body and return to the company of the gods.

30. The logic of which philosopher was the starting-point for both Platonic dialectic and Aristotelian logic.

a. Parmenides
b. Heraclitus
c. Anaximander
d. Thales
e. Tyrannosaurus Rex

31. The Logos is most often associated with which of the following philosophers?

a. Parmenides
b. Heraclitus
c. Anaximander
d. Thales
e. Latissimus Dorsi

32. Complete the sentences by filling in the blank spaces with the correct answer from the list provided below.

a. __________ influenced Plato more than any other philosopher. Important elements passed into Plato’s thought from his predecessors which through him have influenced the later development of European philosophy.
b. From the __________ Plato derives much of his conception of the matter of the physical universe.
c. From the __________ comes the essence of Plato’s doctrine of the nature and destiny of the soul, his insistence on eternal form and order as the supremely important reality and proper object of the intellect, and the emphasis in his though on mathematics and astronomy.
d. From __________ he gits his vision of the transitorinesss of all sensible things and the flux of the material world.
e. __________ and the Eleatics leave him a clear though inadequate vision of eternal being, the beginnings of logical reasoning, and a logical problem to solve.

[Possible answers: 1.  Heraclitus, 2. Parmenides, 3. Pythagoreans, 4. Milesians, 5. Socrates]

33. Match the following statements about “pleasure” with the school it most accurately depicts.

a. “As a humanist agnostic I enjoy pleasure when it is practical as part of a successful civilized human life.”
b. “I can’t really know if pleasure is good or bad, but I have an opinion about it.
c. “I enjoy my pleasure in public and could care less what you think about it.”
d. “It is our feelings of pain and pleasure which are the test by which we determine what is bad and good for us.”
e. “Pleasure? I am utterly indifferent to all external things. I am free from all passion, emotion, and affections.”

[Possible answers: 1. Stoicism, 2. Cynicism, 3. Sophism, 4. Skepticism, 5. Hedonism]

34. True or False: Socrates believed that the first and foremost business of man was care of the soul.

35. True or False: Plato was not very systematic and it is often difficult to find out his solution to the problem he raises.

36. True or False: Plato founded the Lyceum.

37. True or False: Aristotle believed that there exists a world of eternal realities, “Forms” or “Ideas” that are entirely separate from the world our senses perceive, and knowable only by pure intellect.

38. True or False: Plato did not believe in the soul’s pre-existence, but did believe that it could not be extinguished.

39. Place the following in chronological order;

a. John the Baptist
b. Socrates
c. David, son of Jesse
d. Aristotle
e. Alexander the Great
f. Thales
g. Plato

40. True or False: Aristotle rejected Plato’s Theory of Forms.

41. True or False: Aristotle denied the existence of universals.

42. True or False: Socrates wrote no philosophic treatise himself.

44. Which of the following had a more family-friendly political philosophy.

a. Aristotle
b. Plato

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A Worker Reads History

by Bertolt Brecht

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?

Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions.

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Discussion Questions: The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century

Book CoverCHAPTER ONE

Delsol asserts that modern man has given up on hope; “that hope today consists in doing without hope.” Do you agree with her? What evidence would you use to support her assertion or to argue against it?

Delsol describes those living without hope and expectations as a “the society of well-being alone” who are locked into a material world that “makes of us the sad heroes of emptiness.” What alternative does she offer to living in such a state? Do you agree with her diagnosis and prognosis? (page 4)

Delsol describes the “new culture” in which we find ourselves as “late modernity.” Why does she not use the more commonly employed term – “postmodernity”? (page 5)

She cites Plato as stating that “every institution ends up dying through the excess of its own principle.” She explains in following chapters how 19th century ideologies (principles) failed in the 20th century (excess) leading to the current “new culture.” How would her argument related to Francis Schaeffer’s assertion in How Should We Then Live that there is a flow to history? How far do you think we have to go back in time to understand our own identity, values, culture? (page 6)

Consider this question/comment from the text: “But can the principle of personal dignity be maintained and secured without the cultural world that justifies and sustains it? This principle, the fulcrum of human rights thinking , is not an isolated and insular belief, a concept that can simply stay afloat and find sustenance in nothingness.” (page 8) How does this question assertion echo Nietsche’s madman speech in The Gay Science? (see video below)

Do you agree with Delsol when she says, “The dignity of man as a unique being without substitute is a postulate of faith, not of science.” (page 8)  Why, or why not? How might this argument be employed as part of a “taking the roof off” apologetic?

Delsol writes, “The ideas of human dignity depends upon an inherited cultural world. Indeed, it was by destroying this heritage that Nazism and communism pulverized it.”  (page 8)  In what ways did communism and Nazism attempt to destroy an inherited cultural world?  Do you think that this strategy is being employed by some ideologues today? How?  We make a distinction between western civilization and the western heritage and that of the rest of the world.  Does that mean that those who are not part of the Western World do not believe in human dignity?

