Anyone wishing to learn history in America today faces an almost insurmountable challenge. Modern history texts - even those intended for children - impede the reader with vast quantities of non-essential information. They abound with biased content (religious, multicultural, politicized, or otherwise subjective) while omitting, or at least deemphasizing, many of the most indispensable facts that render the story of the past intelligible. Consequently, students find themselves unable to grasp the "big picture" when it comes to human history, and thus lack the foundational awareness required to appreciate the deeper meaning and relevance of its component narratives.
The tragic result for American culture is widespread and growing historical ignorance, and even disdain for history.
An explanation of the causes of the current debacle in historical pedagogy is beyond the scope of this preface. It is enough for the reader to know that A Short History of Ancient Times is different.
This book was written in a time when historians still believed that the average educated person could and should learn the basic outline of history, and that learning that outline was a necessary step in becoming a "historically-minded" adult. To facilitate the learning process, historians wrote short, accessible narratives, whose greatest virtue was that they stripped away all the minutiae and interpretive controversies that cloud the story of the past to reveal its straightforward, causal, fundamental progression of events.
I can honestly say that I could not have grasped the basic outline of history without the help of P. V. N. Myers. I am thrilled that homeschoolers will have this resource at their disposal to help them salvage history education in America.
Scott Powell, Creator and Teacher, HistoryAtOurHouse
All text, table of contents, and index preserved (not an OCR reprint)
92 B&amp;W, 11 color illustrations and maps

A Short History of Ancient Times (HistoryAtOurHouse Series, Volume 1)

History

Philip Van Ness, Myers

Ancient Civilizations

Fingerhut Press

Anyone wishing to learn history in America today faces an almost insurmountable challenge.  Modern history texts - even those intended for children - impede the reader with vast quantities of non-essential information.  They abound with biased content while omitting, or at least deemphasizing, many of the most indispensable facts that render the story of the past intelligible.  Consequently, students find themselves unable to grasp the "big picture" when it comes to human history, and thus lack the foundational awareness required to appreciate the deeper meaning and relevance of its component narratives.The reader will be relieved to learn that D. H. Montgomery's Leading Facts of American History is different.The difference lies in the concept of "leading facts."  In the early twentieth century, historians still held to the premise that the purpose of learning history was to become "historically-minded."  This meant that one studied the past not as an end in itself, merely collecting a vast store of factual information, but rather to construct a body of abstract knowledge to inform one's choices and actions in the present.With the intention of providing a useful picture of the past, historians applied a selectivity to their writing, whereby the emphasis was placed on the facts that clarified the causal progression of events culminating in the present, i.e. the "leading facts."As the reader will learn, when one strips away the clutter of history to reveal its straightforward fundamental progression of events, history makes sense as a whole.  This is not to deny the presence of intricacies and controversies.  It is, in fact, to respect these complexities for what they are: adjuncts more appropriately pursued when one has first mastered the leading facts.Scott Powell, HistoryAtOurHouseAll text, table of contents, and index preserved (not an OCR reprint)191 B&W, 12 color illustrations and maps

The Leading Facts of American History

D.H. Montgomery

Americas

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