1 set 1919 ano - Columbia University institutes Western Civilizations course

Descrição:

"This course had been spread over two years since 1929; treated European civilization as a unity and had little, if anything, to say about non-European cultures; stress the reading of major texts rather than modern commentaries on these text....One can, in fact, speak of two types of courses that, in the course of time, became fused into the characteristic Western Civilization course of the mid-twentieth century: first, what was essentially a history course, taught by historians, as in Columbia's original Contemporary Civilization and, second, a "Great Books" course developed for Columbia honors students and later providing the central idea for general education at Chicago." (Herbert Lindenberger) "Columbia's course derives directly from a special course created in 1918, a year before its founding, to educate recently conscripted American soldiers about to fight in France. This course, called the War Issues course and offered at the time in a number of universities besides Columbia, sought to introduce Americans to the European heritage in whose defense they were soon to risk their lives. As they assumed their new leadership role in world politics, Americans could come to see themselves as the heirs to a culture going back to its supposed dual fountainheads in ancient Israel and Greece." (Lindenberger).