Word: 10a
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Although a requirement for history concentrators as well as a Historical Studies B Core course, History 10a lacks an audience, a theoretical underpinning, and a function. The class presumes to cover well over two thousand years of Western history, scrambling to rush from archaic Greece to late antiquity in one month of lectures, the Middle Ages in another month, and the early modern period in what remains. Its only exciting aspect, that it is co-taught by three specialists, proves not to be enough: lecturers, rather than offering original arguments, simply attempt to give centuries the coverage they deserve. This...
...introductory course, History 10a is probably designed for first-year students and to help those undecided in their concentration choice. To excited college freshmen, it proves a huge disappointment. Centering on a textbook instead of original sources, it is sadly reminiscent of high school classes. It might be argued that an overview is indeed helpful since students clearly need to begin the study of history somewhere. But this optimism is an illusion. The image of the past presented in the course is so superficial that it helps students only in the most basic way and does not succeed in introducing...
...History 10a, primary sources are only a second thought, a decoration added to the textbook and lectures. Aidan E. Tait ’08, who took the course her freshman year (and who is also a Crimson editor), says that despite reading great works in History 10a, “We never managed to tie anything together or to relate the readings to the textbook or lectures at all. We never really grappled with the texts, and we never contextualized them.” Such a superficial, textbook-based narrative is not representative of the offerings of the History Department...
...course is probably the single most influential reason why undergraduates choose to concentrate in the “neighboring” fields of History and Literature or Social Studies instead of in History. Tait chose the History and Literature concentration because of her discouragement with the superficiality of History 10a...
...course is disappointingly pointless for first-year students, it is an insult to anyone else. By the time they are sophomores or juniors, students have had the chance to savor much more sophisticated courses. Atlas says, “History 10a remains one of the most disappointing classes I have taken at Harvard. I enrolled hoping for an opportunity to understand the historical foundation of the modern periods that I study, but instead found a disorganized course that watered down 2,000 years of the past into an unrecognizable mess.” Most upperclassmen also perceive that the ideals...