David Blight’s “The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877”
For anyone not familiar with the work of David Blight, you could do worse than to spend some time in the audience for his undergraduate course, recorded during the spring semester of 2008. I had some great instructors — Roger Bilstein, Maury Darst and Alex Pratt, I’m lookin’ at y’all — but none like this. If you watch the entire series, you won’t get academic credit, but you’ll sure get an education.
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877
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Great stuff, Andy. Thanks for the link. I watched/listened to the lecture at the link. Now I’ll go back and start at the beginning. If Blight is a revisionist, he’s certainly a compelling one. I never heard that Memorial Day story. Not sure I even believe it. But it’s a great tale.
You’ll enjoy them. They can be downloaded as MP3s so you can put ’em on an iPod or whatever to listen to in the car, etc.
Funny enough, the other day I downloaded some of these lectures onto my iPod for when I have to take long overseas work trips. I wasn’t sure how good they would be. Your endorsement makes me glad that I did. I now am looking forward to those long flights!
Ron
I have been through them all and it is too bad we cannot get college credit for listening. I would love to have taken the class at Yale and been part of the discussion groups outside of the lecture.
I don’t think Blight ever has to worry about whether one of his courses will “make.”