Historians and universities can make history relevant and exciting by rewarding both interdisciplinary research and teaching and by encouraging active involvement through the print and electronic media in the discussion of public policy. Such communication and dialogue offer the best hope to revive education for citizenship and make the public conscious of the value of its shared past. Then we may see a citizenry able to think about the causes and consequences of the Civil War and to understand why they should know about it. Norman Markowitz is a member of the history faculty at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, N.J., and a writer for the History News Service. The History News Service, an independent, nonprofit distribution service provided by professional historians to the news media, offers commentary that places current issues in their historical perspectives.
Articles represent the views of the individual writer only.