Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: Norton, 1997) is one of those books that feels revelatory the first time you read it. It takes a question that most people rarely stop to ask, “Why some societies ended up rich and powerful while others did not?,” and reframes it in a way that is both unsettling and reassuring. Unsettling, because it strips away comforting myths about cultural superiority and human exceptionalism, and reassuring, because it offers an explanation that does not rely on racism, divine favor, or civilizational destiny. Diamond’s central claim is that geography, rather than biology or culture, played the decisive role in shaping global inequality. In the epilogue, he steps back to defend this framework, clarify its limits, and argue that history itself can be studied scientifically.
Diamond’s ambition is enormous; he is trying to explain a great deal of human history with a single organizing framework. Geography, in his telling, shapes the availability of domesticable plants and animals, the timing of agriculture, population density, technological development, and ultimately conquest. By the time Europeans reached the Americas, the outcome was already largely predetermined by thousands of years of environmental advantage. Diamond is careful to insist that geography constrains rather than dictates outcomes, but it is hard to miss how much explanatory weight geography is made to carry.
In the epilogue, Diamond anticipates the charge of environmental determinism and pushes back. History, he argues, can still be studied scientifically, even if we cannot run controlled experiments. Continents and societies function as natural experiments, allowing historians to compare different environments and identify broad, recurring patterns. Diamond is explicit about what he believes his framework does and does not explain. He is not accounting for individual leaders, specific events, or moral responsibility. Instead he is explaining why some societies had early advantages and others did not.
When Diamond stays within these bounds, his arguments are often extremely persuasive. His comparison between Eurasia and the Americas is a good example. Eurasia benefited from an abundance of domesticable plants and animals, including wheat, barley, cattle, pigs, and horses, which supported early agriculture, large populations, and dense settlements. Dense populations, in turn, produced epidemic diseases, and over time, immunity. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they brought not only steel weapons and guns, but germs to which they had long been exposed. Indigenous populations, lacking similar disease histories, were devastated. Diamond’s point is not that Europeans were smarter or more capable, but that they inherited a vastly different historical trajectory shaped by their environment.
The same logic applies to Diamond’s discussion of continental axes, particularly the contrast between Eurasia’s east-west orientation and the Americas’ north-south orientation. Eurasia’s east-west axis allowed crops, animals, and technologies to spread across similar latitudes and climates with relative ease. Innovations could diffuse over thousands of miles without needing to adapt to radically different environments. In the Americas, by contrast, north-south diffusion meant crossing deserts, jungles, mountains, and sharp climatic transitions. This slowed the spread of agriculture and technology and limited large scale integration. Over millennia, these differences compounded. Geography, in Diamond’s account, does not merely shape local conditions, it shapes connectivity itself.
Where Diamond’s framework begins to strain is when it starts to feel like a master key rather than one tool among many. In the epilogue, he insists that geography is not destiny, yet culture often appears in his account as a thin downstream effect of environmental constraints. Culture adapts to geography, rather than actively shaping how societies respond once similar options exist. This is where the model starts to feel incomplete. Culture is not just decoration layered on top of material conditions. It is the air we breathe, the water we swim in, and the lens through which material realities are interpreted. Societies facing similar geographic constraints can still make very different choices, build different institutions, and value different outcomes.
Diamond acknowledges this problem in theory but tends to underplay it in practice. He is strongest at explaining origins and weakest at explaining persistence and divergence. Geography helps explain why certain possibilities existed, but it does not fully explain why some societies embraced particular paths while others did not, even when those paths were available. Once agriculture, technology, and states exist, culture feeds back into material conditions in complex ways. Institutions, norms, and values can amplify or blunt geographic advantages, and these feedback loops receive less attention than they deserve.
This tension becomes even more apparent when Diamond’s framework is applied to contemporary global developments. Geography still matters enormously. Climate vulnerability, access to arable land, exposure to disease, and proximity to trade routes continue to shape global inequality. The uneven impact of climate change, for example, follows geographic lines Diamond would immediately recognize. At the same time, globalization, technology, and political institutions complicate the picture. Some societies have used technology and collective action to mitigate geographic disadvantages, while others have failed to do so despite favorable conditions. Here again, culture and politics mediate geography’s effects.
Diamond deserves credit for what he is trying to do. He offers a corrective to explanations that blame the victims of history for their own misfortune or attribute inequality to inherent superiority. His framework insists that history’s winners were not morally better or biologically superior, merely luckier in where they happened to have been born. That insight alone makes Guns, Germs, and Steel worth reading.
The epilogue clarifies what Diamond believes his project to be. Geography is not the whole story, but it is an essential part of it. Diamond is at his best when he treats geography as an ingredient rather than a recipe. History is shaped by environments, material conditions, and culture together. No single theory explains everything. Diamond’s contribution is to remind us how much of the story begins long before anyone makes a conscious choice, and how deeply the ground beneath our feet has shaped the world we inherited.
Understanding and Teaching about the European Holocaust
By Joshua Wolk
The European Holocaust remains one of the most studied and debated events in modern human history by historians, philosophers and educators. Only conspiracy theorists question whether the European Holocaust and the extermination of six million Jews happened or happened on that scale. Debate centers on why it happened and whether it should be understood as a unique historical event, a singularity, incomparable to other historical events, or one of a number of 20th century genocides.
As a teacher, I believe what makes the European Holocaust unprecedented is that it was an industrialization of mass murder carried out by the Nazi regime utilizing modern bureaucracy, transportation networks, and mechanized killing center. This allowed the Nazis to create a system of extermination that functioned with an efficiency and scale previously unheard of and not since replicated. Understanding the Holocaust therefore requires recognizing both its place within the broader history of genocide as well as the distinctive features that made it historically unprecedented.
Sadly, genocide is far from a unique phenomenon in human history. Prior to the European Holocaust, societies had engaged in the systematic destruction of ethnic, religious or national groups. The word “genocide” itself was not coined until World War II by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish refugee to the United States from Poland in 1939. Lemkin did not limit the definition of holocaust to the extermination of European Jewry. In his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), he defined genocide as any coordinated plan aimed at destroying the life of a national group including the Ottoman treatment of Armenians during World War I. He included the destruction of cultural, economic, and religious life, not just physical extermination.
Genocidal campaigns attempt to eliminate populations viewed as threatening or undesirable. They are generally fueled by profound ethnic hatred, religious intolerance, political ideology, economic competition, and fears about national security. Studying earlier examples helps teachers and students better understand both the recurring nature of genocide while also understanding the ways in which the European Holocaust differed from other instances of mass violence. An important example of genocide was the Armenian Genocide, “Medz Yeghern” or “Great Catastrophe.” During the first World War, the Ottoman Empire carried out mass deportations and the murder of Armenians resulting in the death of an estimated one to one and a half million people. Communities were uprooted and subjected to violence by soldiers and paramilitary groups. Armenians were removed from their homes and forced to march through the Syrian desert under brutal conditions leading to widespread starvation. Property was confiscated and Armenian cultural institutions were destroyed. In this case, the killing process did not rely on technological systems or industrialized methods. Violence occurred through forced displacement and direct physical attacks carried out across large geographic areas.
Another example that illustrates the recurring nature of genocide, but also differences, is the Rwandan genocide in 1994 when over the course of 100 days the country’s Hutu majority murdered 800,000 members of its Tutsi minority. Radio broadcasts encouraged violence while simultaneously spreading propaganda that portrayed the Tutsi population as unhuman enemies who needed to be eliminated. Local Hutu communities were mobilized to participate and killings were often carried out by rampaging mobs with machetes and other basic weapons. These killing were personal and face-to-face unlike the Armenians who were left to die in the desert or European Jews murdered in concentration death camps.
What makes the European Holocaust unique is not murder, but the system by which Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies was carried out. One of the most significant elements of this system was the extensive use of transportation networks. Millions of victims were deported from cities and villages in countries under Nazi control and railroads were used to transport them across Europe to concentration and extermination camps. These deportations and executions were not random acts of violence but rather were carefully planned and coordinated operations. Trains were scheduled and routes were organized. Detailed records were kept in order to optimize the movement of people. This logistical coordination demonstrates how modern administrative systems were integrated into the machinery and fabric of genocide. Officials working in offices were able to be far removed from the killing sites.
The European Holocaust illustrates how genocide can be carried out, not only by perpetrators with weapons, but also by administrators who help maintain a system designed to maximize efficiency, maintain order, and enable mass murder. Once victims arrived at extermination camps, the killing process itself was organized in a manner that resembled an industrial system. In camps such as Auschwitz, gas chambers were used to quickly and efficiently kill large numbers of people. Victims were often deceived into believing they were entering showers or disinfection facilities and once inside the sealed chambers poison gas was released killing those trapped inside. Prisoners forced to work in the camps were assigned to specialized labor units responsible for removing bodies and operating crematoria expediting the process of killing and disposing of human remains at an efficient rate. This process allowed the Nazis to murder thousands of people each day and millions during the course of the war.
Historian Raul Hilberg, a refugee from Nazi occupied Europe and a World War II veteran serving with the American army, described the mass production of death through industrial means in his work The Destruction of the European Jews (Quadrangle, 1961). Hilberg, a professor at the University of Vermont, argued that the Holocaust was not simply the result of uncontrolled violence but instead was the culmination of a complex bureaucratic process that involved many institutions of the Nazi state. Hilberg explained the destruction of European Jews unfolded through a sequence of stages including identification, isolation, deportation, and extermination. Each stage required the participation of numerous officials who performed specialized roles within the broader system. Police forces enforced anti-Jewish regulations, civil administrators organized deportations, and transportation officials coordinated the movement of trains carrying victims to extermination camps.
It is important for teachers and students to examine survivor accounts to understand how detached bureaucratic systems impacted individuals and to humanize murder on such a grand scale. One of the most influential survivor testimonies is the work of Primo Levi. Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist who survived Auschwitz and in his memoir If This Is a Man, he describes his experiences within the camp system with clarity and reflection. Levi’s background as a scientist shaped the way he observed and interpreted the world around him in a way that is unique from many other stories of survivors. Levi portrayed described the organized and systematic nature operation of the concentration camps where prisoners were reduced to numbers tattooed onto their arms. This stripped them of their identities and allowed for the easier movement, organization, and murder of people. Every aspect of life in the camp was regulated by rules and procedures. Prisoners who were physically strong enough to work were assigned to labor units while others were selected for extermination. Levi’s account highlights how the camp system functioned as a mechanism designed to extract labor but simultaneously facilitated mass death. His observations reveal how the Nazis created a system that treated human beings as expendable resources within a larger machine.
Levi also wrote about the psychological strategies prisoners used in order to survive such harsh conditions. Many prisoners attempted to compartmentalize their experiences. These prisoners learned to focus on immediate survival rather than fully confronting the reality of the system surrounding them. Levi’s reflections illustrate how the industrialized structure of the European Holocaust affected not only the physical lives of prisoners but also played a large part in their mental and emotional experiences. Levi’s writing offers a powerful reminder that behind the bureaucratic machinery of genocide were millions of individual human lives.
The European Holocaust should be understood both as part of the broader history of genocide and as a uniquely industrialized form of mass murder. Genocide itself is not a singular phenomenon in human history. We see this demonstrated by events such as the Armenian and Rwandan genocides. The European Holocaust stands apart not due to the willingness to kill but because of the way the Nazi regime transformed the process of killing into a systematic and industrial enterprise. Through the use of transportation networks, mechanized killing centers and extensive administrative coordination the Nazis created a system capable of exterminating millions of people with unprecedented efficiency. The work of scholars like Raul Hilberg and the reflections of Primo Levi help us to better understand how this system operated. Studying the European Holocaust in this way helps illuminate the dangers that arise when modern systems of power are directed toward destructive and dehumanizing goals.
Holocaust education occupies a paradoxical position in modern classrooms. It is one of the most widely taught subjects in social studies and history curricula in secondary schools and colleges, appearing in textbooks, museums, films, and commemorative programs across the world. Yet widespread exposure has not necessarily produced deeper historical understanding. Many students leave these lessons with strong impressions but only a limited grasp of the broader historical context, and of the historical forces that produced the Holocaust. In some cases, repeated exposure can even produce a kind of numbness in which the subject loses the weight it should carry.
The problem is clearly not a lack of exposure, but the way the history is framed and taught. Efforts to extract blunt moral lessons from the Holocaust may be well intentioned, but they risk reducing a complex historical catastrophe to a simplified parable. When history becomes primarily a vehicle for moral messaging, students may disengage or fail to grapple with the deeper questions the event raises.
Effective Holocaust education therefore requires a shift from quantity to quality. Instruction should prioritize historical context, careful analysis of evidence, and deep engagement with the social and political forces that made the genocide possible. Teaching the Holocaust as serious history allows students not only to understand the event itself, but also to examine how genocide develops, compare it with other episodes of mass violence, and evaluate contemporary issues with greater historical awareness.
