Mark A. Stoler

A great course indeed.

Professor Stoler dissects the many myths that continue to perpetuate in the US. From the Pilgrims to the Information Age and everything in between, he analyzes different events and the people involved and sheds light on the actual facts in a clear and concise manner.

I have to admit, a lot of what the Professor went over I did not know. I think its best to have at least a basic knowledge of US history to get the most out of this course. However, even if I wasn't too familiar with the Great Depression for example, I learned a good amount about it and have a foothold, albeit a slippery one, on the subject. Stoler does a good job at giving a basic overview on the events.

Overall, I enjoyed this course and I plan to further my reading about US history. Highly recommended!… (mer)

This was a Great Courses series of lectures about American History. It was presented roughly chronologically, but didn't really try to provide a single cohesive stream of history, and only really covered a selection of events. I'm not really sure how it is considered other than mainstream history (maybe high school or college history classes were different in the 50s and 60s?) -- it was basically the same as I remember from 90s HS history classes, only with slightly more snark about "this is how it really was" vs. how "history is normally presented". There were a few parts which were well presented, especially how keeping Europe out of the Civil War (or bringing it in) was one of the major objectives early on, and how some specific aspects of other conflicts (especially Vietnam and how it was as much a de-colonial and nationalist thing vs. communist). But really, stuff like "Gulf of Tonkin was either a mistake or intentional escalation" is mainstream at this point, and how the US pushed its way into WW1 and WW2 rather than being innocently attacked is also pretty well understood. Yalta and how the end of WW2 worked with Stalin was well presented, and the section on "which people get remembered and why" was good, but the author was definitely on the leftist side in claiming enforcing rule of law meant the US didn't have a broadly laissez-faire economic policy in the late 1800s/early 1900s.

I'd probably pick a more structured presentation of history as a foundation, and then more insightful "non-standard" presentations of specific topics, rather than this which sort of does both and neither well.… (mer)