Video Essay: Hitler Lives! (Cornell Notes practice exercise -- Take Cornell Notes on this brief 17 minute Academy Award-winning documentary and compose a one page evaluative essay on why the title describes the content of the film).
Video Essay: Bridging World History -- Maps, Time and World History (1 page essay)
World history is a way of seeing the world — a worldview. It asks us to look for global patterns as we consider what has drawn humanity together. It also asks us to ponder what accounts for human difference through time. World history offers a way of grasping the Big Picture — seeing the history of the world not as separate elements but as an integrated whole.
In order to capture both the diversity and similarities of human experience, world history draws on case studies. These studies illustrate how people have faced global challenges in interacting with each other and the environment. Because of the breadth of world history, decisions must be made about organization and selection. By taking a thematic approach, by paying attention to space, scale, and time, and by using appropriate units of analysis, world history can be made meaningful in many ways to many people.
Video Essay: The Renaissance (1 page essay)
Describe why the term Renaissance, literally means "rebirth" in French and is the period in European civilization immediately following the Middle Ages, conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest in classical learning and values from ancient Greece and Rome.
The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said that "Man is the measure of all things." This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature. Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of metal movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniformly experienced across Europe. The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents, the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerful innovations as paper, printing, the mariner's compass, and gunpowder. To the scholars and thinkers of the day, however, it was primarily a time of the revival of classical learning and wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation.
Filippo Brunelleschi was an Italian designer and a key figure in architecture, recognized to be the first modern engineer, planner and sole construction supervisor. He was the oldest among the founding fathers of the Renaissance. He is generally well known for developing a technique for linear perspective in art and for building the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Florence Cathedral. Heavily depending on mirrors and geometry, to "reinforce Christian spiritual 'reality'", his formulation of linear perspective governed pictorial depiction of space until the late 19th century. It also had the most profound – and quite unanticipated – influence on the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering, and ship design. His principal surviving works are to be found in Florence, Italy. His great rival was Lorenzo Ghiberti.
The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance -- Documentary Series
Video Essay: The Renaissance and the Age of Discovery (1 page essay)
Describe how Renaissance humanists made "man the measure of all things" because Europe was possessed by a new passion for knowledge.
Video Essay: Michelangelo (1 page essay)
Deeply religious in spirit and profoundly secular in the glorification of the human form, Michelangelo's masterpieces remain unequaled -- the Pieta, the Sistine Chapel ceilings, the statute of David. From his powerfully sublime Creation of Adam to the tormented agonies of the Last Judgment, he expresses the entire experience of the human condition. Michelangelo was caught between the conflicting powers and whims of two important patrons: the Medici family in Florence and the Papacy in Rome. Describe this world-significant artist and his struggle between his patrons.
Video Essay: Leonardo da Vinci (1 page essay)
Describe the life and amazing achievements of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest geniuses, inventors, and scientists of all time.
Video Essay: The Renaissance and the New World (1 page essay)
Analyze migration, settlement patterns, and cultural diffusion caused by the competition for resources among European nations during the Age of Exploration including the impact of the Columbian Exchange and the Atlantic slave trade.
Video Essay: Bridging World History: History and Memory (1 page essay)
How are history and memory different? Topics in this presentation range from the celebration of Columbus Day to the demolition of a Korean museum to the historical re-interpretation of Mayan civilization, exploring the ways historians, nations, families, and individuals capture, exploit, and know the past, and the dynamic nature of historical practice and knowledge.
Video Essay: Christopher Columbus (1 page essay)
Describe the significance to world history of the four voyages of Christopher Columbus to the New World.
Video Essay: The Battle for the Bible (1 page essay)
In the 14th century, the Roman Catholic Church was Western Europe's undisputed religious authority; and its central rituals -- the Mass and Communion -- the only legitimate pathway to salvation. The pope and the clergy held enormous power, and secular authorities looked to the Church for legitimization. Key to the Church's power was the fact that its rituals were conducted in Latin, a language inaccessible to the uneducated faithful. The public was completely dependent on the priesthood for access to salvation -- only through mysterious rituals conducted in an unfamiliar tongue could they conduct their spiritual lives. The program focuses upon four men: John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, and Thomas Cranmer. Examine how the translation of the Bible into the vernacular -- the language of everyday people -- was a key element in the series of reforms within the Catholic Church that eventually resulted in what we know as the Protestant Reformation.
