An Education in History and Memory: The Civil War and Historical Consciousness

This book examines the role of education as a space where young people can confront difficult histories that challenge dominant social narratives, exploring the relationship between historical memory, sensemaking, and civic judgment. Addressing the profound economic, environmental, and social change that has confounded our sense-making capacity in recent times, it explores several cases in which difficult histories and historical consciousness are salient and puts these in dialogue with philosophical frameworks. These multiple, contemporary examples include the current culture-war battle over K-12 school history curricula, the impact of nationalism on historical consciousness, the complicated nature of U.S. Civil War memory, and the struggle over Confederate monuments in Richmond, Virginia. The author develops a nuanced and comprehensive theory of historical consciousness that is sensitive to how it operates in heterogeneous contexts marked by social and political inequality, as well as to the role of identity, memory, and political contestation. It makes further recommendations for reframing history curricula and teaching with the goal of helping young people develop their historical consciousness. Drawing from a wide range of scholarship across the humanities, education, and social sciences, Memory, Sense-making, and History Education presents a unique, comprehensive approach to the topic that will appeal to scholars and researchers working across history education, memory studies, and public history.