Visibility Without Understanding
Despite its prominence in school curricula, Holocaust education often produces uneven results. Research and classroom experience suggest that many students retain only a fragmented grasp of the subject. They may recognize familiar symbols such as Auschwitz, Hitler, and concentration camps without understanding the broader context that made the genocide possible. Chronology is often unclear, the ideological foundations of Nazism are poorly understood, and the political and social mechanisms that enabled the Holocaust frequently remain unexplored.
Part of the difficulty lies in how instruction is structured. Lessons often prioritize emotional engagement over analysis. Graphic imagery, survivor testimony, and powerful narratives can leave lasting impressions, but without careful contextualization they may produce reactions without deeper comprehension. Students may remember what they saw or felt without understanding how or why events unfolded.
In some cases, the sheer volume of Holocaust imagery and storytelling has the opposite effect. Rather than strengthening engagement, repeated exposure can create a form of desensitization in which the subject becomes familiar but intellectually distant. Some historians have called this “Holocaust fatigue.” When it occurs, the Holocaust risks becoming just another tragedy rather than a historically specific event shaped by identifiable causes and decisions.
These patterns suggest that more exposure is not necessarily better. Depth of instruction matters more than frequency. A smaller number of carefully structured lessons that emphasize context, evidence, and inquiry may prove more effective than repeated encounters with sanitized and decontextualized narratives. Examined as a complex historical process shaped by ideology, political decisions, bureaucratic structures, and social participation, the Holocaust becomes far more intelligible.
The Problem with Moral Slogans
Attempts to extract blunt moral lessons from the Holocaust often produce the opposite of the intended effect. Teachers understandably want students to leave with a clear ethical message. Yet when the event is reduced to slogans about tolerance or bullying, its complexity disappears. Such framing turns a vast historical catastrophe into a simple moral parable and often produces indifference rather than engagement. More importantly, this framing allows students to distance themselves too easily. If the lesson is that Nazis were uniquely evil, students can reassure themselves that they are nothing like the perpetrators. As long as they are not committing atrocities, the history appears irrelevant. Modern Holocaust scholarship challenges this assumption. The individuals who carried out the Holocaust were not monsters drawn from some separate category of humanity. Most were ordinary people who lived ordinary lives, saw themselves as respectable, and participated in a system that persecuted and murdered millions.
Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kelley was a United States Army Military Intelligence Corps officer who served as chief psychiatrist at Nuremberg Prison prior to the post-World War II trial of leading Nazis. Kelley examined 22 high ranking officials of the Nazi party, including Hitler’s second-in-command Hermann Goring and his deputy Rudolf Hess to determine whether they were insane and predict if they would suffer a breakdown before and during their trial. In his book, 22 Cells in Nuremberg. A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals (London: W. H. Allen, 1947) published after the trial, Kelley argued the defendants did not represent a specifically Nazi pathology, but that “they were simply creatures of their environment, as all humans are.” He believed that under similar circumstances, other people, including Americans might act in the same way. Kelley’s work with the Nazi prisoners is at the core of the recent movie Nuremberg.
Reaching similar conclusions, Hannah Arendt famously described this as the “banality of evil.” Observing Adolf Eichmann’s trial, she argued that genocide was often carried out not by fanatics but by individuals who were disturbingly normal. Eichmann presented himself as a bureaucrat who had simply performed his duties. While controversial, her argument forced historians to confront an unsettling reality: the Holocaust depended not only on ideology but on widespread participation.
Subsequent research reinforced this point. Stanley Milgram’s experiments demonstrated how ordinary individuals could be persuaded to harm others. Christopher Browning’s book Ordinary Men showed how middle-aged reservists, with little prior ideological commitment, became participants in mass murder through a mixture of obedience, peer pressure, and gradual moral accommodation.
Another crucial dimension concerns bystanders. Many people did not directly participate in violence, yet they witnessed persecution and chose not to intervene. Neighbors watched families disappear. Railway workers transported deportees. Civil servants processed the machinery of persecution. Their inaction helped sustain the system. For students, this category is often the most relevant. Few imagine themselves as perpetrators, and many hope they would be rescuers. In reality, most people occupy the space in between.
For Holocaust education, these insights are essential. The goal is not simply to label Nazis as evil, but to examine the social and psychological processes that made participation possible. Violence rarely begins with a single decision. It develops through smaller choices, compromises, and acts of conformity until the unthinkable becomes normalized. Taught this way, the Holocaust becomes not a distant moral fable but a deeply human and troubling historical process.
This approach also shifts the focus from abstract judgment to historical inquiry. Instead of asking whether people in the past were good or evil, students are encouraged to examine how ordinary individuals understood their actions, how institutions shaped behavior, and how social pressures influenced decision making. These questions do not excuse participation in violence, but they make it possible to understand how such participation occurs. In doing so, they bring the history closer to students’ own world, where moral choices are rarely presented in clear or dramatic terms.
What Students Never Learn: Jewish Life Before the Holocaust
Holocaust education often begins with persecution and ends with genocide. While these topics are essential, this framing creates a distorted picture of Jewish history. This problem is compounded by the fact that, for many students, Holocaust lessons may be their first real exposure to Jews or Judaism. Without prior knowledge or personal connection, their initial encounter may come through the lens of Nazi ideology itself. Students are often shown antisemitic caricatures to illustrate prejudice. These materials are important historical evidence, but without a broader context they can unintentionally reinforce the distortions they were meant to expose. With little else to draw on, students may come to understand Jews primarily through the representations created by their persecutors.
Before the Holocaust, Jewish communities across Europe were longstanding and integral parts of the social, cultural, and economic life of many cities and towns. Their traditions had evolved over millennia and supported vibrant intellectual, artistic, and political cultures. Jewish merchants, professionals, writers, musicians, and scholars played visible roles in the life of cities from Moscow to Paris. Political movements ranged from religious traditionalism to socialism and liberalism. Yiddish literature and theater flourished, and newspapers, schools, and community institutions shaped daily life across thousands of communities. This world was not defined solely by persecution. It was a living civilization with its own language, debates, and cultural achievements.
Understanding this world is essential to grasping the magnitude of the Holocaust. The destruction of European Jewry was not only the murder of millions but also the destruction of communities and traditions that had developed over generations. Without this context, students cannot fully understand what was destroyed.
Teaching Jewish life before the Holocaust corrects a deeper distortion. Jewish history is often presented as a sequence of persecutions culminating in genocide, reducing a complex civilization to a narrative of suffering. While antisemitism is part of that history, education should also present the richness of Jewish life that existed long before the Nazis attempted to eradicate it and that ultimately survived their attempt. Too often, students encounter Jews only as victims rather than as participants in a long and complex civilization.
This broader perspective has an additional benefit. When students encounter Jewish life as a living culture, they are better able to recognize the gap between antisemitic stereotypes and historical reality. In this sense, teaching Jewish life before the Holocaust is not a diversion but a necessary foundation for understanding it.
Why Holocaust Education Matters Now
Holocaust education matters not only because of the historical significance of the event itself, but also because the patterns that made it possible continue to appear in other contexts. Antisemitism has often flourished during periods of political instability, economic stress, or cultural anxiety. When individuals or communities explain difficult conditions by blaming vulnerable groups, it reflects a deeper failure to confront underlying problems and often leads to consequences that extend far beyond the targeted minority. In such moments, scapegoating replaces serious engagement with complex realities.
Crises have repeatedly produced movements that seek simple explanations for complex conditions. Economic hardship and rapid social change can generate narratives that attribute national decline to hidden enemies or internal betrayal. In these environments, conspiracy thinking takes hold and blame is redirected outward. Antisemitism has long provided one of the most persistent frameworks for this kind of explanation.
Teaching the Holocaust provides an opportunity to examine how such narratives develop and gain influence. Nazi ideology did not emerge in a vacuum. It drew on long standing traditions of antisemitism, racial theories, and conspiracy myths circulating across Europe, shaped in part by the political and economic crises that followed the first World War. Studied in context, these ideas reveal how prejudice becomes institutionalized and how conspiracy thinking can be translated into policy.
Holocaust education also encourages students to distinguish between different forms of mass violence. Genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity are related but distinct. Examining these categories allows for more precise analysis and comparison without diminishing the Holocaust.
In this sense, Holocaust education serves an important civic function. Students learn how propaganda reshapes public opinion, how institutions become instruments of persecution, and how narratives of blame take hold. The goal is not to draw simplistic parallels, but to equip students with the tools to recognize dangerous patterns.
Understanding the Holocaust therefore requires more than memorization. It requires examining how prejudice becomes normalized, how conspiracy thinking spreads, and how societies respond to crisis by directing anger toward vulnerable groups. When approached this way, Holocaust education becomes not only an exercise in remembrance but a framework for understanding how societies can descend into exclusion and violence.
Conclusion
Teaching the Holocaust presents educators with a difficult but essential responsibility. The challenge is not simply to present the facts, but to ensure that students understand the processes that made the genocide possible. Holocaust education can easily fall into repetition, emotional overload, or simplified moral messaging that leaves students with impressions but little analysis.
A more effective approach places historical inquiry at the center. Students should examine the ideological roots of antisemitism, the political and economic conditions that allowed extremism to flourish, and the structures that enabled genocide. This includes attention to the broader context in which Nazism emerged, including the aftermath of the First World War and the crises that followed. They should also confront the role of ordinary individuals, bystanders, and incremental choices in shaping events.
Equally important is situating the Holocaust within the broader history of Jewish life. The destruction of European Jewry cannot be understood solely through persecution. Without that context, the scale of the loss is diminished.
Ultimately, the purpose of Holocaust education is not only remembrance but understanding. Teaching the Holocaust as serious history allows students to grapple with the complexities of human behavior and the fragility of modern societies. It equips them to recognize patterns of scapegoating, conspiracy thinking, and political extremism before they escalate into something far more dangerous.
Remarks by German Chancellor Merkel, U.S. President Obama, and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp
In June 2009, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, United States President Barack Obama, and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel spoke at a memorial service at the Buchenwald Concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. Wiesel was fifteen years old when he was imprisoned by the Nazis, first at Auschwitz, and then at Buchenwald These are excerpts from their speeches.
CHANCELLOR MERKEL: “Unimaginable horror, shock — there are no words to adequately describe what we feel when we look at the suffering inflicted so cruelly upon so many people here and in other concentration and extermination camps under National Socialist terror. I bow my head before the victims. We, the Germans, are faced with the agonizing question how and why — how could this happen? How could Germany wreak such havoc in Europe and the world? It is therefore incumbent upon us Germans to show an unshakeable resolve to do everything we can so that something like this never happens again.
On the 25th of January, the presidents of the associations of former inmates at the concentration camps presented their request to the public, and this request closes with the following words: “The last eyewitness appeal to Germany, to all European states, and to the international community to continue preserving and honoring the human gift of remembrance and commemoration into the future. We ask young people to carry on our struggle against Nazi ideology, and for a just, peaceful and tolerant world; a world that has no place for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, and right-wing extremism.”
This appeal of the survivors clearly defines the very special responsibility we Germans have to shoulder with regard to our history. And for me, therefore, there are three messages that are important today. First, let me emphasize, we Germans see it as past of our country’s raison d’être to keep the everlasting memory alive of the break with civilization that was the Shoah. Only in this way will we be able to shape our future. I am therefore very grateful that the Buchenwald memorial has always placed great emphasis on the dialogue with younger people, to conversations with eyewitnesses, to documentation, and a broad-based educational program. Second, it is most important to keep the memory of the great sacrifices alive that had to be made to put an end to the terror of National Socialism and to liberate its victims and to rid all people of its yoke . . .
Third, here in Buchenwald I would like to highlight an obligation placed on us Germans as a consequence of our past: to stand up for human rights, to stand up for rule of law, and for democracy. We shall fight against terror, extremism, and anti-Semitism. And in the awareness of our responsibility we shall strive for peace and freedom, together with our friends and partners in the United States and all over the world.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished. I will not forget what I’ve seen here today. I’ve known about this place since I was a boy, hearing stories about my great uncle, who was a very young man serving in World War II. He was part of the 89th Infantry Division, the first Americans to reach a concentration camp. They liberated Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald’s sub-camps. … He returned from his service in a state of shock saying little and isolating himself for months on end from family and friends, alone with the painful memories that would not leave his head. And as we see — as we saw some of the images here, it’s understandable that someone who witnessed what had taken place here would be in a state of shock.
My great uncle’s commander, General Eisenhower, understood this impulse to silence. He had seen the piles of bodies and starving survivors and deplorable conditions that the American soldiers found when they arrived, and he knew that those who witnessed these things might be too stunned to speak about them or be able — be unable to find the words to describe them; that they might be rendered mute in the way my great uncle had. And he knew that what had happened here was so unthinkable that after the bodies had been taken away, that perhaps no one would believe it. And that’s why he ordered American troops and Germans from the nearby town to tour the camp. He invited congressmen and journalists to bear witness and ordered photographs and films to be made. And he insisted on viewing every corner of these camps so that — and I quote — he could “be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever in the future there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.”
