R E Lee on PBS

Robert E. Lee is celebrated by handsome equestrian statues in countless cities and towns across the American South, and by no less than five postage stamps issued by the government he fought against during the four bloodiest years in American history. Nearly a century and a half after his death, Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains a source of fascination and, for some, veneration. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE “Robert E. Lee” examines the life and reputation of the general whose military successes made him the scourge of the Union and the hero of the Confederacy, and who was elevated to almost god-like status by admirers after his death.

This film will be premiering on PBS at 9:00 p.m. on Monday, January 3, 2011

Is history as good as finished?

See Anthony Beevor’s article from the UK Guardian about history in schools.



“Is history as good as finished? Our school system seems to think so. Often it seems that the teaching of history is treated by the educational establishment as the rough equivalent of the teaching of dead languages: an unnecessary luxury of a bygone age, and something the modern world no longer requires. In the most recent debates about the national curriculum, history has been granted the status of an “inessential subject”. This is a grave and myopic mistake.”