Online Course in the Civil War

[tripax]

I think there are a few online lecture series on the civil war. I wanted to point out, in case anyone is interested the current Columbia University Course offered on edx (free to audit). It started yesterday (17 September 2014). The course is split into three, the middle section is on the war itself and the last is reconstruction (so this section is the build up and causes, I guess). Its taught by a liberal, hopefully that is a good balance to my listening to Foote. Here is the link: https://www.edx.org/course/columbiax/columbiax-hist1-1x-civil-war-2241#.VBrlGPldWSo

[khbynum]

The course is taught by Eric Foner. I recently read his 1988 Reconstruction, which I thought presented a pretty balanced treatment of the subject. Be warned though, it's history written for historians. I don't know what his political leaning is (and couldn't care less), but he should have some interesting things to say.

[tripax]

I only mention his politics because some people don't like the focus that historians (and especially left historians) put on slavery as a cause of the war. That is, saying he is liberal is a coded way to say that the course will focus a lot on slavery. Myself, I do care a lot about the reasons historians present certain things and not others and the way they present them.

[tripax]

Hello all,

The final for the first third of the course is due December 3. I just finished and averaged 97% on both the weekly quizzes (after the lowest few were dropped) and the final, so that was pretty fun. The second third starts today and covers the period of the war itself (the first third covered the 1850s to Fort Sumter and the last third will cover reconstruction). If you want to audit, you can take the first third any time, I think. But it is fun to have deadlines, so I recommend people joining for the second third and trying to keep up. It is free, after all, so if you fall behind there is no penalty.

I think I leaned a lot in the first third, and am excited for the final third. I like to think I know a lot about the war itself already, so we'll see how much of the material is new. In any case, I really enjoyed it. Foner was really interesting and is clearly brilliant. I'm very happy to get to pretend to be a student for a couple hours a week.