We are here today because we know this work is not yet finished. To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened — a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts; a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history. Also to this day, there are those who perpetuate every form of intolerance — racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more — hatred that degrades its victims and diminishes us all. In this century, we’ve seen genocide. We’ve seen mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground; children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war. This places teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests . . .
When the American GIs arrived they were astonished to find more than 900 children still alive, and the youngest was just three years old. And I’m told that a couple of the prisoners even wrote a Buchenwald song that many here sang. Among the lyrics were these: “…whatever our fate, we will say yes to life, for the day will come when we are free…in our blood we carry the will to live and in our hearts, in our hearts — faith.”
ELIE WIESEL: “As I came here today it was actually a way of coming and visiting my father’s grave – but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky. This has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people. The day he died was one of the darkest in my life. He became sick, weak, and I was there. I was there when he suffered. I was there when he asked for help, for water. I was there to receive his last words. But I was not there when he called for me, although we were in the same block; he on the upper bed and I on the lower bed. He called my name, and I was too afraid to move. All of us were. And then he died. I was there, but I was not there. And I thought one day I will come back and speak to him, and tell him of the world that has become mine. I speak to him of times in which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of good will . . .
What can I tell him that the world has learned?
When I was liberated in 1945, April 11, by the American army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned – that never again will there be war; that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid; and the will to conquer other people’s minds or territories or aspirations, that will is meaningless . .
But again, the world hasn’t. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia. Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important – as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It’s important because here the large – the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons –
political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings . . .
Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.
Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History
The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population. In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.
These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country. The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org
Era 16 Contemporary United States: Interconnected Global Society (1970–Today)
We are in the second quarter of the 21st century. Critical issues for governments center around fairness of elections, gender issues, food stability, artificial intelligence and intellectual property, and trade. The importance of collective security through alliances and the ability of international organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund depend on leaders in countries supporting them and following their decisions.
Activity #1: Voting Rights and LGBTQ Individuals: Nigeria and the United States
Nigeria
Nigeria is the largest country in Africa with a population of 240 million. Its population growth rate is almost 3% with a projected population of 350 million by 2050. More than half of the population lives is cities. Nigeria has a diverse population with about 55% confessing Islam and 45% Christian beliefs.
The Nigerian Constitution Amendment Act of 1954 eliminated gender restrictions on voting and allowed men and women to engage in the political process equally. Unfortunately, the patriarchal culture that existed before Nigeria became independent and the influence of Muslim beliefs on the role of women are two factors restricting the civic engagement of many women.
In 2022, the Nigerian Congress passed legislation making voting in state and national elections mandatory for all Nigerians eligible to vote. Voter apathy is a problem and coercion is the strategy by the current government to address this issue. In 2023, only 27% of registered voters participated in the national election. President Tinubu signed the Electoral Act of 2026, which fines and arrests citizens who do not exercise their right to vote.
The Electoral Act 2026:
Formalizes the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) as the sole mandatory method for voter accreditation, officially replacing older technologies.
Streamlines election administration by adjusting the “Notice of Election” window to 180 days and requiring the submission of candidate lists 90 days before a general election.
Increases the fine for the illegal buying or selling of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to ₦5 million, maintaining a strict two-year imprisonment term for offenders.
Grants the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the authority to prescribe the specific manner for the transfer of results and accreditation data, ensuring operational flexibility in areas with varying infrastructure.
President Tinubu stated. “We are ensuring that the voice of every Nigerian is not only heard but accurately recorded and protected by the law.” The 2026 Electoral Act is based on the premise that a high voter participation rate reduces election fraud. Singapore, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil also require mandatory voting and voter participation is 80% or higher. These countries also have secure, trusted, and efficient systems in place.
Although the Act provides for transparency through digital reporting of election results, the Act includes a provision for the manual submission of election results in areas where the technology is not available or reliable. The 2026 Act also maintains the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) as the mandatory identification for voting. The Constitution (Section 40) states that the right not to participate in voting is as important as the right to vote.
However, not everyone agrees with this position because it may increase voter apathy. Voting must be a choice freely made, not forced by threat of jail. The law is also viewed as unconstitutional because Chapter 4: Section 40 provides for the right not to participate in elections. The new law does not address the problems of insecurity and lack of credibility in political leadership, and buying votes.
LGBTQ+
Nigeria is a conservative country with a history that has made homosexuality and lesbianism illegal. The Islamic and Christian religious beliefs in Nigeria oppose homosexuality and lesbianism. It is estimated that there are 15-20 million Individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ and are subject to arrest, which is often accompanied by police violence and brutality. LGBTQ+ individuals are victims of assault, mob attacks, harassment, extortion, and the denial of basic rights and services. As a result they are living in hiding.
In 2024, President Tinubo approved an order preventing LGBTQ+ individuals from serving in the armed forces. In 2014, the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013 (SSMPA) came into force. The Act includes criminal penalties for same sex marriages or civil unions; solemnizing a same-sex marriage or union; “gay clubs, societies or organizations”; and same sex amorous relationships in public. Sharia law in the 12 northern States criminalizes same-sex intimacy between both men and women, as well as cross-dressing. These recent actions mark an aggressive effort by the government against LGBTQ+ individuals.
United States
The United States amended its constitution four times (Amendments #15, 19, 24, and 26) to increase voter participation and establish a fair and efficient process for elections. The Constitution delegates elections to its 50 states, with the exception of the date in November for the national election of president every four years. The United States has a long history of expanding voter registration, participation in elections, and encouraging civic engagement. Although voter participation is around 50% in general elections, the participation rate to elect the president every four years is about 70%.
In 2013, the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, marked a turning point in the election laws in the United States. The decision was that states and localities with a history of suppressing voting rights no longer were required to submit changes in their election laws to the U.S. Justice Department for review. As a result. Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia passed legislation requiring voter identification to vote.
Although the United States is viewed as a country with fair elections, the incumbent administration of President Trump claims it is not fair, influenced by foreign governments, and to rewrite election rules. Some states have attempted to change their congressional districts to favor one party over another. This process is called gerrymandering and takes place every ten years based on the data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The major changes currently being attempted in the United States include:
rewriting election rules to control election systems;
threatening to target election officials who keep elections free and fair;
supporting people in the states who question the current election administration;
retreating from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and assuring fair elections.
LGBTQ+
The U.S. Supreme Court extended LGBTQ+ rights after the Stonewall riot in 1967. However, in 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage by defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It also allowed states to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage granted by another state. In 2022, the Defense of Marriage Act was repealed by the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act which recognizes the validity of same-sex and interracial civil marriages in the United States. The Respect for Marriage Act received support following the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges 5-4 decision which stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause requires states to license and recognize marriage between two people of the same sex.
Questions:
How can governments increase voter participation and civic engagement?
Do the attempts in Nigeria to require eligible voters to vote support or hinder democracy and civic participation?
Should the Electoral Reform Act of 2022 and the Amendment (2026) be viewed as supporting democracy or limiting democracy?
Does Voter Identification requirements enure fairness in elections or suppress voter participation?
In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore established a precedent for determining the outcome of a close election (271 – 266). If a future election is questioned in the United States, how should the outcome be decided?
In the United States, should the federal government or the states have the authority to license and recognize marriages?
Do individuals in Nigeria, who identify as LGBTQ+, have any protections from physical abuse by the government? Where would they begin?
Activity #2: Copyright Protection: Kenya and the United States
Kenya
Kenya updated the Copyright Act of 2001 in 2020 and amended it in 2022 and 2026 because of the unique challenges in the arts and creative markets. Kenya realized the potential of the creative arts industry in their economy. The amendments offer protected rights to authors for 50 years after their death and 50 years after the work was first created.
The primary purpose of copyright protection is to safeguard the rights of authors and creators. Kenya’s laws encourage new artistic and intellectual content. The Copyright Act also defines how the works are reproduced, distributed, and publicly displayed. The fair use doctrine allows for limited usage of copyrighted materials for criticism, news reporting, education, and research. A unique provision in the Act provides for moral rights protecting the creator’s identity.
You may want to read the court case of Kimani v Safaricom Limited regarding use of intellectual property from other parties.
United States
The U.S. Constitution provides for copyright protection in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. The United States update the Copyright Act of 1976 in 2025 with provisions for intellectual property, and semiconductor chips. The United States issues licenses for creative, artistic, and technology authors. The United States protects the rights of authors for 70 years.
One of the core functions of copyright law is to grant exclusive rights to creators, allowing them to control how their works are used, reproduced, distributed, and displayed. These exclusive rights include the right to reproduce the work, prepare derivative works from another source, distribute copies, and perform or display the work publicly. Copyright laws provide financial incentives and protect the integrity of creative and artistic works from duplication, alteration, or diminishing the creator’s reputation.
Copyright protection supports cultural, educational, and technological advancement by encouraging authors to write books, musicians to compose songs, films to be produced, and developers to create software. This cycle of creation and protection benefits society as a whole, enriching public knowledge and entertainment while fostering economic growth in creative industries. These laws must also protect the public interest to use the content in these protected products for education and research. You may want to read the court case decision regarding the use of the Happy Birthday song.
Questions:
Should artists receive royalties when their music is played on the radio or only on subscription based platforms?
What is a reasonable number of years for copyright protection?
Should information and content generated by artificial intelligence and not a human be protected by copyright laws?
How should the public interest of content protected by copyright laws be defined? For example, should a child be able to play a popular song in their home without paying a royalty and should a student or teacher be allowed to download an image or select a paragraph from a published book for free?
What should educators teach about copyright laws and citing sources and in what grade should these be taught?
Activity #3: The Nile River and the Environment: Ethiopia and Egypt
Egypt
In September 2025, Ethiopia began diverting water from the Nile River with the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. (GERD) The Nile River is the longest river in the world (although some claim the Amazon River is the longest) and is a vital resource for millions of people in Sudan and Egypt who depend on it for potable water, agriculture, fishing, navigation, and tourism. Ethiopia built the dam as a vital source of energy, flood control, and to support the economic development of the region.
Egypt claims the dam violates international law governing international waterways and is a violation of the human rights of its people. Studies provide evidence that any significant decrease in Egypt’s share of the Nile River water will lead to a decline in food production and increase poverty. However, these violations were also used to criticize the Awan Dam built on the Nile River in 1970. The Aswan Dam has prevented serious flooding, provided economic growth, and is a vital source of clean energy. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is more than doubles the hydroelectric power of the Aswan Dam.
Aswan Dam
Ethiopia
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the largest hydropower project in Africa. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project has generated significant occupational and social impact as it was financed and built by the people of Ethiopia. The plant also ensures a reduction of 1.3 million tons of carbon emissions per year. The complex includes three housing developments for 10,000 people, three medical centres and schools, food stores, recreational areas, a club, a swimming pool, and sports fields.
The dam produces more electricity than Ethiopia needs providing for the possibility of exporting clean energy to Djibouti and Kenya. It was constructed with the expectation that this will enable economic growth in Ethiopia for manufacturing, technology, and food production.
Questions:
Does a country have the right to make a unilateral decision that affects international waters?
Are the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy greater than the disadvantages of water flowing to neighboring countries?
The Nile River is known for transporting sediment in its journey of approximately 3,000 miles. Will this sediment prove harmful to the Greater Ethiopian Renaissance Dam over time?
Does Ethiopia have a promising or a disappointing future? What is your prediction for Ethiopia in 2050?
Activity #4: Trade: European Union and the United States
The economies of the European Union and the United States are fairly similar in size. Between 1950 and 2025, the countries of the Europe were major trading partners with the United States. Beginning in 2025, this relationship changed as the United States levied tariffs on many products exported to the United States.
The EU is the largest economy in the world with a GDP per head of €25,000 for its 440 million consumers and the volume of trade represents 29% of global trade. It is the world’s largest producer of both manufactured goods and services. They are the top trading partner for 80 countries and the United States is the top trading partner for about 20 countries. The 27 countries in the European Union had a trade surplus of $272 billion (USD) in 2024. The major exports are machinery, computers, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, plastics, optical equipment, organic chemicals, and iron, steel. The major imports are vehicles and oil.
United States
Mexico and Canada are the largest trading partners for the United States representing 30% of trade. China, Germany and Japan account for 20%. The United States has a trade deficit with all of its top 15 trading partners with the exception of a surplus with the United Kingdom and Netherlands. In 2025, the annual trade deficit of the United States was $901.5 billon.
A trade deficit is often misleading and students need to analyze it from different perspectives. First, the Current Account represents the net value of trade and the Capital Account represents the value of assets, including property, investments, and foreign aid. Together, these two accounts are called the balance of payments. The current account is always offset by the capital or financial account so that the sum of these accounts – the balance of payments – is zero. When the balance of one account is in surplus (i.e. has a positive value, representing a credit), the balance of the other account must be in a deficit (i.e. has a negative value, representing a debit). The Current Account and the Capital Account are different from the national debt of $39 trillion or annual deficit of $1.8 trillion for the United States. The national debt and annual deficit directly affect the credit rating of a country and the value of its currency.
Questions:
Why does one country purchase goods or services from another country when the result is a trade deficit?
President Trump has issued tariffs against countries that the United Staes has a trade deficit with. How does this affect trade and the Current Account in the future?