 

CHAPTER TWO

Delsol writes, “Because dignity is a distinction, the philosophy of human rights rests upon anthropocentrism: no man can have dignity if Man himself is not King of nature.”  (page 12)   Can you give examples of man being treated as one without dignity (poorly, inhumanely) due to the denial that man is distinct from the rest of nature?  How does this relate to historical attempts to deny human status to certain people groups by denying that they have a soul or referring to them as “animals” or “monkeys”?

In the “enlightened” world in which we live, are there remaining attempts to deny human status (personhood) to anyone? How does this discussion relate to the moral philosophy of Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University? (pages 14, 24)

How does euthanasia, abortion, forced sterilization, infanticide, and eugenics fit into this discussion? (pages 14, 24)

Delsol writes, “Scientific progress was able to sweep away the certainty that the human species is unique because science found itself in charge of establishing certain criteria and definitions after religious messages had lost their legitimacy.  Scientism, not science, disunites humanity, and scientism operates through the despotism of a rationality placed above all else.”  (page 15)  What is the distinction that Delsol is making between science and scientism?  Are Christians anti-science?

Delsol argues that 20th century totalitarianisms were the logical result of the desacralization of humanity; “if humanity is no longer sacred, everything becomes possible, from hatred to mass assassination.” (page 21)  This argument moves beyond that of Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamozov, “If God does not exist, everything is permitted“; not only is God necessary for morality but the idea that man is special to God – created distinctly in the imago dei.  Do you believe that Delsol’s additional step is required as a basis for morality?

Delsol writes, “And perhaps the biblical tale does indeed represent the only guarantee against the temptation to displace the human species.  It is nothing more than a story one might object.  Yet dignity does not exist without this story, for dignity was discovered or invented along with it, and all our efforts to establish other foundations have turned out to be poor substitutes.”  (page 21)  Sartre posited a morality based not on an antropocentrism of derived dignity as Delsol describes, but on an antropocentrism that results from a “doctrine of action.” Do you think that Existentialism is one of the “poor substitutes” Delsol is referencing?  What about Kant’s categorical imperative?  To what other substitutes might she be referring?

She continues, “The creation story which bestows meaning, guarantees human dignity better than any form of reason ever could. For the problem is not to ensure that human dignity exists: this is the only certitude that we have. We do not need to prove it since we hold it to be above any proof.”  (pages 21-22) Do you think that most people believe as Delsol does that the dignity of man is axiomatic (self-evident, unquestionable)?  Do you think that the moral argument for the existence of God is persuasive? For whom in the “new culture” would it not be persuasive?  (Further reading:  The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis)

 

CHAPTER THREE

Delsol writes, “An offense against the good is always accompanied by a rejection of the true, and since Plato, philosophy has known that justice and truth walk hand in hand.”  How might today’s moral relativity be considered the result of failed (or rejected) epistemologies?  (page 27)

How might the following comment of Delsol be applied to the study of late modern history? — “It is not enough to have lived through experiences to enter into the future.  They must also become the objects of our consideration.  They need to be observed, translated, pondered, brought forward with us, so that the future can become more than just the passage of time.”  (page 28)

Do you agree with Delsol that the failed totalitarianisms of the twentieth century were attempted utopias built upon the myths of self-creation, self-foundation, and self-sufficiency of mankind?

CHAPTER FOUR

Delsol writes, “Egalitarian utopia undoubtedly represents the most ancient social dream, having been longed for for centuries.”  (page 35)  What examples might she give to support this claim?

Delsol repeatedly speaks of “the events of 1989”.  (pages 36, 48)  To what is she referring?

Delsol talks of belief (ideological commitments) becoming an identity that cannot be renounced “without committing a kind of symbolic suicide.” (page 36)  What are the consequences of this for those who are committed to failed 19th century mythologies of utopia or progressivism?

What does Delsol mean by “the logic of resentment”? (page 37)  How serious an issue do you think this is in terms of American public policy?

Delsol describes the hypocrisy that occurs when someone refuses “to suffer the catastrophic consequences of his ideology, but he is too proud to publicly abandon it.  He leads an upper middle-class life, but relentlessly disparages the middle class; he runs things as though he were a free-market advocate, but jeers at free market ideas;  he enrolls his own children in demanding, even austere schools, while preaching indulgence for delinquency in schools attended by the children of others.  In other words, he continues to propagate the utopia he no longer lives by and attacks the moralism of those who simply put into words what he himself is doing.” (page 37)  Can you think of examples of this in public life?  Delsol goes on to claim that such a person salvages their honor at the expense of “a diminished life for everyone else.”  Do you think the general public is aware of this hypocrisy and its results?  If so, why does it allow it to continue?

