MIT's Visualizing Cultures: Opening Japan, Opium War

This MIT site "Visualizing Cultures," is a great resource for World History and AP World when studying imperialism. 

The site includes outstanding visual narratives on which curriculum units are based. Most of the curriculum units ask students to analyze various images. Some of the units include the rise and fall of the Canton Trade System and the First Opium War.

If you click on a unit like the Opium War, you can click on a lesson mini database, which opens up a series of images in a PDF.

I am thinking of incorporating some of these images when we cover the Opium Wars.

The Black Ships and Samurai Curriculum is really cool and includes events from both American and Japanese perspectives. One of the lessons include two letters advising the shogun on how to respond to the Americans who are trying to open Japan to the West with instructions on how to use them.

The Meiji Revolution: Excellent Clip from the Pacific Century

Here is an excellent 14-minute clip about the Meiji Revolution from the Pacific Century, the 1992 PBS 10-part documentary about the rise of the Pacific Rim.  Part two, from which the attached clip comes, is about the Meiji Revolution.

It is dated but still does a good job. It begins in 1868 when Mutsuhito became the Meiji Emperor.

Storymaps: WWI, Black Plague, Ancient Greece

Here are some great StoryMaps from Esri's GIS Systems

Their software includes story maps for over a dozen titles in World and US history, including the Age of Exploration, the First  Crusade, Ancient Greece, the Black Death, the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire, Egyptian Funerary Practices, and many more.

The story maps are engaging and include images, maps, graphs, and primary sources presented in an engaging manner like the excerpt below from the First Crusade story map.

In addition to the First Crusade,  I also looked at the Black Death, World War I, and ancient Greece, which has many maps, amazing images,  and even a video of a drone flight over the Acropolis.

Student worksheets with each story map include charts and questions for students to complete as they move through the story map. Here is a hyperdoc I made from those questions for the Black Plague. 

The Global Nature of World War I: China & Africa in the War

Here are several resources that remind us of the global nature of World War I. 

The first resources explain the role of China in the war.  

Eileen Cheng-yin Chow,  Director of the Shewo Institute of Chinese Journalism, notes in this Twitter thread that China contributed much to the war effort and outlines the untold story of over 140,000 Chinese laborers who fought on the European frontlines beside French, Russian, and British troops. The thread includes interesting links and a trailer for a movie from Yellow Earth Productions called "Forgotten" about China during the war.

 The urgent need for manpower in the war led the French to begin negotiations with the Chinese government for Chinese laborers as this essay from the Guardian notes.

The most interesting resource comes from the South China Morning Post. The story is divided into chapters and includes charts, graphs, maps, and a timeline.  

Here is a chart that shows the number of Chinese workers imported by France, Britain, and Russia.

The second resource is a podcast that reviews the participation of African colonial troops in the war and comes from historian Michelle Moyd, Associate Professor of History at Indiana University Bloomington, USA. She is also the author of Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa.

Moyd discusses African participation in the war and answers these questions:  "What motivated Africans to fight in the armies of their colonial power? How did the war change the relationships between the empires and their colonies? "

Both of these resources are excellent and some of the links should be useful in the classroom.

Russian Revolution: Short Documentary

Here is a good 33-minute documentary about the Russian Revolution.  It starts with the Revolution of 1905 and continues through Russia's withdrawal from World War 1. 

It comes from Lucas Films and is better than most I've seen over the years.

In addition, here's a great website about the Russian Revolution, called  1917, Free History,  from Yandex Publishing.  It includes diaries, letters, memoirs,  and newspapers. 

Did Reconstruction Have Elements of Genocide? " I Saw Death Coming"

Teaching Reconstruction in US History?  Here is a fascinating overview from the viewpoints of the many freed slaves who experienced it.

Kidada Williams begins her book, "I Saw Death Coming" by reviewing developments immediately after the Civil War.  Some of these important events include the passage of the 13th Amendment, the development of the Freedman's Bureau, the Southern Black Codes, sharecropping, and the Civil Rights Act.  

Despite some of the early barriers, like the Black Codes, many blacks made some progress. For example, some blacks owned small farms, while others used skills that they developed as slaves, like working as carpenters or blacksmiths. According to Williams, another sign of progress towards land ownership was the tens of thousands who opened accounts at the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company. 

Perhaps because of these gains, Williams notes in Chapter 2, whites began to halt the reconstruction of black freedom. One way these vigilantes, known as the Ku Klux Klan, did this was through night riding, which William argues was intentional, not spontaneous. 