Will the new trade strategy of using tariffs and incentives for companies to manufacture in the United States lead to more economic growth and employment or higher prices and a recession?
How serious is a trade deficit for a country? As an advisor to the President of the United States would you favor a strong or weak currency?
How did the European Union become the world’s largest economy?
Are there lessons for the United States to consider regarding a North American Union or a Western Hemisphere Union of free trade?
Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History
The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population. In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.
These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country. The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org
Era 15 Contemporary United States: International Policies (1970–Today)
The middle of the 20th century marks the foundation of the transformation of the United States into a world power. In this era the United States developed alliances, promoted free trade agreements, advocated for human rights, and assisted developing countries. Toward the end of the century, the United States was a target of terrorist organizations, had and increasing national debt, and saw its power as a world leader challenged by China and Russia. As the United States entered the 21st century, its role as a leader in the international community was questioned by the Republican Party,
Activity #1: Department of Homeland Security in the United Kingdom and the United States
In 2026, the Domesday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the end of the civilized world as we know it.The primary reasons for this are the threats of a nuclear arms race, climate change, and bioterrorism.As a result, every major country is re-evaluating its national security plans at the domestic and international level.
“Doomsday Clock on Jan. 27, 2026.Reuters/Kevin Fogarty
United States
In your United States History classes, you have likely discussed national security strategies since the end of World War II in 1945. These include containment, brinkmanship NSC-68, co-existence, Mutually Assured Destruction collective security, human rights, and the United States as the world’s policeman. Each of these policies have been rigorously debated within the government and in public opinion. The debate is often framed in the context of isolationism (U.S. has the military strength to protect itself) and internationalism (U.S. needs the support of alliances and international organizations). The central part of America’s new strategy is our economic strength. The 2025 National Security Strategy rightly asserts that “strength is the best deterrent,” and elevates economic vitality as central to that strength.
The policy announced by the Trump administration in December 2025 diminishes the threat of Russia and China as a top priority. “Mass migration” is deemed to be the major external threat to the United States—more than China, Russia, or terrorism. The document makes clear that the divide is political between transatlantic liberals and authoritarians.
The Western Hemisphere is the new priority and immigration is elevated to a major national security concern. The U.S. military will focus on the Western Hemisphere. The rules of international law are considered less important than the interests of peace, diplomacy, or human rights. Cybersecurity is considered a major threat and the strategy of the United States will become dependent on the private sector.
It is difficult to identify an exact amount for spending by Homeland Security in the United States because of the increased emphasis on immigration. We will use the number of $332 billion or 2.9% of GDP as a comparison to the 2.5% spent by the United Kingdom.
United Kingdom
The population of the United Kingdom is about 70 million. In addition, the United Kingdom also includes territories around the globe. National security threats include terrorism, organized immigration crime, cybersecurity, bioterrorism, exposure to nuclear radiation, and effects from climate change. The United Kingdom in 2025 announced a new long-range security strategy for homeland security at a cost of 2.5% of GDP or about 62 billion euros annually.
The strategy involves a network of alliances to address these threats. The recent announcement by the United States to acquire Greenland by purchase or military action has caused the United Kingdom and other NATO countries to increase financial investments in military equipment, NATO, and other regional alliances. The Calais Group is committed to preventing organized immigration crime, the Joint Migration Taskforce addresses human trafficking, and the Border Security Pact targets smuggling. Homeland security for the United Kingdom also includes agreements promoting economic and financial stability regarding technology, energy, access to minerals, and renewable energy. Russia, China, North Korea, and Iraq are viewed as the biggest threats to homeland security.
The priorities for Homeland Security in the United Kingdom include the following:
Identify and prevent terrorist actors and criminal gangs from entering.
Increased investment in armed forces.
Strengthen existing alliances (NATO, AUKUS, and GCAP) and form new ones.
Pursue deeper trade, technology, and security agreements with the United States, European Union, and India.
Protect its underwater fiber optic network and natural gas pipelines.
The UK has created a new Border Security Command to secure its borders.
Questions:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the new national security strategies by the United States and the United Kingdom?
How dependent is each country on economic growth to support its strategy?
How significant are the lessons of history regarding national security based on internationalism through alliances and isolationism through dependence on geography and military strength?
Is one strategy better poised for success than the other or are both strategies poised for disappointment or failure?
Activity #2: Foreign Aid in Africa: Japan and Norway
Japan
Japan provides significant economic aid to Africa. In 2018, Japan gave $8.6 billion and is currently giving $20 billion. Japan’s foreign aid budget is equal to 0.44% of its gross national income, which is almost double the 0.24% from the United States.
The Japanese government values its relationship with Africa. It understands the importance of rare earth minerals, specifically lithium, nickel, and cobalt. In August 2023 Japan signed contracts with Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to secure minerals. The 54 African countries account for more than a quarter of the 193 members in the United Nations. Japan’s foreign policy values free and open markets based on the rule of law, which is viewed as a deterrent to the coercion used by China in Africa.
Norway
Norway’s oil reserves enabled it to maintain financial assets in its Wealth Management Fund. The fund is valued at $1.8 trillion (USD) Norway contributes 3.1 billion krone to the African Development Fund. There are about 30 Western and non-Western countries contributing to this fund annually, including some countries in Africa. Norway places a high priority on providing Africa’s 300 million people with access to electricity, potable water, and food,. In addition, Norway is actively providing financial resources for sustainable living, women’s rights, education, and human rights.
On a per capita basis, Norwegians contribute $1,160, and Japan contributes $155. The United States was contributing $190 per person before its recent withdrawal of funds in 2025.
Norway’s foreign policy includes the following:
Multilateral and regional cooperation: Strengthen cooperation in multilateral forums, enhance African representation, and continue close collaboration with the AU (African Union);
Security and peace efforts: Support African-led peace initiatives, integrate gender perspectives in decision-making, and bolster cooperation with the AU and UN on security;
Democracy, human rights, and gender equality: Promote democracy, human rights, and gender equality through civil society engagement, justice reform, and educational access;
Business, clean energy, and knowledge: Boost economic cooperation, promote Norwegian solutions, and support renewable energy development in African markets; and
Climate, environment, food security, and health: Collaborate on climate action, sustainable food systems, and resilient health systems to address environmental and health challenges.
Questions:
How significant are the foreign policy differences of investment in Africa between Japan, and Norway?
How are the foreign policy initiatives of China, Russia, and the United States influencing the foreign policy of Japan?
Why do you think the people of Japan are supporting additional investment in Africa compared to reducing tariffs or improving the quality of life for the people of Japan?
Which foreign policy strategy is aligned with your values?
In 2000, the United Nations adopted ambitious Millennial Development Goals which were on target until the global financial crisis of 2008. Is it possible in today’s political and economic environment to return to them and improve the quality of life for people in the global South?
Activity #3: Separation of Powers: North Korea and the United States
North Korea
Authoritarian governments also have constitutions. Dictatorships may divide power between the supreme ruler, political party, army, or another group. Democracies may divide power between legislative and judicial branches with the chief executive. The people and media may also have power in a society. A constitution reflects the values of the State and is still one of the best ways to understand how it manages problems and provides for its citizens.
The KPG (Korean Provisional Government) was organized in 1919 and was a government in exile as a result of Japan’s imperialism.It ended on August 15, 1945 with the surrender of Japan and the Republic of Korea became the new government. A new constitution was ratified on August 15, 1948 and Syngman Rhee was elected as President.After the occupation of Korea during World War II ended, Korea adopted a constitution in 1948. Power was given to the SPA (Supreme People’s Assembly) This Assembly was given the authority to enact basic domestic and foreign policies; create a Presidium to operate on its behalf when the Assembly was not in session; approve laws; revise and amend the Constitution; approve the budget; elect or recall a Prime Minister; and appoint officials such as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The 1972 Constitution stated that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was an independent socialist state representing all the Korean people. The constitution is based on democratic centralism, which states that citizens must obey all the decisions of their elected leaders. There is no system of checks and balances, only submission and loyalty. The Constitution of North Korea gives absolute power to the Workers’ Party. It follows the ‘juche’ ideology of self-reliance and is above the law. It fosters Korean nationalism and requires absolute loyalty to the ruler, currently Kim Jong Il. The Constitution values the superiority of the State over its citizens. In theory, the cabinet, military, and party check each other, although the loyalty of the military to Kim Jong Il has ended this system of checks and balances. These three groups could conceivably fight one another in a civil war for control or support each other, which they currently are doing.
United States
The Constitution of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) has been amended nine times since 1948 and reflects six republics which reflect political changes. The Constitution of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was completely replaced in 1972 and this constitution has had significant amendments. In contrast, the Constitution of the United States has made changes through 27 amendments and judicial decisions by the Supreme Court. The Constitution of the United States was meant to be flexible.
The powers of government in the United States are also divided between the states and the federal government and between the three branches of the federal government. The framework of the constitution specifically limits the power of the national government and allows the three branches of government to ‘check and balance’ the power of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
The principle of popular sovereignty gives power to the people to make changes to their government every two years through the election of their representatives to Congress and the election of one-third of their senators. Currently, the United States has a two-party system with the Republican Party and democratic Party as the two major political parties, Although inn theory, the individual members in each party have independence and vote on the interests of the people they represent; in practice they form caucuses or alliances supporting an ideology or regional interest. Currently, the members of the Republican Party are demonstrating loyalty to the agenda of President Trump and the members of the Democratic Party have caucuses representing different views on immigration, the economy, health care, and the role of the federal government.
Questions:
How important is the role of the political party to the stability of the government?
Are there inherent weaknesses in the Constitution of The Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)?
How important is a strong executive to a stable government?
How has President Trump increased the authority of the executive Branch more than previous presidents? (party loyalty, the media, support from the Supreme Court, etc.)
Activity #4: The Executive Branch: St. Kitts and Nevis and the United States
United States
The United States is the largest country in the Americas with a population of 340 million. It has the largest military and economy in the world. The U.S. GDP is approximately 32 trillion followed by China at 21 billion USD. The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States, who is the head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress.
The President must be 35 years of age, a natural born citizen, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. The people elect the president every four years by voting for members in their state who are part of the Electoral College. The Electors vote for President. There are currently 538 electors in the Electoral College representing the 435 members of the House of Representatives, the 100 senators, and the three representatives of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.).
The Cabinet and independent federal agencies are responsible for the enforcement and administration of federal laws. Examples are the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, Homeland Security, and Social Security Administration.
The President has the power either to sign legislation into law or veto bills passed by Congress, although Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds vote of both houses. The Executive Branch
conducts diplomacy with other nations,
negotiates and signs treaties, which must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate,
issues executive orders, which may clarify and implement existing laws,
extend pardons for federal crimes, and
gives an annual address to Congress outlining the agenda for the coming year.
The president is subject to impeachment for treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors or smaller crimes. The process to remove a president from office requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. No American president has been removed from office through the impeachment process, although three presidents have been impeached.
St. Kitts and Nevis
The islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis were created as a federation in 1983 after centuries of British colonial rule. They have the smallest population in the Americas with 46,000, with 11,000 on the island of Nevis and 35,000 on St. Kitts. The population is expected to decline by 20% over the next decade. Nevis has its own assembly, an elected premier and a deputy-governor-general. Tourism, finance, and service sector businesses are the main sources of income. In 1998, Nevis voted to secede but the resolution did to receive the required 2/3 majority vote of the people.
The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis is a parliamentary democracy within the framework of a constitutional monarchy with King Charles III (United Kingdom) as the head of state. The Governor-General represents the monarch, and the Prime Minister is the head of government and leader of the majority party in the National Assembly. The Cabinet is appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister.
The National Assembly is unicameral, consisting of 15 members: 11 elected representatives, 3 senators appointed by the Governor-General, and the Attorney General. Elections are held every five years. The judiciary is independent and based on the British legal system and uses the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, which serves several islands in the region.
Monarch of the United Kingdom acts as a ceremonial figurehead, governor-general represents the king, and prime minister provides advice for the governor-general and leads the cabinet of ministers.
Governor-general is appointed by the monarch and prime minister is appointed by the governor-general.
Governor-General and Prime Minister: At His Majesty’s discretion
Judicial
Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court presides over multiple countries, one justice resides in St. Kitts.
Appointed by British monarch and the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.
Mandatory retirement age of 65
Legislative
Responsible for drafting legislation.
National Assembly has 11 members elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies and 3 members are appointed by the governor-general.
5 years
Questions:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a constitutional monarchy, federal parliamentary democracy, and a representative democracy?
Is a government of three branches an effective and efficient structure of government for the 21st century?
Is one government structure better for countries with smaller populations of under 100 million than countries with larger populations? (Only 16 countries have populations larger than 100 million. The ten largest countries are: India, China, U.S. Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, and Mexico)
How frequently and for how many years should the President, Prime Minister or Governor serve?
Should the President of the United States be given any additional powers?
Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History
The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population. In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.
