Abstract
The official history of United States foreign policy, published by the U.S. State Department as the “Foreign Relations of the United States” (F.R.U.S.), has profoundly changed the way that undergraduate history students are trained. The primary source documents curated in F.R.U.S. provide students with a rare view of the almost daily unfolding of the political transactions between U.S. diplomats, officials, and national leaders worldwide, supplementing the less evocative synthetic materials traditionally used in the classroom and providing students with a deeper understanding of historical events. By guiding students through the acquisition of the skill of reading such primary sources against the grain, student are able to learn the valuable skill of interrogating archival documents prior to embarking on their own research, ultimately increasing productivity in the field. Contemporary historians are blessed with the opportunity to work with the most extensive datasets available at any point in history. The challenge of reducing an enormous number of documents into comprehensible historical narratives, particularly for transnational subject matter, requires more agile research methods than in generations past. Synthesized primary source amalgams, such as F.R.U.S., offer the means to train a new generation of researchers in the methodology required to manage the ever-increasing size of data sets in the 21st century. This paper explores the pedagogical tools which can be used in the classroom to properly prepare undergraduate students to acquire the skills necessary for researchers to succeed in the age of information.
Presenters
Chris HulshofStudent, M.A. in History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Pedagogy, Undergraduate, History, Foreign, Relations, Primary, Source, Modern, Methodology