One claim that Williams makes is that the effort to halt reconstruction had some of the hallmarks of genocide. For example, the Ku Klux Klan specifically targeted the formally enslaved. Their actions were intentional, not spontaneous, and they used propaganda to justify their actions, suggesting that blacks were always plotting to rebel against whites. 

Some of the cases of violence were horrific. According to Williams, a surgeon at a Montgomery Hospital noted that one overseer shot one woman, cut the ears off of two other women and a man, and severed another man's chin. Southern whites continued to dismiss reports of atrocities and downplay the attacks on blacks. 

While much of the violence was random, some of it was not. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, election violence became prominent. And as more blacks voted, the more prominent the violence became.

In subsequent chapters, Kidada outlines the impact of night riding on former slaves. "Strikes were unbelievable: victim's minds struggled to make sense of what was happening.  The events undid many individuals and families. And survivors faced no end of existential questions. Would they live through a raid? How could this have happened?"

Excerpts from Kidada's book might work well in the Reconstruction unit, especially the first chapter which outlines many of the developments affecting the formerly enslaved right after the Civil War.

Global Pandemics: The Plague of Athens

Studying Greece? Here's a great interactive website about the Plague of Athens that provides context for Covid 19. And here is a hyperdoc that students can use as they explore the site. 

Follow an Athenian doctor, Nikos, as he tends to the sick and dying. Those infected by the endemic faced a horrible death. Some of the symptoms included intense fever and laceration of the bowels along with diarrhea. According to the historian Thucydides, many developed “small pustules and ulcers.” 

Nikos struggles to help his patients. One asks him to help him end his life. Bound by the Hippocratic oath, Nikos is not so sure that he can comply but he understands his patient will die a painful death. 

Decide for yourself what would you have done if you were Nikos and find out what Athens looked like during this time using this multimedia website. Click on the “Chromebook Web App.” Once the website loads, click the down arrow at the bottom of your screen. 

Your students will learn about Athens just as the plague breaks out. They will learn about possible pathogens like typhus and smallpox and what the endemic did to the political stability of Athens. The plague stretched Athens to its limits. Athenians blamed the gods, and ostracized leaders like Themistocles and Alcibiades, the most popular citizen after Socrates' death.

The Haitian Revolution: Understanding Liberte and Equality

Here are some excellent ideas for teaching the Haitian Revolution from Professor Julia Gaffield, author of Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution.

In the short video clip below, Professor Gaffield explains how different stakeholders in revolutionary Haiti understood equality and liberty. 

In addition to the video,  you can explore Professor Gaffield's website,  Haiti and the Atlantic World here. It includes links to both primary and secondary sources.

And here's a link to a terrific essay about Jean-Jacques Dessalines in The Conversation called Meet Haiti’s Founding Father, whose black revolution was too radical for Thomas Jefferson. Professor

Were all slaves illiterate? Not necessarily

Here's an interesting story from the PBS NewsHour about a Muslim slave from West Africa who was kidnapped and brought to Ameria in the 1800s.

The slave, Omar Ibn Said, wrote his autobiography in Arabic so it could not be edited or censored by masters or even abolitionists.

Said begins his autobiography with a quote from the Quran that says only God has true possession of human beings.

It's an interesting story because it dispels the idea that slaves were illiterate or incapable of culture.

The Library of Congress digitized the autobiography. 

It also has a link to a podcast called the Long Journey of Omar Ibn Said and a video about the preservation of Said's manuscript.

Finally, you can read a blog post about how to use the manuscript in the classroom.

Nationalism Explained

Here is one of my favorite clips to show students when discussing revolutions.

Max Fisher explains the origins of national identity in this excellent five-minute clip for the New York Times. He notes that the idea of a national identity is relatively new.

Just before the French Revolution, for example,  France was not really a nation. Half the people could not even speak French.  Ethnicity did not line up with borders either.

Over time, the idea that language race, and borders should equal a country developed.  And then nations began to create myths to suggest that their nation always existed.

Check it out. This short clip might help students understand the importance of nationalism.

TheTaiping Rebellion: The Bloodiest Civil War in History (video clip)

Why was the Taiping Rebellion a turning point in Chinese Civilization?

Scholar Rana Mitter describes the rebellion for Facing History. He notes that it was probably the single most bloody civil war in history and perhaps one of the most bizarre because it involved a figure who claimed to the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

The French Revolution: Senseless Violence?

Teaching the French Revolution?  Was it just ten years of senseless killing?

That's what columnist Peggy Noonan suggested in an essay for the Wall Street Journal.