These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country. The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org
Era 14 Contemporary United States: Domestic Policies (1970–Today)
During the last quarter of the 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st century, the United States and the world experienced rapid changes in the environment, technology, human rights, and world governments. During this period there were three economic crises, a global pandemic, migrations of populations, and a global pandemic. There were also opportunities in health care, biotechnology, and sustainable sources of energy. The debate over individual freedoms, human rights, guns, voting, affordability, and poverty were present in many countries, including the United States.
Activity #1: Miranda in some countries accused must prove they are innocent
As the United States became more diverse and inclusive after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, our population became divided on the assimilation of immigrants and restricting the number entering the United States. The civil liberties in our constitution become challenged as people wanted “law and order.” One civil liberty that has weakened over time is the “Miranda Warning” from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, (1966).
“Ernesto Miranda was convicted on charges of kidnapping and rape. He was identified in a police lineup and questioned by the police. He confessed and then signed a written statement without first having been told that he had the right to have a lawyer present to advise him (under the Sixth Amendment) or that he had a right to remain silent (under the Fifth Amendment). Miranda’s confession was later used against him at his trial and a conviction was obtained. When Miranda’s case came before the United States Supreme Court and the Court ruled that, “detained criminal suspects, prior to police questioning, must be informed of their constitutional right against self-incrimination and the right to an attorney.” The court explained, “a defendant’s statement to authorities are inadmissible in court unless the defendant has been informed of their right to have an attorney present during questioning and an understanding that anything, they say will be held against them.” The court reasoned that these procedural safeguards were required under the United States Constitution.”
Miranda rights typically do not apply to individuals stopped for traffic violations until the individual is taken into custody. There are four rights that are usually read to someone about to be interrogated or detained against their will.
The Right to Remain Silent: You are not obligated to answer any questions from law enforcement.
Anything You Say Can Be Used Against You: Statements you make during questioning can be presented as evidence in court.
The Right to an Attorney: You have the right to consult with a lawyer before answering questions and to have one present during interrogation.
If You Can’t Afford a Lawyer, One Will Be Provided: This guarantees access to legal counsel, regardless of your financial situation.
This basic civil liberty has weakened over time giving more power to the police (government). This power has resulted in forced confessions, false statements by the police, accusations of resisting arrest by not providing the police with basic information, and delaying the reading of the Miranda Warning. In Vega v. Tekoh (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court held, Miranda warnings are not rights but rather judicially crafted rules, significantly weakening this civil liberty as a constitutional protection.
Japan’s Criminal Justice System
Unlike in the United states, in Japan, individuals are presumed guilty. There is no right to remain silent or the offer of a lawyer. Many people, including juveniles, may be detained for months as the authorities try to obtain a signed confession. Most people are unaware of these practices because of Japan’s reputation as a democracy and their international human rights record.
“Tomo A., arrested in August 2017 for allegedly killing his six-week-old child by shaking. He spent nine months in detention awaiting trial, and during that time, prosecutors told him that either he or his wife must have killed their baby and his wife would be prosecuted if he did not confess. He was acquitted in November 2018.”
Bail is not an option during the pre-indictment period and it is frequently denied after a person is indicted of a crime. Bail, when granted, is limited to a maximum of 10 days with an appeal for an additional extension of up to 23 days. Individuals who are released, are watched closely and new arrests are fairly common.
“Yusuke Doi, a musician, was held for 10 months without bail after being arrested on suspicion of stealing 10,000 yen (US$90) from a convenience store. His application for bail was denied nine times. Even though he was ultimately acquitted, a contract that Doi had signed with a record company prior to his arrest to produce an album was cancelled, resulting in financial loss and setting back his career.”
Police often use intimidation, threats, verbal abuse, and sleep deprivation to get someone to confess or provide information. The Japanese Constitution states that “no person shall be compelled to testify against himself” and a “confession made under compulsion, torture or threat, or after prolonged arrest or detention shall not be admitted in evidence.”
The accused are not allowed to meet, call, or even exchange letters with anyone else, including family members. Many individuals interviewed by Human Rights Watch cited this ban on communications as a cause of significant anxiety while in detention.
In 2015, Kayo N. was arrested for conspiracy to commit fraud. Kayo N. said that she worked as a secretary at a company from February 2008 to October 2011. In December 2008, the company president asked her to become the interim president of another company owned by her boss while a replacement was sought. She said that she was unaware that the company only existed on paper and that her boss had previously been blacklisted from obtaining loans. After her arrest and detention, the judge issued a contact prohibition order on the grounds that she might conspire to destroy evidence. Kayo N. was not allowed to see anyone but her lawyer for one year, could not receive letters, and could only write to her two adult sons with the permission of the presiding judge.
She said: “After I was moved to the Tokyo detention center, I was kept in the “bird cage” [solitary confinement] from April 2016 to July 2017. It was so cold that it felt like sleeping in a field, I had frostbite. I spoke only twice during the day to call out my number. It felt like I was losing my voice. The contact prohibition order was removed one year after my arrest. However, I remained in solitary confinement.
Kayo N. said she did not know why she had been put in solitary confinement. She says that police also interrogated her sons to compel her to confess. The long trial process also exacerbated financial hardships. She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.”
Japan has a 99.8 percent conviction rate in cases that go to trial, according to 2021 Supreme Court statistics.
Questions:
Should the rights of an individual receive greater or lesser weight than the police powers of the state when someone is accused of a criminal offense?
How can the Miranda rights be protected and preserved in the United States or should they be interpreted and implemented at the local or state level?
How is Japan able to continue with its preference for police powers when international human rights organizations have called for reform?
In the context of detainment by federal immigration officers in the United States in 2026, do U.S. citizens (and undocumented immigrants) have any protected rights or an appeal process when detained without cause?
Activity #2: Gun laws in United States and New Zealand
United States
Since 1966, 1,728 people have been killed and 2,697 injured in mass public shootings in the United States. The definition of a mass shooting is three or more individuals being killed. (Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act, 2012) The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation does not define a mass shooting with a specific number of deaths. Technology, especially the production of ‘ghost guns’ with 3-D printers has contributed to gun violence. Handguns are used in 73% of mass shootings and rifles, shotguns, assault weapons, and multiple weapons are also used.
Before 2008, the District of Columbia prohibited the possession of usable handguns in the home. This was challenged by Dick Heller, a special police officer in the District of Columbia who was licensed to carry a firearm while on duty. He applied to the chief of police for permission to have a firearm in his home for one year. The chief of police had the authority to grant a temporary license but denied the license to Dick Heller, who appealed the decision in a federal court.
The Second Amendment states that “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Several state constitutions give citizens the right to bear arms in defense of themselves and outside an organized state militia. Individuals used weapons against Native Americans and enslaved individuals.
The United States has the highest number of registered guns per person in the world. Estimates range from 300 million (one per person) to over 400 million. Even with effective legislation on restricting guns, these weapons would still be availabile. Approximately 10 million firearms are produced annually.
A discussion in your classroom might focus on the debate within the state legislatures during the ratification of the Constitution regarding the use or arms for a state militia and the right of individuals to carry weapons for hunting. The Bruen decision (2022) requires that gun laws today need to be consistent with the historical understanding from when the states ratified the Bill of Rights.
1. Is this requirement possible and relevant? In 1789 people hunted for their food and today people go shopping in supermarkets. In 1789, the federal government relied on states to support an army and today we have a highly trained military.
2. Has the technology on producing guns change the right to keep and bear arms? Assault weapons and the production of ghost guns did not exist 200 years ago.
3. Should the need to restrict the right to keep and bear arms be consider as a result that the population of the United States is now over 300 million? A significant portion of the population lives in urban areas with high-rise apartment complexes. Should the history of previous centuries alongside the mass shooting events of the 21st century, be careful considered in the debate to restrict gun ownership?
New Zealand
March 15, 2019 marks one of the darkest days in New Zealand when 51 people were killed and 50 others wounded when a gunman fired at two mosques in the city of ChristChurch. This was the worst peacetime mass shooting in New Zealand’s history. Within one month New Zealand’s Parliament voted 119-1 on a nationwide ban on semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. The gun reform law also set up a commission to establish limits on social media, accessibility to weapons, and education. In addition to the sweeping reform of gun laws, a special commission is being set up to explore broader issues around accessibility of weapons and the role of social media.
Australia also introduced a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons and restrictive licensing laws after a mass shooting in 1996. Some states in the United States have enacted strict laws restricting ghost guns (New Jersey, Oregon) and automatic weapons (New Jersey). However, the debate has been contentious in these states and the almost unanimous vote in New Zealand is not likely in the United States.
Questions:
How significant would restrictive legislation in the United States be in curtailing mass shootings and/or murders?
In addition to the influence of the gun lobby in the United States, what is the next most powerful influence against gun reforms in the United States?
Is it possible for states to have their own restrictive gun laws with the Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court?
Why do you think restrictive gun laws were enacted in New Zealand and Australia? (absence of a constitutional protection, common national identity, religious beliefs, culture, leadership by the government, public outrage, etc.)
As a class, do you think gun reform laws in the United States are possible in the next 5-10 years?
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), poverty has decreased in the United States from 15% 2010 to 11.1% in 2023, and in 2025 it is estimated to be 9.2%. Poverty is measured both as the number of people below a defined income threshold of $31,200 for a family of four in 2025 (absolute poverty or below the poverty line) and as a quality of life issue for people living in a community. (relative poverty) Source
Figure 1. Official Poverty Rate and Number of Persons in Poverty: 1959 to 2023
(poverty rates in percentages, number of persons in millions; shaded bars indicate recessions)
Unfortunately, poverty rates vary by sex, gender, and race. The current ‘affordability’ crisis in the United States is an example of relative poverty with many complex factors contributing to it.
Figure 4. Official Poverty Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2023
A general guideline for budgeting housing expenses (rent or mortgage) is 33% of a household income, although expenses for rent and mortgage will vary by zip code. The U.S. Census Bureau reported a per capita income of $43,289 (in 2023 dollars) for 2019-2023, while the Federal Reserve Bank reported a personal income per capita of $73,207 for 2024. Personal income is the total earnings an individual receives from wages, salaries, investments and government benefits before income taxes are deducted. For your discussion consider the following based on $73,207 for one person. A family of four income with two working adults would be $146,414.
Federal Taxes (22%) $16,104
NJ State Taxes (5%) $3,660.
Housing (33%) $24,156 ($2,000 a month)
Food (10%) $7,300 ($140 per week)
Auto Transportation (15%) $10,980
Discretionary Spending (15%) $10,980
Consider the discretionary expenses in your family for phones, cable and internet, car lease or loan payments, vacation, gifts, savings, clothing, credit card debt, education, etc.
As incomes rise people spend more money on food, but it represents a smaller share of their income. In 2023, households with the lowest incomes spent an average of $5,278 on food representing 32.6% of after-tax income. Middle income households spent an average of $8,989 representing 13.5% of after-tax income) and the highest income households spent an average of $16,996 on food representing 8.1 percent of after-tax income.
The starting salary for many individuals with a four-year college education is about $70,000. Living in New Jersey is more expensive than living in many other states but for the purpose of discussion, we will use New Jersey as our reference.
Italy
The poverty rate in Italy is 9.8%, similar to the rate in the United States. However, the poverty rate for individuals below the poverty line (income level) is 5%. Approximately half of the people in poverty are living in southern Italy. Two contributing factors are the continuing effects from the government shutdown during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and an aging population. These factors are related to Italy’s high unemployment rate of 6.8% (2024), which is higher than the 4.4% in the United States, weak GDP growth of less than 1%. With a per capita income of $39,000 USD, Italy also has an affordability crisis. The per capita income in Italy is about one-half of the per capita income in the United States.
In 2017, Italy approved a program of “Inclusion Income: which has been reformed twice since its adoption. Under the current (2024) “Income Allowance” about 50% of the population receives supplemental income. This program supports economic upward mobility through education and health care. Italy has partnered with the World Bank to support this program. Another benefit of the program is that poverty is not increasing and will be significantly reduced over time.
Questions:
Is the solution for affordability a higher minimum wage, lower taxes, price controls on food and housing, a guaranteed minimum income, or something else?
Is it possible to lower the poverty rate through education and effective budgeting skills?
Where do most Americans overspend their money and how can this best be corrected?
Are transfer payments by the government (child care, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, SNAP), wasteful or helpful?
As a policy maker in the federal or state government, what is the first action you would take to address the affordability problem in the United States or in your state?
How is Italy addressing the causes of poverty in addition to providing a guaranteed income to support people and families with basic needs?
How is Italy financing its program and is it cost effective?
Are tax cuts or tax credits an effective policy to assist people facing affordability issues?
Activity #4: Voter Participation in USA and Greece
United States
Voter participation is based on many factors and the structure for electing representatives to Congress is complex and is related to the selection of electors in each state who vote for the president and vice-president every four years. In the first 25 years of the 21st century, voting has changed significantly in the United States regarding the way citizens vote and in the definition of a legally registered voter. In this activity, you will discuss and analyze the issues of gerrymandering, voter participation, and voter eligibility in the United States and compare our process with voter participation in Greece.