Delsol claims that derision and sarcasm are extremely effective cultural change agents employed by those embracing failed utopian ideologies and those committed to progressivism. (pages 38-40)  Do you agree?

CHAPTER FIVE

Delsol writes, “The ideology of progress equates happiness with ‘maturity’, or replaces happiness with ‘maturity’ as a criterion of the good. Maturity means a distancing from childhood. The more society differentiates itself from the past, the better it will be.” (page 50) How does her comment relate to what C.S. Lewis says about “chronological snobbery”?

What do you think that Predrag Matvegevic means when writing, “The dissident is a hostage of truth.” (page 50)

Delsol writes, “The heaven’s were closed by magistrate’s order.”  What does she mean? (page 51)

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Due to lack of interest, tomorrow has been cancelled.” If asked what this means, you would probably respond that it is a reference to modern apathy.  Why is apathy prevalent in the “new culture”?

 

MORE QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

In what ways might the radical behaviorism of B.F. Skinner be considered a continuation of failed 19th century utopian ideologies.

Delsol writes much about the communism of eastern Europe and the USSR but has little to say about China.  Why do you think this might be?

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Syllabus – Late Twentieth Century to the Present

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Course Syllabus – Fall 2014
Late Century to the Present

The College at Southwestern
HIS 4203-A   T/Th   7:00-8:15 a.m. Room S-119

Instructor: Kevin Stilley
Office Hours: By Appointment

    (I keep office hours a few blocks from the college at Stadium Drive Baptist Church: 4717 Stadium Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76133)

Email: [email protected]
Website: http://kevinstilley.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kevinstilley
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kevin.stilley

Catalog Description

A study of social/political trends and philosophies from 1964 to the present.

Course Objectives

  • To gain knowledge of the main events, ideas and persons that shaped western civilization during the late twentieth century to the present.
  • Exploration of twentieth century trends, politics, and culture will help students place their experiences, interests, and information from other history courses into context.

Required Texts

  • The Penguin History of the 20th Century, by J.M. Roberts (isbn. 9780140276312)
  • Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, by Bob Blaisdell (isbn. 0486474674)
  • The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century, by Chantal Delsol (isbn. 1932236473)
  • Postmodern Times, by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. (isbn. 0891077685)

(Please bring a Bible to class with you.)

Blackboard

Blackboard and SWBTS student email will be used for class communications. Students should check both Blackboard and student email dailyfor possible communications from the instructor.

Assignments

Grades will be determined based upon completion of two exams, a student presentation, an editorial exercise, and class participation.

  • Midterm Exam (30%) – This exam will be conducted via Blackboard so please be sure to have a good internet connection available on the day of the exam. Mac users, I encourage you to NOT use the Safari web browser when taking this test or navigating the Blackboard interface.
  • Final Exam: (20%) – The final exam will be a single essay question, asking you to distinguish between the concepts of “late modernity” (Chantal Delsol) & “postmodernity” (Gene Edward Veith), and to make an argument for the one that you think best describes the world in which we live.
  • Student Presentation (20%): Each student will select one speech from the book Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, explain the historical context of the speech, and share how and why it is culturally significant. All students will be reading the speeches in advance so group discussion will follow the presentation.
  • Editorial Exercise (25%): Assume the role of an editorial assistant who has been tasked with revising the book Great Speeches of the 20th Century. Your assignment is to find one speech from the late 20th century that should be added to the book. In addition to the text of the speech, you need to present a point paper with adequate argumentation for its rhetorical qualities and its historical significance. Further, in order to add this speech to the text, you must select one speech to remove from the book and explain why you selected it. This assignment is to be submitted via Turnitin and is due no later than midnight on October 31. Late papers will receive a 50% reduction in grade.
  • Participation (5%): All students are expected to attend class, be punctual, and participate appropriately in classroom discussion. To engage in classroom discussion of the assigned reading it is imperative that all reading assignments be conducted in a timely fashion.
    • Attendance will be recorded at the beginning of all class sessions. Absences or tardiness will adversely affect your grade.       Absences in excess of 25% result in an automatic failure of the class.
    • Students are free to record the class.
    • Guests are welcome, but please notify the instructor in advance.
    • Laptops, iPhones, and similar devices may NOT be used during class as their usefulness is far outweighed by their ability to create a distraction and contribute to the cultural habit of inattentiveness.
    • If you become drowsy you may stand at the back or the side of the room until you can resume your seat without falling asleep.

Grades

Grades will be determined by the following scale: 100-98 (A+); 97-93 = A; 92-90 (A-); 89-88(B+); 87-83 (B); 82-80 (B-); 79-78 (C+); 77-73 (C); 72-70 (C-); 69-68 (D+); 67-63 (D); 62-60 (D-); Below 60 = F.

