Bøker av Wilfred M. McClay

We have a glut of text and trade books on American history. But what we don't have is a compact, inexpensive, authoritative, and compulsively readable book that will offer to intelligent young Americans a coherent, persuasive, and inspiring narrative of their own country. Such an account will shape and deepen their sense of the land they inhabit, and by making them understand that land's roots, will equip them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in American society, and provide them with a vivid and enduring sense of membership in one of the greatest enterprises in human history: the exciting, perilous, and immensely consequential story of their own country. The existing texts simply fail to tell that story with energy and conviction. They are more likely to reflect the skeptical outlook of specialized professional academic historians, an outlook that supports a fragmented and fractured view of modern American society, and that fails to convey to young people the greater arc of that history. Or they reflect the outlook of radical critics of American society, who seek to debunk the standard American narrative, and has an enormous, and largely negative, effect upon the teaching of American history in American high schools and colleges. This state of affairs cannot continue for long without producing serious consequences. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative, as an expression of its own self-understanding: and it needs to convey that narrative to its young effectively. It perhaps goes without saying that such a narrative cannot be a fairy tale or a whitewash of the past; it will not be convincing if it is not truthful. But there is no necessary contradiction between an honest account and an inspiring one. This account seeks to provide both.

The volume before you arose out of a series of conferences and programs under the banner Restoring the American Story, directed primarily at educators working in both Jewish and non-Jewish school settings and educational nonprofits, and addressing itself to the various ways that the American tradition and the Jewish tradition are intertwined, and speak in strikingly similar and mutually supportive ways to some of the most fundamental human concerns--concerns that are foundational to what we call Western Civilization. Much of the book consists of papers and presentations arising out of these programs, particularly a conference held at Yeshiva University in spring of 2023, convened by the two editors of this volume, and attended by a lively group of teachers and other educators from around the country. We are grateful for the generous support of Mitch Julis, Elie Gindi, and the Jack Miller Center in these efforts. Other contributions have been added, and in some cases solicited for this volume, as the editors discerned gaps and potential points of interest and illumination.

The Student Workbook is intended to be used with the Teacher's Guide. Both provide chapter summaries which teachers may use in teaching students to read for the main idea. The Student Workbook contains reading questions for each chapter of the LAND OF HOPE text; the Teacher's Guide has the same questions with answers. Primary documents accompany each chapter, broken into shorter segments to help with reading comprehension. These documents also have reading questions; the Teacher's Guide provides the answers. Documents are often the text of speeches, but may include diary entries and song lyrics. There are about two dozen map exercises; the Teacher's Guide has the keys. There are synthetical essay questions for each chapter and for final exams. Learning strategies and study "tricks" are also given. The purpose of the Student Workbook is to assist students in working through the LAND OF HOPE text with a close reading, and also to add some depth through the supplementary documents. The map exercises are "hands-on" and should help students master the crucially important geographic knowledge that the subject requires.