Gerrymandering:
Every 10 years, states redraw the boundaries of congressional districts to reflect population changes reported in the census. The purpose is to create districts/maps that elect legislative bodies that fairly represent communities. In 1929, the number of representatives for the population was set at 435. In the 1920s the debate about fairness was between urban and rural populations and today it is between racial and ethnic populations and political parties. This practice is ‘partisan gerrymandering’. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause, that gerrymandered maps cannot be challenged in federal court.
Partisan gerrymandering is undemocratic when one party controls the process at the state level. Cracking is a strategy that places some voters in districts that are a a distance from their immediate geographic area, making it very difficult for them to elect a candidate from their political party preference or racial or ethnic group. The majority of voters in New Jersey favored the Democratic Party making it difficult to establish districts that are fair to residents who favor the Republican Party. The issue of fairness may conflict with what is considered legal, fair, and constitutional. This complexity should engage students in a lively debate regarding its relationship to voter participation.
After the 2020 census, Republicans controlled the redistricting process in more states than Democrats.
In Illinois, the Democratic majority designed the congressional map limiting Republicans to just 3 of 17 seats. The use of algorithms and artificial intelligence are assisting the drawing of partisan districts. South Carolina offers an example of racial bias in a reconfigured district in Charleston that removed many Black voters. However, when challenged under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the new design was defended based on politics rather than race or ethnicity.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been challenged in the federal courts and amended in 1982. The decision in Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Hous Development Corporation (1977) is the current standard regarding a requirement that discrimination would actually harm minority voting strength. This standard is more difficult to prove than an expectation that it might be discriminatory. In 2013, a requirement of photo identification in North Carolina was challenged in Shelby County v. Holder but there was insufficient evidence to meet the standard of discrimination.
Voter Registration and Eligibility:
Voting is basically controlled by the states, although they must be in compliance with federal laws regarding elections for Congress and the President. Every state, except North Dakota, requires citizens to register to vote. Voter registration can help prevent ineligible voters from voting. The registration process generally includes identification to validate age, residency, citizenship, and a valid signature or state ID. Registration also prevents people from voting multiple times and someone stealing their ballot and submitting it.
Voter Participation:
There are different ways to measure voter participation regarding trends over time, in years when voters elected a governor or president, by age, race, or ethnicity, when a popular issue was on the ballot, etc. In New Jersey, voter participation is generally less than 50% of the population.
In presidential elections, the voter turnout is between 60% and 70% on average. New Jersey has more than 70% of the population voting. Efforts to increase voter participation include early voting, mail-in ballots, and extended hours at polls.
Greece
Voter Participation:
Voter participation rates in the European Union are less than 50%. The democracies in most European Union countries have multiple political parties, unlike the United States which has two major parties. One of the reasons for the lower voter turnout is pessimism regarding both the candidates and issues. The voter participation rate in Greece is above the average of EU countries, and we will use this as our case study.
In 2025, Greece’s political scene is dominated by the center-right party, New Democracy. The largest opposition party is the SYRIZA, a left wing of progressive party. Some of the current problems or issues facing the people in Greece are high prices, health care, and public safety. The Russia-Ukraine War and the authoritarian government in Turkey are also concerns.
The survey revealed a significant and concerning trend, with recent elections showing record-high abstention rates—46.3% in the June 2023 national elections and 58.8% in the June 2024 European elections. A recent scandal in Greece also impacted the election involving a spyware tool, Predator, which has been associated with associates of the current Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The illustration below is a guide to the numerous ideologies of the political parties in Greece. There are also restrictions on the freedom of the press, which fosters a credibility gap between the people and their government.
Questions:
Why do you think the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial gerrymandering is illegal but partisan gerrymandering is permitted?
In Rucho, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that partisan gerrymandering may be “incompatible with democratic principles.” Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer.
Even though gerrymandering may benefit one political party over another, it is the people who elect the state representatives who draw the maps for the congressional districts. Is this practice fair or unfair?
What is the best way to significantly increase voter participation in the United States, Greece, and other countries?
Are the requirements for voter registration and proof of identification significant restrictions on voters?
To what extent is voting in New Jersey fair for all eligible voters?
The author tells the story here of both England and Ireland because they cannot be separated easily. Since the very beginning of humans’ time in that part of the world, both lands and cultures were connected. It is that united history that leads the way in this incredible story of the sometimes icy, sometimes verdant northern reaches of civilization.
The reader will find here exciting and revealing chapters in the history of movements throughout the pre-historic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and modern times of the isles. There are clear and helpful illustrations, and there is enough information here to fill any semester-long course on the history of England, or rather Albion, as it was first called by those who were using formal language.
The author paints rich stories onto a canvas of what was once a chilly ice-covered region and which came to be a world power. The author makes use of language, tools, science, history, and other major fields to tell about the different eras of the isles.
The years of the Celts are very intriguing ones, indeed. Cunliffe speaks of the idea that there were two entirely distinct waves of movement among them—including Iberia, Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, and Wales (pp. 248-249). He also speaks to the idea that the Celts started in the north and later in one era migrated as a large group southward to Brittany (p. 428). He has a number of additional theories related to this and other good examples of “movement.”
Another very interesting idea is that language, culture, and tools were shared up and down the west coast of Europe and up between the isles—a sort of “Atlantic” civilization (p. 344) emerging over time among the Celts. This explains linguistic and other hints pointing to migrations and movements up and down the coast—as opposed to some earlier notions of “Spanish” Celts trudging only northward to the further reaches of what came to be the UK.
Cunliffe talks about the notion of Celts moving southward—starting in Scotland and Ireland and coming down into Europe along the Atlantic. The author uses many different sorts of proof to advance this theory, at the same time he asks additional questions.
Teachers will be able to use this big book in a variety of ways. First and foremost, it is important personal reading for any teacher interested in social studies in general and in the history of English-speaking people specifically. Understanding the history of northwest Europe is helpful in understanding the intricate connections among the Celts and Europeans, the British and the Irish, and the Scandinavian and Germanic stock among the English.
Another important use is for helping students understand the power of “movement” among peoples, the conflicts created and agreements forged, and the resulting cultural and linguistic differences and similarities resulting from peoples coming into contact. The notion of movement relates also to the travelling ideas, tools, traditions, names, weapons, foods, trades, and books, later. Any standards and benchmarks related to movement are connected through teacher use of this book as a reference and resource.
Yet another good use of this volume is a textbook for a college-level course in history, of course. Because it covers so very much information, it could also be used as a summer reading project for advanced rising college freshman students needing timely non-fiction reading.
Those four uses of the book can be joined by another one I propose here: coffee table teaser. It would be interesting to set this in plain view and see who would pick it up and want to start reading it. It has a beautiful green cover. There are in fact many photos, drawings, and illustrations inside. The cover just might draw in some unsuspecting readers.
Right after the end of the Second World War, there was a new issue that took center stage that would essentially divide the entire world in half for the next several decades, that being the rise and spread of communism. Initially starting during the Russian Revolution in 1917, communism was starting to spread throughout the world due to the expanding influences of socialist ideologies that were turning many civilizations into communist states either under or at the very least inspired by the Soviet Union. Many other countries began seeing their own revolutions that would lead to a rebirth or major change within their government system, with one such example being China becoming a communist nation in 1949. The man who single handedly led the people of China into a new era in Chinese history and would become their new leader was Mao Zedong. During this time in the world, the cold war was in full effect with many countries not only falling to communism, but also the race to advance a nation’s status among the world. Mao Zedong saw that China had the full potential to grow stronger and faster in their economy, resources, and military. Starting in 1958, Mao Zedong would launch the Great Leap Forward, a movement that would focus on improving China’s stature as fast as possible to catch up with other global powers such as the Soviet Union and the United States. However, Mao’s ambitious methods and dedication to rapidly increasing production and change in China would majorly backfire. It isn’t a disputed claim that the Great Leap Forward did not work and was in fact a major failure under Mao Zedong’s leadership, but how bad were the repercussions from the Great Leap Forward? This paper will be discussing the extent of the failures and cost of human lives caused by the Great Leap Forward.
The early stages of the Cold War consisted of the biggest, most powerful nations during that time displaying their strength, alliances, power, and influence over the world. One side of the conflict was the United States, which had significant military strength, government leadership, and made it their goal to get involved when necessary to prevent other countries from falling to communism. On the other side of the spectrum was the Soviet Union, who held control over nearly half of Europe (particularly the nations who were formerly occupied by the Axis powers during World War II), and was starting to spread their influences throughout several parts of Asia, including China. The leader of the newly founded People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, took notice of how fast the Soviet Union was able to rapidly catch up to the world, and that it was one of the biggest reasons towards what led the U.S.S.R. to be seen as major and powerful threats towards the rest of the world.
In the article Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China’s Provinces by Xizhe Peng, Mao’s ambition to replicate what was done just earlier under Stalin’s five year plans is what would inspire his decision to speed up production throughout the country’s systems in order to quickly reach the level of and even outperform other countries1. “the late Chairman Mao Zedong proposed the goal for China of overtaking Great Britain in industrial production within 15 years…The general line of the Party that guided the Great Leap Forward was ‘Going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better, and more economical results in building socialism’” (Peng)1. Beginning in 1958, China wanted to reach certain levels of production in which Mao Zedong would see as great improvements for China in building strength within resources, such as industrializing faster in order to catch up on steel production in order to provide more tools, resources, and military equipment. Nearly all citizens would be put to work in order to help contribute towards the bigger collection, and while in practice this may seem like a good idea, there would only be problems that quickly emerged which eventually lead bad situations to catastrophic failures.
Poor decisions, bad thought processes, and poor actions that were made by Chairman Mao Zedong would heavily damage his own society and would be the somewhat direct cause of the deaths of millions of people. In the article Dealing with Responsibility for the Great Leap Famine in the People’s Republic of China by Felix Wemheuer, it discusses about who or what the Chinese communist party blamed for the disastrous results that the Great Leap Forward caused in the rise of famine and deaths throughout China, and many felt that Mao Zedong himself was solely responsible.2 For a short while, Mao Zedong was so stubborn that he refused to accept responsibility for what he caused to happen throughout China, instead wanting to blame other elements. However, due to pressure from his party and the massive amount of devastation that was now throughout China due to the failure of wanting to mass produce, Mao Zedong would eventually take some of the blame.
The rapid growth that the Soviet Union was able to accomplish in just a short amount of time was a remarkable feat. The Soviet Union succeeded in becoming the industrial powerhouse that they were in the mid-20th century, and it was an impressive achievement for showing how any country can shift their goals and, within a short time period, can grow in the eyes of the world in terms of strength and power. In the period of world history where many countries were racing in the growth of their industry, military, and their level of dominance in the world, Mao Zedong was looking to use, explore, and expand upon similar strategies in order for China to join the arms race and to be seen as a powerful contender. Mao Zedong was clearly trying to follow in their footsteps in rapidly increasing their resources and financial stock, but just as how the Russians suffered through major push-back, the people of China would face similar, yet even greater push-back towards their economy. The article Causes, Consequences and Impact of the Great Leap Forward in China by Hsiung-Shen Jung and Jui-Lung Chen describes the detrimental damage the Great Leap Forward caused to China’s economy3. “After the Great Leap Forward, it took five years to adjust the national economy before it was restored to the 1957 level… economic losses of up to RMB 120 billion” (Hsiung-Shen and Jui-Lung)3. The nation was put under tremendous debt due to the poor planning and even worse results caused by Mao Zedong during the period of the Great Leap Forward, and to top it off, Mao’s stubbornness prevented him from taking any responsibility. Mao would even go on to make claims to purposely lead the people of China’s frustrations towards something else. It is stated within Hsiung-Shen Jung and Jui-Lung Chen’s article that “Mao remained reluctant to fully acknowledge the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward… he proposed the Party’s fundamental approach in the socialist stage, followed by a left-wing socialist educational campaign aimed at cracking down on the capitalist roaders,” (Hsiung-Shen and Jui-Lung)3. Just as Mao spread his ideologies and political messages throughout China to the people, he responded to the major hardship of a failed experiment he caused by trying to shift the blame onto those with the opposite economic and business philosophies of the Chinese Communist Party. The main cause of the detrimental shape of China’s economy due to major loss in food production, labor, and the loss of people’s lives was caused pushing the country too hard and too fast in Mao’s egotistical push for China to change and grow faster rather than taking his time for proper developmental growth and a fair distribution of the wealth, food, and supplies to his own citizens.
The famine caused by the Great Leap Forward is one of just a few of the most infamous famines throughout history, such as the notorious Irish potato famine of the 19th century that killed over a million people. The total death toll of the famine caused in China during the Great Leap Forward was in the tens of millions, and as the article Mortality consequences of the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward famine in China: Debilitation, selection, and mortality crossovers by Shige Song describes famines, “Famine is a catastrophic event” (Song)4.