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Textbooks – Late Twentieth Century History

Here are the textbooks I am using this semester for my class on Late Twentieth Century History (HIS 4203) at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century

Great Speeches of the 20th Century

The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century

Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture

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History – select quotes

History-Cloud

History is philosophy teaching by example.
~ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in De Arte Rhetorica

History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning.
~ Lord Bolingbroke

To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not, have taken care to appear such in their writings.
~ Lord Bolingbroke

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
~ Lord Acton

The historian must not try to know what is truth, if he values his honesty; for if he cares for his truths, he is certain to falsify his facts.
~ Henry Adams

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
~ Maya Angelou

If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.
~ Aristotle

History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in…. I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all – it is very tiresome.
~ Spoken by Jane Austen’s character Catherine Morland, in “Northanger Abbey”)

Anyone who is going to make anything out of history will, sooner or later, have to do most of the work himself. He will have to read, and consider, and reconsider, and then read some more.
~ Geoffrey Barraclough

To know the truth of history is to realize its ultimate myth and its inevitable ambiguity.
~ Roy P. Basler

History does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.
~ Max Beerbohm

That generations of historians have resorted to what might be called “proof by haphazard quotation” does not make the procedure valid or reliable; it only makes it traditional.
~ Lee Benson

The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.
~ Peter Berger

History: an account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
~ Ambrose Bierce

History is, in its essentials, the science of change.
~ Marc Bloch

The history of states and nations has provided some income for historiographers and book dealers, but I know no other purpose it may have served.
~ Borne

History remembers only the brilliant failures and the brilliant successes.
~ Randolph S. Bourne

History is the enactment of ritual on a permanent and universal stage; and its perpetual commemoration.
~ Norman O. Brown

History is still in large measure poetry to me.
~ Jakob Burckhardt

History is a science, no more and no less.
~ J. B. Bury

History, the evidence of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, the directress of life, the herald of antiquity, committed to immortality.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, in De Oratore

Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth.
~ Cicero

All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.
~ Thomas Carlyle

In books lies the soul of the whole past time; the articulate, audible voice of the past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
~ Thomas Carlyle

History, a distillation of rumour.
~ Thomas Carlyle

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
~ Thomas Carlyle

[History] may be called, more generally still, the Message, verbal or written, which all Mankind delivers to everyman.
~ Thomas Carlyle

History is a great dust heap.
~ Thomas Carlyle

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
~ Winston Churchill

Nothing capable of being memorized is history.
~ R. G. Collingwood

History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it — as with these — life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.
~ Henry Steele Commager

History is not the accumulation of events of every kind which happened in the past. It is the science of human societies.
~ Fustel de Coulanges

A man rising in the world is not concerned with history; he is too busy making it. But a citizen with a fixed place in the community wants to acquire a glorious past just as he acquires antique furniture. By that past he is reassured of his present importance; in it he finds strength to face the dangers that lie in front of him.
~ Malcolm Cowley

History is the name we human beings give to the horizon of consciousness within which we live.
~ Harvey Cox

History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.
~ E. L. Doctorow

History is the self-consciousness of humanity.
~ Droyson

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
~ Will Durant

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
~ Abba Eban

What else can history teach us? Only the vanity of believing we can impose our theories on history. Any philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.
~ Jacques Ellul

All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
~ Henry Ford

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge — myth is more potent than history — dreams are more powerful than facts — hope always triumphs over experience — laughter is the cure for grief — love is stronger than death.
~ Robert Fulghum

Imagination plays too important a role in the writing of history, and what is imagination but the projection of the author’s personality.
~ Pieter Geyl

[History is] little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
~ Edward Gibbon

The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.
~ Edward Gibbon

History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.
~ Etienne Gilson

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.
~ Goethe

Patriotism ruins history.
~ Goethe

History is life; he who has not lived, or has lived only enough to write a doctoral dissertation, is too inexperienced with life to write good history.
~ Louis Gottschalk

Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs.
~ David Ben Gurion

People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half.
~ Jane Haddam

History is ultimately more important than its singers.
~ Michael Harrington

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Writing intellectual history is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.
~ William Hesseltine

History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.
~ Oliver W. Holmes, Jr.

