Studying U.S. History

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Studying U.S. History

Post by Diocletian »

What are the best sources for studying U.S. history and/or finding subjects to write tossups about it?
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by BGSO »

Stanford archive/quizbowlpackets.com .Also, your APUSH textbook is about all you need other than old questions.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by JackGlerum »

As someone who doesn't know a lot of history, I use a SAT II textbook. Though I'd only use that if you are writing for high school.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

I like using SAT II books, AP books, my old textbooks, and somewhat more specific works I have. For example, I have a large reference work on the Civil War. The first 2 of those are really only suitable for high school, but my textbook goes a little bit farther. Lots of libraries also have encyclopedias of American History. Those are valuable, but, since they are not available to be checked out, generally, somewhat difficult to use, because I do most of my writing and studying at home.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Stat Boy »

I like reading books.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox »

BGSO wrote:Also, your APUSH textbook is about all you need other than old questions.
APUSH is the only reason I know anything that ever happened in America ever. It is the best class for this, so if you can get your hands on The American Pageant, you'll be very well off for US history.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by intothenegs »

Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox wrote: The American Pageant
This.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by cdcarter »

intothenegs wrote:
Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox wrote: The American Pageant
This.
...is probably the worst text book for APUSH imaginable.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by intothenegs »

cdcarter wrote:
intothenegs wrote:
Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox wrote: The American Pageant
This.
...is probably the worst text book for APUSH imaginable.
I don't exactly agree. I suppose I can't really judge US history textbooks because I've read very few of them (just this and a bit of stuff by Zinn), but I think it covers US history pretty thoroughly. And it is undoubtedly more useful than a SAT II prep book for US History.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by sam.peterson »

cdcarter wrote:
intothenegs wrote:
Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox wrote: The American Pageant
This.
...is probably the worst text book for APUSH imaginable.
I don't think so.... Humorous similes aside, The American Pageant is excellent for getting a basic grasp of the high school US history canon. It's excellent for quizbowl, and was my favorite textbook so far. An AP/SAT review book can teach you a fair number of terms in a short amount of time, but the depth of the knowledge there is fairly week. While The American Pageant is certainly not an exhaustive reference, I've been able to get a lot of early buzzes because of knowledge gained from that book.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by dtaylor4 »

sam.peterson wrote:I don't think so.... Humorous similes aside, The American Pageant is excellent for getting a basic grasp of the high school US history canon. It's excellent for quizbowl, and was my favorite textbook so far. An AP/SAT review book can teach you a fair number of terms in a short amount of time, but the depth of the knowledge there is fairly week. While The American Pageant is certainly not an exhaustive reference, I've been able to get a lot of early buzzes because of knowledge gained from that book.
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. When I took APUSH, we used American Pageant, and I learned a lot, both for the test and for quizbowl.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

Textbooks tend to have just masses of useless stuff in them, while review books tend to be more stripped down. Maybe this is just a personal preference, but I really don't need to know what life was like in Miami in the 1990s (The Enduring Vision taught me all about that). I'm just not a big fan of history textbooks in general. Also, Adam is completely right. If you read a lot of books, you'll get exponentially more questions than if you just use textbooks.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by cdcarter »

sam.peterson wrote:
cdcarter wrote:
intothenegs wrote:
Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox wrote: The American Pageant
This.
...is probably the worst text book for APUSH imaginable.
I don't think so.... Humorous similes aside, The American Pageant is excellent for getting a basic grasp of the high school US history canon. It's excellent for quizbowl, and was my favorite textbook so far. An AP/SAT review book can teach you a fair number of terms in a short amount of time, but the depth of the knowledge there is fairly week. While The American Pageant is certainly not an exhaustive reference, I've been able to get a lot of early buzzes because of knowledge gained from that book.
I am not saying that the American Pageant doesn't have more information about US history in it than a prep book, or that you can't learn from it, I am saying that, of the textbooks out there that are marketed for APUSH, the American Pageant is one of the worst.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by setht »

Diocletian wrote:What are the best sources for studying U.S. history and/or finding subjects to write tossups about it?
Johnny Horton songs and 19th-century quicksteps.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Ondes Martenot »

If you read a lot of books, you'll get exponentially more questions than if you just use textbooks.
Read 1776 and other really good books by David McCullough. Reading AP books sounds extremely boring. Find topics you think are interesting/you want to improve in and write questions
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by OctagonJoe »

The books by Jeff and Michael Shaara have helped me considerably in getting questions on John Dickinson and the Civil War, so I would recommend them for getting a good feel of whatever time period. I wouldn't recommend writing questions on them or out of them, though.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