This same article goes into a research study done by the author who has not only compromised data from the mortality rate and statistics during the Chinese famine, but also how it had such negative repercussions for the people and birth rates afterwards, such as a graph that shows the probability of survival decreasing4. The declining rate of survival not only affected very young kids and teens, but was affecting people years after the famine was over. The distribution of food supplies and decreasing amount of crops successfully growing made such a major dent in the health and lifespan of the average citizen in China, and that the famine itself began so quickly and rapidly within a short period of time. The Great Leap Forward only lasted for a few years, but its severe damages caused upon China would cause the people of China to continue to suffer for the following years to come.
When thinking about how to measure the severity of an event or period of time, one may look at the total number of people that died who were directly linked to the occurrence. While this is certainly a fully reasonable statistic to use, in the case of a famine where the main cause of death is starvation, it can create the question of how much of a difference in food output really was there? The article The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster by Wei Li and Dennis Tao Yang goes into many exact pieces of data and statistics regarding the output of grain being grown, the number of workers, and other elements of farm production5.
The Great Leap Forward lasted from 1958-1962, and within Li and Tao Yang’s grain output table in China, it shows that the total grain output during the years of the Great Leap Forward decreased by almost 100 million tons of grain, which is a loss of almost half of the total grain output just before the Great Leap Forward5. During this same time range, there was a noticeable decrease in workers, presumably dying due to the famine and harsh labor they were being put through. However, there was also an increase in both farm machinery and chemical fertilizer which would rapidly increase more in the years after the Great Leap Forward. Now while this can be considered a small victory for Mao’s intent on rapidly increasing and modernizing China’s agriculture, it did come at the major cost of both a famine, a decrease in crops being grown, and the loss of many Chinese farmers. The advanced farming tools, machinery, and techniques that did come from the Great Leap Forward still came at a major cost for the people and economy of China.
While farming and grain production was a very big part in the overall progression of China’s resources, it wasn’t the only thing that Mao Zedong was trying to rapidly change and try to improve in order to make China a more powerful country. For most of history, China was primarily an agricultural society, but in the turn of the 20th century, many countries were beginning to not only industrialize in materials, resources, and military, but they were doing so at a very fast rate. The production of steel in China was to be taken much more seriously in order for China to catch up with the other world powers in terms of strength in industrialized resources, but just like with the negative consequences of rapidly changing grain production, Mao’s attempt to reform steel production in China also came with its own tolls. Going back to Wei Li and Dennis Tao Yang’s article The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster, there is a statistics table done on the steel production and output in China during this time period, and it shows how big of a jump there was in steel and iron output within a very short amount of time5. China was able to triple their steel and iron output during the years of the Great Leap Forward, and the number of production units increased from tens of households to over two thousand households in just a few years5. However, during this same time gap, the number of provinces that allowed its people to have exit rights quickly went down as more and more provinces were quickly taking away rights from its own workers. Also, in the years after the Great Leap Forward, the output of steel and the number of production units would decrease by a noticeable amount, showing that it was only just a very short term benefit with major consequences5. This shows how quick, rapid, and big changes in the production of any resource within a country is not good for the other elements of that country, such as human rights and households with either food or enough materials and resources.
The rapid increase in the demand for more food and a faster input of the growth of crops was not good in the long run for the people themselves, since it would cause a famine and leave millions upon millions of people to starve to death. Starvation is already a major issue for the population of one of the most populous countries in the world, but not only were the Chinese people affected negatively by the Great Leap Forward’s farming strategies, but the ground itself was severely damaged by the rapid changes and increased activity in China. The article Terrain Ruggedness and Limits of Political Repression: Evidence from China’s Great Leap Forward and Famine (1959–61) by Elizabeth Gooch explains how Mao’s farming campaign during the Great Leap Forward not only increased the mortality rate, but also damaged the dirt and soil of China6. There are statistics and graphs put together by Elizbeth Gooch in her article showing how because of the Great Leap Forward, there was an increased number in the amount of rugged terrain due to a vast increase of production, manufacturing and pollution that were caused by the Great Leap Forward6. A lot of the natural dirt, soil, and nutrients found within the farming grounds used for growing crops, plants, and foods were now blighted by the overproduction going on throughout China, and that there are even parallels between the death rate and the rate of soil becoming rugged. Mao Zedong wanted grain production, along with the production of other resources, to keep increasing, but due to his plans being executed in poor fashion and horrendous results, he was causing so much harm and damage towards the people of China and to China’s natural environment.
The number of crops being harvested is down, the natural land of China is dwindling, and there is a famine that has taken the lives of millions of people, but there’s a chance that this was all worth it in the long run for the growth and prosperity of China. The main purpose of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward was for China to catch up with the other fully developed and powerful countries, and one of the biggest factors that can help with that is having an efficient, well running, and strong industrial production system. Ever since the Industrial Revolution began back in the 19th century, civilizations one by one have moved forward with their main economic resource production with the building of many factories that produced metal, steel, and other materials. This was also one of the biggest things to come out of the Soviet Union’s rapid growth in power in the early 20th century, and it was the strong industrial powerhouse that Joseph Stalin achieved for his country that Mao Zedong wanted to implement for China. Returning to Elizabeth Gooch’s Terrain Ruggedness and Limits of Political Repression: Evidence from China’s Great Leap Forward and Famine (1959–61), the growth of industrialization within China was perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments in the Great Leap Forward6. As the line graphs in Gooch’s article shows, industry increased by a very large amount during the years of the Great Leap Forward, although agriculture took a slight decrease during that same time frame, most likely due to many of the farmers being forced to work in the newly made factories and steel producing areas6. However, while looking at the rates of birth, growth, and death during these same few years, it becomes clear that the success of rapid Chinese industrialization came at the expense of the people themselves. The birth and growth rate took a big decrease during this time, and the rate of death tremendously increased6. While China did greatly benefit from the growth of industry and metal production, it was done at the cost of the health and safety of the people, along with attention being shifted away from agriculture and polluting the land.
Besides the main elements of the Great Leap Forward that were seen as major problems for the people of China, such as grain, steel, food, and other resources, there was also another very important element that is crucial for the survival of people and civilizations: water. In the Great Leap Forward, there were also campaigns for the industrial working, usage, and processing of water that in itself would cause even more issues for China. In the article The Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) Historical events and causes of one of the biggest tragedies in People’s Republic of China’s history by Adriana Palese, it describes the effects of the increase of water conservation projects from 25 million to 100 million, “inhuman working hours”, and that the the projects themselves weren’t a success with a cost at the expense of the people of China, as “most were useless and caused disasters some years after and other projects were simply abandoned and left uncompleted” (Palese)7. While there is mention of a decrease in flooding, this is once again an example of the many campaigns launched by Mao Zedong to improve and advance China with rapid industrialization, it did not at all work for the benefit of the people of China as a whole since the vast majority of people would suffer from this, along with the other failed campaigns during the Great Leap Forward.
While rapidly increasing the production of everything in China may be seen as good in concept, not only would it very negatively harm the people and the society of China, but sometimes these bold campaigns would actually make these situations worse than they were before. In Adriana Palese’s The Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) Historical events and causes of one of the biggest tragedies in People’s Republic of China’s history, she writes that “there were total shortages of other foods and other products such as cooking oil, sugar, thermos bottles, porcelain dishes, glasses, shoes, etc” (Palese)7. Not only could less food be made due to the dwindling number of crops being grown and an ongoing famine, but the manufactured goods of simple tools and supplies were faxing a big shortage and that it seems like the simple transactional market based economy of China for all goods and products was collapsing. Palese’s article even includes the wide percentage decrease in the output of agriculture and industrial goods that were happening during this time period7. The Great Leap Forward was rapidly deteriorating all elements that make up Chinese society, their economy, public morale, and way of life.
During one of the most crucial parts of the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong aimed to improve and increase the farming of grain since it was still seen as a very important part in actually feeding the population. However, a common enemy to the growth of any crops in a farming society is bugs, pests, and other insects since they can eat away at the growing crops. Mao Zedong had his own solution to this problem. In the article China’s deadly science lesson: How an ill-conceived campaign against sparrows contributed to one of the worst famines in history by Jemimah Steinfeld, “As part of the Four Pests campaign – a hygiene campaign against flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows – people were called upon to shoot sparrows, destroy their nests and bang pots and pans until the birds died of exhaustion” (Steinfeld)8. Anyone in China, men, women, and children were able to participate in the killing/removal of these target pests. While there were minor victories removing these pests, it overall came at a serious cost. One of these so called pests, the sparrows, were removed from the China’s agricultural society, but they were responsible for keep an even bigger threat towards crops away, locusts.8 Even after Mao Zedong had stop the killing of sparrows, the damage has already been dead, as this was one of the biggest reasons in what led to the famine spreading so rapidly and quickly through China, causing the deaths of millions of people in just a few short years.8 This was seen as why no matter the circumstances or beliefs, the ecosystem of any land should never be altered or drastically changed for the human need, since removing living creatures from their natural habitat and cycle would cause such a direct correlation between the farming/pest campaign to the millions of deaths caused by famine.
In conclusion, while the Great Leap Forward was initially seen as a progressive strategy to quickly advance Chinese society, it ultimately resulted in failure. Millions of people would die due to starvation caused by mass famines throughout the vast farmland of China. Many farmers were taken from their fields and forced to work in industrial yards in order to catch up on steel and metal resources for China. Mao Zedong was so blinded by the result of other nation’s rapid industrialization that he ignored what negative consequences can come of it, only this time China would suffer greater than any country has suffered before with little to nothing to show for it. Mao Zedong’s attempt in advancing China only set back the country, reduced morale and reduced support from his own party. The Great Leap Forward will go down in history as one of the most devastating eras in Chinese history due to the major count of the loss of life and how one of the oldest and culture rich societies in the world nearly destroyed themselves over ambitious goals due to the global affairs in the Cold War.
Endnotes
Peng, Xizhe. “Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China’s Provinces.” The China Quarterly 159 (1999): 430-453.
Wemheuer, Felix. “Dealing with Responsibility for the Great Leap Famine in the People’s Republic of China.” The China Quarterly 216 (2013): 402-423.
Jung, Hsiung-Shen, and Jui-Lung Chen. “Causes, Consequences and Impact of the Great Leap Forward in China.” Asian Culture and History 11, no. 2 (2019): 61–70.
Song, Shige. “Mortality Consequences of the 1959–1961 Great Leap Forward Famine in China: Debilitation, Selection, and Mortality Crossovers.” Social Science & Medicine 71, no. 3 (2010): 551–558.
Li, Wei, and Dennis Tao Yang. “The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster.” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 4 (2005): 840–77.
Gooch, Elizabeth. “Terrain Ruggedness and Limits of Political Repression: Evidence from China’s Great Leap Forward and Famine (1959–61).” Journal of Comparative Economics 47, no. 4 (2019): 699–718.
Palese, Adriana. The Great Leap Forward (1958–1961): Historical Events and Causes of One of the Biggest Tragedies in People’s Republic of China’s History. Bachelor’s thesis, Lund University, 2009.
Steinfeld, Jemimah. “China’s Deadly Science Lesson: How an Ill-Conceived Campaign Against Sparrows Contributed to One of the Worst Famines in History.” Index on Censorship 47, no. 3 (September 2018): 6–8.
References
Jung, Hsiung-Shen, and Jui-Lung Chen. “Causes, Consequences and Impact of the Great Leap Forward in China.” Asian Culture and History 11, no. 2 (2019): 61–70.
Gooch, Elizabeth. “Terrain Ruggedness and Limits of Political Repression: Evidence from China’s Great Leap Forward and Famine (1959–61).” Journal of Comparative Economics 47, no. 4 (2019): 699–718.
Li, Wei, and Dennis Tao Yang. “The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster.” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 4 (2005): 840–77.
Palese, Adriana. The Great Leap Forward (1958–1961): Historical Events and Causes of One of the Biggest Tragedies in People’s Republic of China’s History. Bachelor’s thesis, Lund University, 2009.
Peng, Xizhe. “Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China’s Provinces.” The China Quarterly 159 (1999): 430-453.
Song, Shige. “Mortality Consequences of the 1959–1961 Great Leap Forward Famine in China: Debilitation, Selection, and Mortality Crossovers.” Social Science & Medicine 71, no. 3 (2010): 551–558.
Steinfeld, Jemimah. “China’s Deadly Science Lesson: How an Ill-Conceived Campaign Against Sparrows Contributed to One of the Worst Famines in History.” Index on Censorship 47, no. 3 (September 2018): 6–8.
Wemheuer, Felix. “Dealing with Responsibility for the Great Leap Famine in the People’s Republic of China.” The China Quarterly 216 (2013): 402-423.
Teaching the Black Death: Using Medieval Medical Treatments to Develop Historical Thinking
Katelin Hornsby
Few historical events capture students’ attention as immediately as the Black Death. The scale of devastation, the drama of symptoms, and the rapid spread of disease all make it an inherently compelling topic. But beyond the shock value, medieval responses to the plague open the door to something far more important for social studies education: historical thinking. When students first encounter medieval cures like bloodletting, vinegar-soaked sponges, herbal compounds like theriac, or even the infamous “live chicken treatment”, their instinct is often to laugh or dismiss the past as ignorant. Yet these remedies, when studied carefully, reveal a medical system that was logical, coherent, and deeply rooted in the scientific frameworks of its time. Teaching plague medicine provides teachers with a powerful opportunity to challenge presentism, develop students’ contextual understanding, and foster empathy for people whose worldview differed radically from our own. Drawing on research into plague treatments during the Black Death, this article offers teachers accessible background knowledge, addresses common misconceptions, and provides practical strategies and primary-source approaches that use medieval medicine to strengthen disciplinary literacy and historical reasoning in the social studies classroom.