The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.
~ I Ching

History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.
~ James Joyce

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
~ Robert F. Kennedy

The past does not influence me; I influence it.
~ Willem De Kooning

What we do about history matters. The often repeated saying that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them has a lot of truth in it. But what are ‘the lessons of history’? The very attempt at definition furnishes ground for new conflicts. History is not a recipe book; past events are never replicated in the present in quite the same way. Historical events are infinitely variable and their interpretations are a constantly shifting process. There are no certainties to be found in the past.
~ Gerda Lerner

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
~ Gerda Lerner

History is not history unless it is truth.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
~ Machiavelli

Very deep, very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?
~ Thomas Mann

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
~ Karl Marx

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
~ Karl Marx

History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
~ Karl Marx

When a historian enters into metaphysics he has gone to a far country from whose bourne he will never return a historian.
~ Shailer Mathews

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
~ David C. McCullough

I love to tell a story. History, I believe, is best understood as an unfolding story.
~ David C. McCullough

No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
~ David C. McCullough

I don’t believe the truth will ever be known, and I have a great contempt for history.
~ General George Meade

History is a myth that men agree to believe.
~ Napoleon

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Man in a word has no nature; what he has… is history.
~Jose Ortega y Gasset

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.
~ Karl Popper

In schoolbooks and in literature we can separate ecclesiastical and political history; in the life of mankind they are intertwined.
~ Leopold von Ranke

All history is incomprehensible without Christ.
~ Ernest Renan

In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth.
~ James Harvey Robinson

History is a great deal closer to poetry than is generally realised: in truth, I think, it is in essence the same.
~ A. L. Rowse

I worshipped dead men for their strength,
Forgetting I was strong.
~ Vita Sackville-West

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
~ George Santayana, in The Life of Reason

History is alway written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.
~ George Santayana, in The Life of Reason

A country without a memory is a country of madmen.
~ George Santayana

The history of the world is the world’s court of justice.
~ Friedrich Von Schiller

Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.
~ Schopenhauer

A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.
~ Sir Walter Scott

History without politics descends to mere Literature.
~ Sir John Robert Seely

History is not a science; it is a method.
~ Charles Seignobos

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
~ George Bernard Shaw

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
~ George Bernard Shaw

With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present.
~ Kenneth Stampp

Myth, memory, history-these are three alternative ways to capture and account for an elusive past, each with its own persuasive claim.
~ Warren I. Susman

This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.
~ Tacitus

“History” is a Greek word which means, literally, just “investigation.”
~ Arnold Toynbee

We’re falling out of the world of history into the world of demographics where we count everything and value nothing.
~ George W. S. Trow

A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.
~ Mark Twain

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.
~ Mark Twain

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
~ Mark Twain

I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past – can’t be restored.
~ Mark Twain

History is the science of what never happens twice.
~ Paul Valery

History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.
~ Voltaire

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.
~ Voltaire

[History is] little else than a long succession of useless cruelties.
~ Voltaire

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.
~ Kurt Vonnegut

The researches of many eminent antiquarians have already thrown much darkness on the subject; and it is possible, if they continue their labors, that we shall soon know nothing at all.
~ Artemus Ward

Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake.
~ Robert Penn Warren

The past is always a rebuke to the present.
~ Robert Penn Warren

History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.
~ Robert Penn Warren

History is a bag of tricks which the dead have played upon historians.
~ Lynn White, Jr.

Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.
~ Oscar Wilde

_____________________________

And a few recommended books on History / Historiography:

Book Cover | Book Cover | Book Cover | Book Cover | Book Cover

by

Winston Spencer Churchill – select quotes

winston churchill

“What shall I do with my books?” was the question; and the answer “Read them” sobered the questioner. “But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the very first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. . . . Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”

A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.
~ in regard to the growing German threat

Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manoeuvre, the less he demands in slaughter.
~ Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 2

I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life

Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events… incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant fortune, ugly surprise, awful miscalculations. … Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
~ as quoted in This Time It’s Our War by Leonard Fein

I think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can’t help it — I enjoy every second of it.
~ in a letter to a friend, 1916

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life, chapter 9

I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man’s Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life

It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.
~ in The Story of the Malakand Field Force

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities — but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
~ in The River War, volume II pp. 248–50

The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle – – the last.
~ Winston Churchill, in a speech at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in London, on November 10, 1942

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.
~ in a speech in Dundee, Scotland, 10 October 1908

The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, May 17, 1916

One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.
~ in “Hitler and His Choice”, The Strand Magazine, November 1935

Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war.
~ to Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons, after the Munich accords, 1938

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
~ in a speech broadcast on October 1, 1939

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
~in a speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister, May 13, 1940

Nothing is more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
~ Winston Churchill, in The Malakand Field Force

The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it.
~ Winston Churchill, to the War Cabinet, September 3, 1940

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, June 4,1940

We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, July 14, 1940

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’
~ in a speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power.
~ in a speech in the House of Commons complimenting the pilots in the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, August 20, 1940

If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
~ in a speech after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941

Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
~ in a speech given at Harrow School, October 29, 1941

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
~ in a speech given after the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, November 10, 1942

I hate nobody except Hitler — and that is professional.
~ to John Colville during WWII, quoted by Colville in his book The Churchillians

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
~ in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946, regarding Soviet communism and the Cold War

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
~ in a speech before the House of Commons, November 11, 1947

No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not fortell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.
~ in The Second World War, Volume III : The Grand Alliance, chapter 12

This was a time when it was equally good t live or die.
~ in Their Finest Hour, 1949

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
~ referring to Sir Stafford Cripps

There’s less to him than meets the eye.
~ referring to Clement Attlee

History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.