David McCullough is really good. I'm not just saying that because he graduated from my school. Otherwise, that massive 3 part Shelby Foote Civil War series is pretty good. I can't say I've actually made it through all of the books, but I read about half of the first one, and it was very helpful.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Kanga-Rat Murder Society »

la2pgh wrote:David McCullough is really good. I'm not just saying that because he graduated from my school. Otherwise, that massive 3 part Shelby Foote Civil War series is pretty good. I can't say I've actually made it through all of the books, but I read about half of the first one, and it was very helpful.
David McCullough is a great author and historian, but is probably not a very good way to study for quizbowl. The best way to learn for quizbowl would be through APUSH. Our school has a great APUSH program (we average about 4.5 with 100 students taking it), and I believe that 95% of toss-ups on U.S. History were covered in our class. If you take good notes while taking the class, you should never read an actual textbook to study U.S. History for quizbowl.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

If you want to be a sick history player, you won't get what you need from high school courses. You'll have to do extensive outside reading. McCullough is good for that.

If you have no base of US history knowledge, then taking APs or SAT IIs, or just reading their books is helpful. If you have a strong base, then you'll have to find deeper, more specific resources. For example, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is one of the finest resources for anything American Indian. It is a fantastic book, too. I find that good historical fiction is useful. It is, however, necessary to take everything in those books with a grain of salt, because the line between fiction and fact is often blurry.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

I'm not familiar with any of the high school textbooks being mentioned in this thread, but I would be suspicious of any modern textbook as a source for learning quizbowl history. Modern history as taught in schools tends to focus on social history, while quizbowl history is much more about dead white guys, political history, and battles.

I would recommend going to a used book store and finding older books about US History (from before the 60's, preferably). These will be in the "great man" style that I think is most useful for quizbowl.

I also specifically recommend this book. Reading it in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school is what sparked my love affair with 19th century American history.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by BuzzerZen »

Whig's Boson wrote:I'm not familiar with any of the high school textbooks being mentioned in this thread, but I would be suspicious of any modern textbook as a source for learning quizbowl history. Modern history as taught in schools tends to focus on social history, while quizbowl history is much more about dead white guys, political history, and battles.

I would recommend going to a used book store and finding older books about US History (from before the 60's, preferably). These will be in the "great man" style that I think is most useful for quizbowl.
Impressionable young folks should note that Bruce's opinions about history in quiz bowl, while influential, are not universal.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by harpersferry »

Lies My Teacher Told Me wrote:The American Pageant characterizes [John] Brown as "degranged," gaunt," "grim," "terrible," "crackbrained," "probably of unsound mind," and says that "thirteen of his near relatives were rearded as insane, including his mother and grandmother.
The American Pageant wrote: "a man of vision, energy, resourcefulness, and courage


They're talking about Columbus, the guy who exterminated natives and took hundreds of slaves.

Just sayin'
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by dbarman »

American Pageant doesn't go into too much details in it's treatment of subjects. However, it does give a good overview of US History. So I would say it's a good starting point though to be a good history player, you need to read stuff that focuses on certain people or time periods
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

Irving Alva Edison Hobophone Inventor wrote:
The American Pageant wrote: "a man of vision, energy, resourcefulness, and courage


They're talking about Columbus, the guy who exterminated natives and took hundreds of slaves.

Just sayin'
I don't see how this is objectionable. None of those adjectives are fallacious. Columbus was, if nothing else, brave and resourceful. If they included an adjective like "tolerant" or something to that effect, then, and only then, would this description be worthy of criticism.

EDIT: i can has adjectives?
Last edited by Terrible Shorts Depot on Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

la2pgh wrote:
Irving Alva Edison Hobophone Inventor wrote:
The American Pageant wrote: "a man of vision, energy, resourcefulness, and courage


They're talking about Columbus, the guy who exterminated natives and took hundreds of slaves.

Just sayin'
I don't see how this is objectionable. None of those adjectives are fallacious. Columbus was, if nothing else, brave and resourceful. If they included an adjective like "tolerance" or something to that effect, then, and only then, would this description be worthy of criticism.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

la2pgh wrote:If they included an adjective like "tolerance" or something to that effect, then, and only then, would this description be worthy of criticism.
Well considering that "tolerance" is not an adjective... eh, nevermind.
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Re: Studying U.S. History

Post by Sonic the Hedgehog and the Fox »

cdcarter wrote:I am not saying that the American Pageant doesn't have more information about US history in it than a prep book, or that you can't learn from it, I am saying that, of the textbooks out there that are marketed for APUSH, the American Pageant is one of the worst.
I only put it forward because I thought it was an alright book, and it was, of course, the book we used. Between that, my local PBS station, Oregon Trail, and the long rants of the elders of my family, I learned both for the exam and for quizbowl.

All things considered: Oregon Trail is the best resource for US History.
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