Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Assignment From Our Students: An Undergraduate View Of The Historical Profession, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

The students confidently measured the world through what they knew, and what they knew was popular culture. That culture, often electronic in one way or another, was more pervasive and powerful than anything else they had experienced, including school. The only history books most had seen were high school textbooks, books they universally detested. The students, not surprisingly, liked the idea that historical understanding arrives in many forms