I like a man who grins when he fights.

If you are going through hell, keep going.

We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us.

You can always count on the U.S. to do the right thing–once it has exhausted the alternatives.

Success is never final; failure is never fatal.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

In time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter.

The further back I look, the further forward I can see.

The nose of the bulldog is slanted backwards so he can continue to breathe without letting go.

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.

This paper by its very length defends itself against the risk of being read.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

We didn’t come this far because we are made of sugar candy.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticise or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.

It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~ Winston Churchill

__________

Related

__________

Book Cover

by

Syllabus – Church & Empires

Course Syllabus – Spring 2014
Church and Empires

The College at Southwestern
HIS 1203-A   T/Th    1:00 – 2:15 p.m.  Room S22
Instructor: Kevin Stilley
Office Hours:  By Appointment

I keep office hours a few blocks from the college at Stadium Drive Baptist Church: 4717 Stadium Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76133, or can meet you by appointment in the Student Center.

Email:  [email protected]
Website:  http://kevinstilley.com
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/kevinstilley
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/kevin.stilley

Catalog Description

A study of the history and philosophy of western civilization from late antiquity to the late medieval period.

Course Objectives

  • Appreciation of God’s providence in the overall pattern of history.
  • To gain knowledge of the main events, ideas and persons that have shaped western civilization from the early Christian church to the dawn of the Reformation.
  • To understand how Christianity and western civilization are related and be able to outline the relationship between church and state across time.
  • Development of the skill of applying history to contemporary ideas and issues

Required Texts

  • History of the Medieval World, by Susan Wise Bauer
  • Ecclesiastical History of the English People, by Bede
  • The Middle Ages, by Morris Bishop
  • Christian History Made Easy, Timothy Paul Jones

 (Please bring a Bible to class with you.)

 Assignments

Grades will be determined based upon completion of three exams, a writing assignment, and class participation.

  • First Examination  (25%) – This exam will be conducted via Blackboard so please be sure to have a good internet connection available on the day of the exam.
  • Second Examination  (25%) – This exam will be conducted via Blackboard so please be sure to have a good internet connection available on the day of the exam.
  • Final Examination: (25%) – The date and time for the final exam may not coincide with normal class days and times. You must make yourself available to take the final exam at the scheduled time during finals week.   No alternative times or venues for the exam will be offered.
  • Essay/Response (15%):  Each student will write a response to the op-ed piece “Does Christian Fundamentalism Endanger Our Republic?” by Carol V. Hamilton  (http://hnn.us/articles/52479.html).  The response should incorporate themes discussed in class regarding the interaction of Christianity, civilization, and Western culture.  Essays should be approximately 1000 words long and will be graded in terms of grammar, composition, creativity, research, analysis, and relevance.  Late papers will be subject to a five yard point per day penalty for delay of game.
  • Participation (10%): All students are expected to attend class, be punctual, and participate appropriately in classroom discussion.  To engage in classroom discussion of the assigned reading it is imperative that all reading assignments be conducted in a timely fashion.
    • Attendance will be recorded at the beginning of all class sessions. Absences or tardiness will adversely affect your grade.  Absences in excess of six will result in an automatic failure of the class.
    • Students are free to record the class.
    • Guests are welcome, but please notify the instructor in advance.
    • Laptops, iPhones, and similar devices may NOT be used during class as their usefulness is far outweighed by their ability to create a distraction and contribute to the cultural habit of inattentiveness.
    • If you become drowsy you may stand at the back or the side of the room until you can resume your seat without falling asleep.

Grades

Grades will be determined by the following scale: 100-98 (A+); 97-93 = A; 92-90 (A-); 89-88(B+); 87-83 (B); 82-80 (B-); 79-78 (C+); 77-73 (C); 72-70 (C-); 69-68 (D+); 67-63 (D); 62-60 (D-); Below 60 = F.

Blackboard

Blackboard and SWBTS student email will be used for class communications.  Students should check both Blackboard and student email daily for possible communications from the instructor.