Video Essay: The Reformation (1 page essay)
Summarize how the theological movements during the Reformation transformed society by comparing the impact of the ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin.
The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition -- Documentary (1 page essay)
In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church launched the Counter-Reformation (or Catholic Reformation). This included the founding of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) by Ignatius Loyola and the use of inquisitions against persons deemed heretics or enemies of the Church. Analyze how certain myths and deliberate falsifications concerning the Spanish Inquisition have come down through the centuries as factual assertions concerning its brutal character and climate of intolerance or repression. This is known as "the Black Legend."
Martin Luther: Reluctant Revolutionary -- Documentary ( 4 page special essay)
Special Video Review Essay Assignment: Compose a four page essay comparing and contrasting the characters and personalities of Sir Thomas More (as portrayed in A Man for All Seasons) and Martin Luther (as portrayed in Martin Luther, Reluctant Revolutionary) and how they impacted their time and ours.
Both films are available on my MHS teacher webpage. This essay assignment is worth 200 points.
Sir Thomas More and Martin Luther were two men of great religious faith and principled beliefs.
By nailing his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Church door protesting the Roman Catholic Church's practice of issuing papal indulgences on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation. This act had tremendous consequences for world history - religious, social, economic, and political. It divided the previous united Christendom of Europe into two major divisions: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Sir Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councilor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 16, 1532. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Church of England and refusing to acknowledge Henry's annulment from Catherine of Aragon. Tried for treason for not taking the Oath of Supremacy, More was convicted and beheaded.
A Man for All Seasons -- Feature Film Concerning Sir Thomas More (4 page special essay)
Special Video Review Essay Assignment: Compose a four page essay comparing and contrasting the characters and personalities of Sir Thomas More (as portrayed in A Man for All Seasons) and Martin Luther (as portrayed in Martin Luther, Reluctant Revolutionary) and how they impacted their time and ours.
Both films are available on my MHS teacher webpage. This essay assignment is worth 200 points.
Sir Thomas More and Martin Luther were two men of great religious faith and principled beliefs.
By nailing his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Church door protesting the Roman Catholic Church's practice of issuing papal indulgences on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation. This act had tremendous consequences for world history - religious, social, economic, and political. It divided the previous united Christendom of Europe into two major divisions: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Sir Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councilor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 16, 1532. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Church of England and refusing to acknowledge Henry's annulment from Catherine of Aragon. Tried for treason for not taking the Oath of Supremacy, More was convicted and beheaded.
The Wars of Religion -- Documentary (1 page essay)
English Civil War: Blood On Our Hands -- Documentary
English Civil War: Oliver Cromwell -- Documentary
English Civil War: The Trial of The King Killers -- Documentary
The Levelers
There was one group of heroic figures discussed briefly in these three films on the English Civil War which needs further clarification, the Levelers. They were the first organized political group calling for a written constitutional government established for all persons (“The Agreement of the People”), equality of all persons under the rule of law, freedom of speech, private property rights and self-ownership (“self-propriety”), and religious toleration.
Forged in opposition to the tyrannical Stuart monarchs and subsequent usurpation of English liberties under Oliver Cromwell’s flawed Commonwealth, such forgotten heroes as Levelers Richard Overton and John Lilburne provided a decisive intellectual impact upon John Locke and Algernon Sidney, who along with John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon (the authors of Cato’s Letters), were perhaps the most important influences upon our Founding Fathers.
Two must-read books are by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and The Origins of American Politics. These seminal books changed forever the way historians view our American Revolution and how our deepest, most sacred political beliefs came about.
Here are two detailed scholarly articles that further discuss our deep political roots going back to the Levelers:
“‘Come What, Come Will!’ Richard Overton, Libertarian Leveler,” by Carl Watner
“The Growth of Libertarian Thought in Colonial America,” by Murray N. Rothbard