Part of the mission of this class is to provide you with the facts of America s early history, but the goals of this course go beyond this.
History is one of several disciplines that encourage critical thinking.
This means that you shouldn t blindly everything you read even in the assigned texts or everything you hear even from me. Historians generally agree on what the facts are, but they often differ widely and significantly on what the facts mean. It is my hope, then, that you will not only learn facts, but also how to use those facts to form coherent arguments. To achieve this we will rely heavily on discussion rather than straight lecturing. We will use our class meetings to discuss what you have read, as well as its implications.