Tentative Schedule

HIS 3203 Topic Assignment Due Today
January 23 Introduction to Course -Discussion of Syllabus Please print out and bring your syllabus to this class session.
January 28 The First 1,000 Years of ChristianityReview for Final Exam  Read: Bishop, chapter 1 Bring Christian History Made Easy to class with you.
January 30 External Pressures on the Church — Persecution: Apologetic and Martyrdom literature Read: Jones, Introduction and chapter 1
February 4 Internal Pressures on the Church: Heresy, Creeds, & Councils Read: Jones, chapters 2 & 3
February 6 The Age of Invasions Read: Bauer, chapters 1, 4, 5, 6 & 8
February 11 Fall of the Roman Empire & Augustine Read: Bauer, chapters 9, 10, 11 & 12
February 13 Boethius, Monasticism, Asceticism & Mysticism Read: Bauer, chapters 13, 16, 17, 18
February 18 BritainThe Papacy Read: Bede, book 1
February 20 Rise of the Franks / Charlemagne Read: Bauer, chapters 19, 20, 21, 22, 25
February 25 Church and State: A historical perspective Read: Bauer, chapters 27, 28, 29
February 27 Christ and Culture: Richard Niebuhr and D.A. Carson Read: Bauer, chapters 33, 34, 35, & 36
March 4 Does Christian Fundamentalism Endanger Our Republic?” Due: Submit your essay via Turnitin no later than the beginning of class time, and bring a paper copy to class for the instructor.
March 6 Mid-Term Examination Mid-Term Examination
March 11 Spring Break Spring Break
March 13 Spring Break Spring Break
March 18 Mohammad Read: Bauer, chapters 37, 39, 41
March 20 Expansion of Islam / Do Christians and Muslim’s Worship the Same God? Read: Bauer, chapters 42, 45, 47, & 48
March 25 The Crusades Read: Bauer, chapter 71Read: Bishop, chapter 3
March 27 The Crusades, War, Dr. Seuss & Christian Ethics Read Bishop, chapter 4
April 1 The VikingsRussia Read: Bauer, chapters 56, 69, 69, & 71
April 3 The Norman Conquest of England / The Hundred Years War / Henry V / Joan of Arc / Europe in the High Middle Ages – Feudalism/ The Black Death / Magna Carta, & Shakespeare’s Kings Read: Bishop, chapter 2
April 8 The Scholastics (Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, and other guys whose name does not start with an  “A”  like Ockam) Read: Bishop, chapter 5
April 10 The University (Averroes, Maimonides, Siger of Brabant and other smart guys) Read: Bishop, chapter 8
April 15 Literary, Political and Cultural Contributions of the Late Medieval Period Read: Bishop, chapter 9
April 17 Examination #2 Examination #2
April 22 The Church in the 14th Century Review Christian History Made Easy
April 24 Medieval Reformers Review Christian History Made Easy
April 29 The End of Byzantium Review Christian History Made Easy
Final Examination Final Examination In Class

 

“When a man is busy at study, the Evil Impulse whispers to him: Why tarryest thou here.  Go and join the men who flirt with pretty women.”  – Talmud, Zohar, ii, 265b

 

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Syllabus – 19th Century History

Course Syllabus – Spring 2014
The Nineteenth Century

The College at Southwestern
HIS 3203-B   W/F    11:30-12:45 p.m.  Room S12
Instructor: Kevin Stilley
Office Hours:  By Appointment

(I keep office hours a few blocks from the college at Stadium Drive Baptist Church: 4717 Stadium Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76133, or I can meet you in the Student Center by appointment)

Email:  [email protected]
Website:  http://kevinstilley.com
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/kevinstilley
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/kevin.stilley

Catalog Description

A study of the history and philosophy of western civilization of the Nineteenth Century.

Course Objectives

  • To gain knowledge of the main events, ideas and persons that shaped western civilization during the Nineteenth Century.
  • To develop the skill of applying history to contemporary ideas and issues
  • Appreciation of God’s providence in the overall pattern of history.

Required Texts

  • Churches Revolutions & Empires: 1789-1914, by Ian Shaw
  • The Men Who United the States: America’s Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible, by Simon Winchester
  • American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Steve Wilkins
  • When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection, edited by Norman Yetman
  • Selected Stories from the 19th Century, collected by David Stuart Davies

(Please bring a Bible to class with you.)

Assignments

Grades will be determined based upon completion of two exams, an authorial summary and analysis, a student presentation and class participation.

