TELEVISION

Skeptic's Guide to American History

Series: Skeptic's Guide to American History
4.7
(25)
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Episodes
24
Rating
TVPG
Year
2012
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

Sorting through misconceptions, myths, and half-truths about America's past is a chance to revisit some of the country's greatest episodes, figures, and themes from a fresh perspective and an opportunity to hone the way you think about and interpret the past, the present, and even the future. This course examines many commonly held myths and half-truths about American history.

Related Subjects

Episodes

1. Religious Toleration in Colonial America?

31m

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Learn the key elements of a broadened approach to the study of history with this fast-moving examination of the origins of religious and racial tolerance in America. Grasp how the assumptions you've long held can differ dramatically from historical reality.

2. Neither American nor Revolutionary?

30m

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Continue this new approach to understanding history with a look at efforts of the colonists to defend their "rights as Englishmen" and the ironic role played by European tyrannies in helping establish the nation that would forever change the definition of liberty.

3. The Constitution Did Not Create a Democracy

32m

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Gain a nuanced understanding of what the Founders' "original intent" really was and how so many of the questions they grappled with divided them for their entire lives - ultimately being bequeathed to their successors and persisting even to this day.

4. Washington - Failures and Real Accomplishments

28m

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Set aside the hagiography that helped shape George Washington's image and undertake a balanced examination that measures his military and presidential failings against his numerous successes. See how some of the least known of those successes may have been his most important contributions to American history.

5. Confusions about Jefferson and Hamilton

29m

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Jefferson and Hamilton held sharply differing views on policy and constitutional interpretation. Learn how their conflict - often thought of in terms of our contemporary understanding of liberalism and conservatism - is actually relevant to us in very different ways from those we imagine.

6. Andrew Jackson - An Odd Symbol of Democracy

31m

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Andrew Jackson's election ushered in an era marked by much democratic reform. Ironically, as you'll learn, the man who would be seen as the symbol of such reform actually opposed much of it and championed many policies that few today would call democratic.

7. The Second Great Awakening - Enduring Impacts

29m

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Grasp how the links between religion and politics that today inspire such powerful positive and negative emotions are nothing new. See how issues born out of the 19th-century's evangelical upheaval - from prison reform to women's suffrage - still engage us today.

8. Did Slavery Really Cause the Civil War?

30m

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By analyzing this question and the different answers posed by generations of historians, you begin to understand "historiography" - the study of the writing of history - and take a key step in your understanding of history itself.

9. The Civil War's Actual Turning Points

29m

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Discover how perceptions of Gettysburg as the Civil War's "turning point" are inaccurate. Here, examine three battles that were arguably more important and gain new insights into what determines - in any war - how meaningful a battle really was.

10. The Myth of Laissez-Faire

29m

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The great age of post - Civil War industrialization and the enormous levels of national and personal wealth it generated (for some) have often been attributed to a governmental attitude of "hands-off" toward business. Discover that such an attitude did not exist in the United States and that, in fact, it never had.

Extended Details

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