History

Who are Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders?

There are fifteen weeks of classes at Pepperdine this semester, and today is the exact mid-point. There have been some lovely moments and experiences in my Great Books and American history classes. The following was the loveliest of all.

My history survey course includes weekly quizzes, and two weeks ago the quiz was about nineteenth-century immigration. There were questions about German and Irish immigrants, and I also threw in the following extra-credit bit about Scandinavians.

Imagine that Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders were running for the White House in the 19^th century. Which one would most Norwegian immigrants have voted for? Why?

Upon reaching the EC, one of the students looked up and asked aloud in complete innocence, “Who are Ben Carson and Bernie Sanders?”

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October 21, 2015 0

Bài giới thiệu sách về đệ nhị VNCH

BÀI GIỚI THIỆU: HỒI TƯỞNG CỦA NHỮNG NGƯỜI ĐÓNG GÓP XÂY DỰNG NỀN ĐỆ NHỊ CỘNG HÒA CỦA MIỀN NAM VIỆT NAM (1967-1975)

We have the first guest blog post, of a sort. Tuong Vu asks to post his Vietnamese translation of the introduction to the recent volume Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967-1975), and I am most happy to oblige.

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July 26, 2015 15

Dissertation acknowledgements

I returned to South Bend for dissertation defense in March 2013 and wrote the acknowledgements a week later. It’s probably the best part of the dissertation, ha! To my eternal regret, however, I completely neglected to acknowledge the office administrators at ND Department of History. A special if belated appreciation goes to Myrtle Doaks and Jeanette Torok. As they had done for many history grads over the years, they helped me with many things – and always with good cheer – during and after my years in residence. Ladies, thank you so much!

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