  • Examination #1  (30%):  This exam will be conducted via Blackboard so please be sure to have a good internet connection available on the day of the exam. Mac users, I encourage you to NOT use the Safari web browser when taking this test or navigating the Blackboard interface.
  • Final Exam: (30%):  The date and time for the final exam may not coincide with normal class days and times. You must make yourself available to take the final exam at the scheduled time during finals week.   No alternative times or venues for the exam will be offered.
  • Authorial Summary & Analysis (15%):  Select one of the short stories from Selected Stories from the 19th Century, collected by David Stuart Davies.  Prepare a three-page report.  A one page biographical summary of the author should be followed by a two-page historical analysis of the work read.  How did this piece illustrate 19th century values? Did the characters face challenges that were unique to the 19th century?  How might the plot differ if set in a different time period? How does this story compare to other works from the same author?  How does the story compare with the work of other authors from the same time period?
  • Student Presentation (15%):  Each student will select one person from The Men Who United the States and make a ten-minute presentation to the class explaining how he or she influenced the developing nation during the nineteenth century. Your presentation should be organized with the goal of convincing your listeners that the contributions of this individual were significant. The material found in The Men Who United the States is your starting place, but additional research will be necessary. Creativity is greatly appreciated.
  • Participation (15%): All students are expected to attend class, be punctual, and participate appropriately in classroom discussion.  To engage in classroom discussion of the assigned reading it is imperative that all reading assignments be conducted in a timely fashion.
      • Attendance will be recorded at the beginning of all class sessions. Absences or tardiness will adversely affect your grade.  Absences in excess of six will result in an automatic failure of the class.
      • Students are free to record the class.
      • Guests are welcome, but please notify the instructor in advance.
      • Laptops, iPhones, and similar devices may NOT be used during class as their usefulness is far outweighed by their ability to create a distraction and contribute to the cultural habit of inattentiveness.
      • If you become drowsy you may stand at the back or the side of the room until you can resume your seat without falling asleep.
  • Bonus points:  Explore the Amon Carter Museum (free admission) and write a thoughtful essay on the 19th Century art in their collection.

Grades

Grades will be determined by the following scale: 100-98 (A+); 97-93 = A; 92-90 (A-); 89-88(B+); 87-83 (B); 82-80 (B-); 79-78 (C+); 77-73 (C); 72-70 (C-); 69-68 (D+); 67-63 (D); 62-60 (D-); Below 60 = F.

Blackboard

Blackboard and SWBTS student email will be used for class communications.  Students should check both Blackboard and student email daily for possible communications from the instructor.

Tentative Schedule

HIS 3203 Topic Assignment Due Today
January 24 Introduction to Course -Discussion of Syllabus Please print out and bring your syllabus to this class session.
January 29 Legacy of the American Revolution (America at the beginning of the 19th century) Read: Shaw chapter 1
January 31 Legacy of the French Revolution (Europe at the beginning of the 19th century) Read: Shaw chapter 2
February 5 Industrial Revolution, Urbanization, & Immigration Read: Shaw chapter 3
February 7 A Maturing Republic Read: Woodard, chapters 10, 11, & 12
February 12 The Lone Star Republic and Western Expansion Read: Woodard, chapters 19, 20
February 14 A Divided Nation Read: Woodard, chapter 21
February 19 North Atlantic Slavery Read: Shaw, chapter 5
February 21 War Between the States Read: Selections from When I Was a Slave
February 26 War Between the StatesWill the Real Abraham Lincoln Please Stand Up Read: Shaw, chapter 11
February 28 Women in the 19th Century Read: Woodard, chapter 24
March 5 Roads & Railroads Read: Winchester, pages 240-280
March 7 Test #1 Test #1
March 12 Spring Break Spring Break
March 14 Spring Break Spring Break
March 19 Urbanization & The Gilded Age Read:   Shaw chapter 14
March 21 Revivalism & Social Reform Read:  Shaw chapter 7
March 26 Karl Marx and Dialectical Materialism Read:   Shaw chapter 8
March 28 Science, Scientism, and Sciency Things Shaw Chapter 10
April 2 Classic 19th Century Liberalism Read:  Shaw chapter 6
April 4 19th Century Philosophy: Rebellion Against Rationality, Positivism, Pragmatism, and Utilitarianism
April 9 Around the World in 80 Days Minutes (less 5) Read: Shaw, chapter 12
April 11 The Ottoman Empire [video) Due Today: Written report on a nineteenth century author and historical analysis of a short story from Selected Stories from the 19th Century. To receive full credit it must be date and time-stamped by Turnitin prior to the time class begins. In addition, bring a paper copy to class if you want feedback on your work.
April 16 Mission in the Age of Imperialism Read:  Shaw, chapter 13
April 18 Good Friday – No Classes
April 23 New Religious Movements: Mormonism, Adventism, New England Transcendentalism, etc Read: Shaw chapter 15
April 25 Art & Culture in the 19th Century
April 30 Epilogue on a Century of Thought & Action Read:   Shaw chapter 16
Final Examination Final Examination In Class

 

“When a man is busy at study, the Evil Impulse whispers to him: Why tarryest thou here.  Go and join the men who flirt with pretty women.”  – Talmud, Zohar, ii, 265b

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