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During our short break, have a look at these summer-related posts. Tuesday, September 18, 2012 The Battle of Antietam and War Photography Heather Cox Richardson One hundred and fifty years ago this weekend, 75,000 Union and about 38,000 Confederate troops massed near Sharpsburg, Maryland. One hundred and fifty years ago on Monday morning, a clear fall day, September 17, 1862, the two armies engaged. The ensuing battle of Antietam remains the bloodiest one-day battle in American history. >>> Tuesday, August 16, 2011 School’s Back From Summer: Blogging about Teaching Edward J. Blum Well, it’s about that time, that delightful and dreadful moment when classes begin again. Unless you are privileged to have a sabbatical or be on fellowship (cough, cough, Matt Sutton you lucky duck, cough, cough), the end of August is when the kids come back and time flies away. Alas, school’s back from summer! >>> Thursday, July 7, 2011 Summer Fiction Reading Randall Stephens Have you notic...

Heather Cox Richardson As the school year winds to a close, incoming graduate students have been asking me what they should read to prepare for the fall. That question has an obvious answer, and the answer brings up what strikes me as an oddity in the way we handle graduate education in history. Boston Public Library. Photo by Randall Stephens. It has always seemed to me bizarre that we treat graduate education as if it has little connection to undergraduate studies. A brilliant undergrad will understand facts, argument, and, with luck, historiography, as well as how to write. But one of the first things that brilliant undergrad will do in graduate school is to take a seminar in historical theory, where s/he’s supposed to converse intelligently about historical theories of which s/he has never heard. First year grad students are lost and frightened. (Except for that One Guy who throws around Foucault's name like they're long-time tennis partners.) My antidote to tha...