Two historians, Mike Duncan, a revolutionary history podcaster, and David A. Bell, a history professor at Princeton, took Noonan to task on Twitter for not knowing her history.

Both historians suggest that the revolution, while horrifically violent,  made significant contributions to the world.

Here are PDFs of Duncan's and Bell's Twitter threads about Noonan's essay.

Bell reminds us of the development of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the abolition of slavery throughout the empire, the abolishment of the noble class, and the right to vote for adult men. And Professor Duncan analyzes every sentence in Noonan's essay.

Sites of Encounter- The Medieval World

One of my favorite sites for teaching medieval cities like Mali, Calicut, and Quanzhou is called  Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World.  It comes from The University of California at Davis and includes lessons with primary sources, maps, charts, and graphs.

The lesson on Calicut, for example, explores the importance of the spice trade in food and medicine and even includes medieval recipes.

A lesson about the monsoon winds in India includes a chart of monsoon sailing dates between 1480 and 1500. Students analyze the chart and figure out the best times for sailors to travel from Hormuz to Calicut or how long you would have to wait before you could sail to Malacca?

The website also includes a terrific interactive map showing the spread of religion, trade routes, states, the Black Plague, and Ibn Battuta's voyages. Take a look at the trade map below.

Islamic Art & Culture: Terrific Twitter Threads

Here are some fascinating Islamic art and architecture threads from the Arabic Art House Bayt Al Fann.

They include threads about Islamic calligraphy, Islamic gardens, unique mosques in Africa, the dome interiors of mosques worldwide, and the use of geometric patterns in Islamic art.

These threads, which I have saved as pdfs, could work well in a unit on Islam in World History.  Groups might work on one of the topics, create a short Google slide show, and then present.

• Arabic Calligraphy
• Islamic Gardens
• Geometric patterns and Islamic art
• 20 Famous and Unique Mosques in Africa
• 24 Dome Interiors in Mosques Across the World

Should we throw out everything we’ve learned about the Silk Roads?

Should we throw out everything we’ve learned about the Silk Roads? 

 The writer William Dalrymple thinks that we should in this fascinating essay for the Guardian titled "The Silk Road still casts a spell, but was the ancient trading route just a Western invention?"  He notes that the term “silk road” was a Western invention popularized by a Prussian geographer in 1877 and did not appear in English until 1938. 

Since then, Dalrymple says, “the term has captured the global imagination.” Indeed, we now teach the Silk Road as an east-west exchange over which goods like silk traveled from China to Rome. 

But, according to Dalrymple, silk was “never the main commodity imported to the west from the East.” Goods from China reached Rome through India. 

 “The best place to buy silks,” argues Dalrymple, “are the ports of Gujarat, where much of the silk that reached the west was manufactured.  If China and the west ever came face to face, they did so here in the quays, ports and bazaars of coastal India.”

Should we change how we teach the Silk Roads?
 

New Ways to Teach about Revolutions

Here is a fantastic resource for your revolutions unit called "Age of Revolutions."

It is an open-access academic journal with essays, roundtables, and book reviews.

In an ongoing series called "Teaching Revolutions,"  you can read essays that offer new ways to frame the way you teach revolutions.  

In "Finding Genres of Revolution in the Classroom," Aaron R. Hanlon, a professor at Colby College, attempts to get students to "mute the tendency to conceive of all revolution within a liberal framework."   He suggests one way to do that with a comparative exercise in which students compare the US and Haitian declarations of independence.  He notes that "students were able to trace common rhetorical strategies—an appeal to “citizens”; an exposition of grievances—but also to identify tonal differences that reflect the different stakes for US mandarins versus enslaved Haitians."

In another essay called "You Can't Teach the age of Revolutions without the Black Intellectual Tradition, Robert D. Taber, assistant professor of government and history at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina,  suggests new ways to think about "resistance and the politics of the enslaved" and reminds us that "a core piece of these revolutions was the way enslaved people pushed for their manumission and emancipation, individually and collectively." 

The website includes a section of new books about revolutions. These reviews are a good way for us teachers to learn about new research and even some revolutions we do not teach in AP World.

For example,  Elena A. Schneider, author of "The Occupation of Havana War, Trade, and Slavery in the Atlantic World" and a professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley introduces her book about the struggles of black soldiers in Havana during the imperial wars. 

Another example includes book recommendations about the history of slavery. 

Here three historians offer book suggestions for educating ourselves about the history of slavery. These books include: 

• "Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage," 
• "The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution" 
• There is A River: The Black Struggle For Freedom in America 

The Age of Revolutions Website also includes sections with links to resources for specific revolutions such as the American, French, and Haitian revolutions.

Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade: Lesson Ideas

Here is a terrific site that features biographical stories of specific slaves, slave owners, and traders. It comes from the same people who created the "Slave Biographies: The Atlantic Database Network."

You can read dozens of short sketches about specific slaves like Felisberta who was born in 1820 in Central West Africa. She was a household slave and wet nurse who served a wealthy family in Southeastern Brazil. Readers learn about the work of a wet nurse. 

The majority of materials on child care during the Brazilian Empire recommended the exclusive care of one wet nurse to protect the health of the baby. The child’s parents were to guarantee that the wet nurse maintain proper eating and sleeping habits to safeguard the future health and character of their children.

The sketches are short and ideal for a jigsaw activity.

In addition to stories about specific slaves, you can read about specific events like the Simón Voyage.  The link will take you to the Atlantic slave database where you will learn that the voyage left Portugal for Cartagena in 1600 with 255 slaves.

Finally, you can explore some of the sample lessons by clicking the dashboard link called "Learn." In one lesson,  students read about the lives of "two enslaved women named Celia--one who lived in Florida and the other who lived in Missouri." 

In another lesson, students create an interactive timeline of the key events in the life of an emancipated slave named Albina "who challenged her illegal re-enslavement in nineteenth-century Brazil."

Cairo in 1321: Coptic Christians and Mamluk Muslims

 

 What was life like in Cairo in 1321?  

Coptic Christians and Mamluk Muslims did not get along. 

In fact, in 1321 violence broke out and spread throughout the city.  According to this fascinating essay on the Medievalistsnet website written by Peter Konieczny,  "over a couple of weeks, eleven Christian churches would be damaged or destroyed in Cairo, and another 49 in other parts of the country."

Violence continued and grew.  Some of it had to do with anger over the Crusades and the belief that Coptic Christians supported them. 

In addition, many jobs in Cario seemed to go to Christians at the expense of poorer Muslims. Konieczny compares this to the way Jews were treated by Christians in parts of Medieval Europe.

In an engaging and fascinating embedded 17-minute video, Princeton Professor, Marina Rostow, explains how people lived in medieval Cairo. One interesting occupation was the carving of rock crystal, which is a kind of quartz valued for its transparency.  Shopkeepers who dealt in rock crystals learned the trade at a very young age and had to pay traders to get the crystal. They had to travel to mines in Africa or East Asia, which was no easy feat in 1321.

The second half of the video clip is fascinating. Professor Rostow explains that she is a social historian and looks at history from below. She also questions the term medieval. "Are we forgetting," she says, "that the bloodiest century was the 20th century?"  She notes that 

only in the 20th century have states employed industrial violence in the service of coercion. Neither medieval Europe nor the medieval Middle East  produced anything close to a totalitarian regime

Bantu Migrations: Resources

Here are three good clips about the early Bantu migrations, and a terrific site about iron in Africa.

One video clip comes from Masaman, who produces educational videos on his YouTube channel. He does a good job of explaining the groups of people who lived in Africa before the Bantu migrations and the changes the Bantus brought, especially regarding language.

Khan Academy produced the second clip. The first four minutes of this clip clearly explain the causes and effects of the migrations. The second four minutes review the Polynesian migrations.

A third clip comes from Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond notes that words in many African languages sound remarkably similar because of a common root.  They all come from the Bantu, who originated in West Africa and spread throughout tropical Africa about 5000 years ago.

Finally, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel has a fascinating site about iron in Africa (thanks to Eri Beckman for the link)

It reviews four main points about iron smelting.

• Smelting happened all over the place in many cultures. The iron produced was mostly used for everyday items, farming implements, ritual things, and for (simple) weapons.
• The level of sophistication was shallow and far below of what is needed to produce for example a pattern-welded sword, a wootz blade or a Japanese katana.
• It is difficult to find examples of early African iron. Almost all pictures found on the net relate to commercial items, either without a date or the 19th / 20th century. Items in museums are often not dated either or from more recent times.

AI: Another Big Adjustment for Educators

Edsurge just published a new story by Jeffery R. Young about new features of AI that will require educators to make even more adjustments.

First,  Open AI is making its latest generation of Chatbot free to anyone.

Second,  new tools make it easier for students to skip notetaking in class. For example, one tool allows students to simply record a teacher's lecture. In a viral Tik Tok titled “Why I stopped taking notes during class,” a young woman explains that all she has to do is open up the AI tool and click record.

“The software will automatically use your recording to make notes, flashcards and quiz questions,”