Author Archives: Matthew Pinsker

From US Diplomatic History, Fall 2020: A recurring theme in this chapter that I had not previously considered was the oversimplification of Stalin’s motives during the Cold War Era by the Truman administration and U.S. officials. The Truman administration seemed … Continue reading →

Louis Masur begins the final chapter of his book, The Civil War: A Concise History (2011) with a powerful opening line: “On January 11, 1865, Robert E. Lee wrote a letter that would have been unthinkable three years earlier.”  The reference is … Continue reading →

Print-makers and illustrators in the nineteenth-century could be quite creative and calculating. In fact, the banner image from this course website provides a good example of what might be called pre-photoshop photoshopping undertaken by a commercial printer in Philadelphia following Abraham Lincoln’s … Continue reading →

  Backcountry, n. –a rural area or wilderness Traditional US history textbooks typically focus on North-South sectionalism, because of the overriding importance of the Civil War.  However, students must never forget that other types of regional divisions also seemed quite powerful to American contemporaries, such … Continue reading →

The two most famous published ex-slave narratives were produced by Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington.  Students can choose to write about Douglass’s Narrative (1845) (or one of his two other subsequent autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom from 1855 or Life and Times from … Continue reading →