Welcome to my website for students of history.
While the primary beneficiaries of this site are those enrolled in my classes at Houston Community College and the University of Houston, all are welcome. On this website you will find syllabi, course reviews, and contact information. In the days and weeks ahead, more information, such as power point presentations from the lectures will be available. Browse around and have fun, and remember to use the tools available to you. In the end, you are responsible for your grade - I am just a scorekeeper.
What is History? A class you have to take? Something you have to reduce to memorizable facts so you can spit them out come exam time?
- Napoleon Bonaparte - "History is a fable agreed upon."
- George Santayana (Spanish-American philosopher) - "History is a pack of lies, about events that never happened, told by people who weren't there"
- Henry Ford - "History is bunk"
I think history is a little bit different, but these definitions all get at an essential truth - history is sometimes fable, sometimes it is a pack of lies, bunk, written by people who weren't there - but it's all written by humans, with all of their baggage, and preconceived notions and biases. These biases however are only problematic when they get in the way of what the evidence tells you. Evidence binds historians and they create an interpretation and analysis based on their own predispositions - but do not confuse this with a reliance on feeling, emotion, intuition, or assumption. Historians must analyze and explain what they find, so there is a human element to history, there simply is no way around it. But evidence, facts, and interpretations based on evidence and fact rule in history.