Understanding medieval plague medicine begins with understanding humoral theory, the dominant medical framework of the period. Medieval Europeans believed that the body’s health depended on maintaining balance among the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile (Leong, 2017). Illness occurred when these fluids fell out of proportion, making the plague less a foreign invader and more a catastrophic imbalance. Bloodletting was one of the most common responses, meant to “draw off the poisoned blood” and reduce fever. Other strategies included induced vomiting or purging, both intended to remove corrupted humors from the body. Treatises such as Bengt Knutsson’s The Dangers of Corrupt Air emphasized both prevention and treatment through the regulation of sensory experiences, most famously through the use of vinegar (Knuttson, 1994). Its sharp and purifying qualities made it useful for cleansing internal humors or blocking the inhalation of dangerous air. Though these methods seem foreign to modern readers, they reflect a rational system built upon centuries of inherited medical theory, offering students a clear example of how people in the past interpreted disease through the frameworks available to them.
Herbal and compound remedies were equally important in medieval plague treatment and worked in tandem with humoral correction. One of the most famous was theriac, a complex blend of dozens of ingredients including myrrh, cinnamon, opiates, and various roots (Fabbri, 2007). Practitioners believed that theriac fortified the heart and expelled harmful humors, with its complexity symbolizing the combined power of nature’s properties. Other remedies included ginger-infused ale, used to stimulate internal heat, or cupping, which involved applying heated horns or glasses to the skin in order to draw corrupted blood toward the surface. These treatments show the synthesis of classical medical texts, practical experimentation, and local knowledge. When teachers present these treatments in the classroom, students will begin to see medieval medicine not as random or superstitious, but as a sophisticated system shaped by observation, tradition, and reason.
Medieval healing also extended into the emotional and spiritual realms, reflecting the belief that physical and internal states were interconnected. Chroniclers described how fear and melancholy could hasten death, leading many to encourage celebrations, laughter, and community gatherings even during outbreaks. A monastic account from Austria advised people to “cheer each other up,” suggesting that joy strengthened the heart’s resilience. At the same time, religious writers like Dom Theophilus framed plague as both a physical and spiritual crisis, prescribing prayer, confession, and communion as essential components of healing. These practices did not replace medical treatment but complemented it, emphasizing the medieval tendency to view health holistically. Introducing students to these lifestyle-based treatments helps them recognize the complexity of medieval worldviews, where spirituality, emotion, and physical health were deeply intertwined.
Because plague remedies can appear unusual or ineffective to modern students, several misconceptions tend to arise in the classroom. Many students initially view medieval people as ignorant or irrational, evaluating the past through the lens of modern scientific understanding. When teachers contextualize treatments within humoral theory and medieval medical logic, students begin to appreciate the internal coherence of these ideas. Another misconception is that medieval treatments never worked. While these remedies could not cure the plague itself, many offered symptom relief, soothed discomfort, or prevented secondary infections, revealing that medieval medicine was neither wholly ineffective nor devoid of empirical reasoning (Archambeu, 2011). Students also often assume that religious explanations dominated all responses to disease. Examining both medical treatises and spiritual writings demonstrates that medieval responses were multifaceted, blending empirical, experiential, and religious approaches simultaneously. These insights naturally support classroom strategies that promote historical thinking.
Inquiry-based questioning works particularly well with plague treatments. Asking students, “Why would this treatment make sense within medieval beliefs about the body?” encourages them to reason from evidence rather than impose modern judgments. Primary-source stations using texts such as The Arrival of the Plague or The Treatise of John of Burgundy allow students to compare remedies, analyze explanations of disease, and evaluate the reliability and purpose of each author (Horrox, 1994). A creative but historically grounded activity involves inviting students to “design” a medieval plague remedy using humoral principles, requiring them to justify their choices based on qualities such as hot, cold, wet, and dry. Such exercises not only build understanding of the medieval worldview but also reinforce core social studies skills like sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration. Even broader reflections, such as comparing medieval interpretations of disease to modern debates about public health, can help students think critically about how societies make sense of crisis.
Teaching plague medicine carries powerful instructional implications. It fosters historical empathy by encouraging students to see past actions within their cultural context. It strengthens disciplinary literacy through close reading of primary sources and evaluation of evidence. It challenges misconceptions and reduces presentism, helping students develop a mature understanding of the past. The topic also naturally lends itself to interdisciplinary thinking, drawing connections between science, history, culture, and religion. Ultimately, medieval plague treatments offer teachers a rich opportunity to show students how historical interpretations develop through careful analysis of belief systems, available knowledge, and environmental conditions.
The Black Death will always capture students’ imaginations, but its true educational value lies in what it allows them to practice: empathy, critical thinking, and contextual reasoning. By reframing medieval treatments not as bizarre relics but as rational responses grounded in their own scientific traditions, teachers can transform a sensational topic into a meaningful lens for understanding how people in the past made sense of the world. In doing so, plague medicine becomes more than an engaging subject; it becomes a model for how historical study can illuminate the logic, resilience, and humanity of societies long removed from our own.
References
A fifteenth-century treatise on pestilence. (1994). In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 193–194). Manchester University Press.
Archambeau, N. (2011). Healing options during the plague: Survivor stories from a fourteenth century canonization inquest. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 85(4), 531–559. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44452234
Fabbri, C. N. (2007). Treating medieval plague: The wonderful virtues of theriac. Early
Knutsson, B. (1994). The dangers of corrupt air. In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 175–177). Manchester University Press.
Paris Medical Faculty. (1994). The report of the Paris medical faculty, October 1348. In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 158–163). Manchester University Press.
Heinrichs, E. A. (2017). The live chicken treatment for buboes: Trying a plague cure in medieval and early modern Europe. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 91(2), 210–232. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26311051
Leong, E., & Rankin, A. (2017). Testing drugs and trying cures: Experiment and medicine in medieval and early modern Europe. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 91(2), 157–182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26311049
The Plague in Central Europe. (1994). In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 193–194). Manchester University Press. de’ Mussis, G. (1994). The arrival of the plague. In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (p. 25). Manchester University Press.
The treatise of John of Burgundy. (1994). In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 184–192). Manchester University Press.
Theophilus, D. (1994). A wholesome medicine against the plague. In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 149–153). Manchester University Press.
The transmission of plague. (1994). In R. Horrox (Ed. & Trans.), The Black Death (pp. 182–184). Manchester University Press.
Imagine a deadly disease ripping through your town and the only hope of survival is in the hands of health workers who rely on established medical knowledge and practical methods in desperate attempts to save your lives. During the late Medieval period between 1347 and 1351, the Black Death stirred chaos across Europe including cities in France and Italy, killing millions of people who were in its deadly path. It brought out great fear and uncertainty in surviving resulting in the use of a variety of treatment methods, blending these practices with religious beliefs and supernatural beliefs. These different approaches reveal just how much medical knowledge at the time was shaped by pre-established knowledge, traditional theories, and practical methods from the past, raising the question: How did health workers attempt to treat and combat the plague during the Medieval period? During the medieval period, health workers attempted to combat and treat the Black Death by mixing established medical knowledge and practical methods together. Methods like theriac, bloodletting, air purifications and experimental treatments from the past like imperial powder, put together traditional healing treatments with evolving practices. This approach will show how past medical knowledge and evolving practices were used by health workers to treat and combat the Black Death. This will also show both the intellectual growth and evolution of medical treatments and methods.
These health workers were very diverse in their levels of medical knowledge; some were volunteers, nuns, inexperienced physicians and barber surgeons. Even though they had diverse levels of expertise, they all played the biggest role in the plague, giving treatments to those who fell victim to the Black Death. This approach highlights the play between practical methods, established medical knowledge, adaptation, and preventive measures in combating the plague.
Historiography
Health workers were trying to fight back at the Black Death using practical methods like bloodletting, which was brought up from past medical knowledge and public health rules growing at the time. As health workers were desperately trying to deal with the crisis the Black Death was bringing, the use of practical and hygienic measures were used as an attempt to help those falling ill. One attempt that was seen in treating the plague was the process of bloodletting. Neil Murphy’s article, “Plague Ordinances and the Management of Infectious Diseases in Northern French Towns, c.1450-c.1560,” goes into detail of the developments of public health systems and the ordinances that shaped the responses to the plague.[1] Murphy is arguing that these ordinances emerged from evolving strategies like those in Italy, were connected to cultural and intellectual contexts bringing together medical theories with practical actions. Murphy in this emphasizes the practice of bloodletting, which was performed by barber surgeons or surgeons. This procedure was aimed at removing contaminated blood, slowing down the disease in the body.2 This method shows the connection between the medical theories at the time and practical actions taken, which were shaped by the intellectual contexts of this time.
Past strategies were seen greatly in these attempts along with bloodletting, another we see is attempts in changing emotional and medical practices through survival stories. From survivors’ stories, we can understand attempts made during this time to stop the plague, especially through health workers trying to help based on past medical knowledge and practical treatments similarly to past knowledge on bloodletting. Nicole Archambeau in “Healing Options during the Plague: Survivor Stories from a Fourteenth-Century Canonization Inquest”, shows great emphasis in the intellectual context of medicines and its “miracles” on those it healed, showing how beliefs and medical practices intersected to shape the responses to the plague.[2] At this time, some people wanted healing methods combining religious and practical approaches, including methods of emotional changes. Archambeau argued that “Witnesses had healing options’… their testimonies reveal a willingness to try many different methods of healing, often all at once”[3] This shows how survivors were relying on any type of resources from family, friends and health workers connecting their beliefs and intellectual medical practices at this time. Health workers adapted their methods of helping based on the resources that were available as well as on the patients’ wants and needs. This highlights the adaptability and flexibility these health workers had for their patients and their commitment to help treat those suffering during this time of horror and devastation.
Similarly, through the past medical knowledge, health workers relied on giving treatments that blended intellectual medical knowledge with practical methods to attempt treating the plague. Another piece to these treatments we see is a compound called theriac. Christiane Nockels Fabbri’s article “Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac,” shows the use of Theriac, a compound that has been used as an antidote since ancient times, being a crucial treatment during the Black Death. Fabbri argues that the use of Theriac in these treatments demonstrates how health workers applied this traditional remedy to this new disease showing conservatism of these medical practices. Fabbri states how “In plague medicine, theriac was used as both a preventive and therapeutic drug and was most likely beneficial for a variety of disease complaints.”[4] This shows how health workers relied on this because of its practical efficiency and its intellectual and cultural significance in the past.
From these three sources, it is clear to see how they all were similar in how health workers tended to link past medical knowledge with their practical methods to help suffering, showing how they attempted to go about treating the plague. Treatments like bloodletting, personal wanted miracle methods and theriac were just a few of the ways they attempted to help those who got sick. My analysis highlights how these treatments were based on public health measures that were put into cities to help maintain and stop the spreading of the plague. Ordinances aimed to help isolate the disease and keep calm over the chaos that the plague was bringing into town. These helped to create a framework that helped health workers approach how they would attempt to treat those who fell sick.
Practical Methods
One of the main and well-known treatments given by health workers during this time was a drug called theriac. This type of medicine was extremely popular in its effectiveness and was wanted by victims once they fell ill or were scared that they would fall ill. In “The real Theriac – panacea, poisonous drug or quackery?” by Raj, Danuta, Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska, Maciej Włodarczyk and Jakub Węglorz, talks about this compound and its ability to remove diseases and poison from the body and how it was a well-known and used drug during the medieval period; “Consequently, Theriac was being prepared during epidemics, especially the plague (Black Death), in large quantities as a form of emergency medicine (Griffin, 2004).”[5] Relying on theriac as a direct treatment, health workers showed their commitment to using this accessible great drug that was well known, to make people confident that this treatment would work during a time of uncertainty and devastation.
Correspondingly, we see another direct form of treatment that health workers used to treat those who had the plague, bloodletting. Health workers would prick veins to do this. This was a way of extracting bad blood from the body to restore its balance. We see this in document 62 “The Treatise of John of Burgundy, 1365” written by John Burgundy. It projects the practical medical knowledge at the time that health workers were applying to treat those who have been hit with the Black Death. Burgundy continues to talk about the use of bloodletting, informing that “If, however, the patient feels prickings in the region of the liver, blood should be let immediately from the basilic vein of the right arm (that is the vein belonging to the liver, which is immediately below the vein belonging to the heart)”[6]. He is giving a specific technique to address this issue, giving us a practical method of treatment that shows how health workers used these hands-on treatments to combat the plague
These two methods were greatly known during the medieval period. They both offered hope to those who were desperate and wanting treatment so they would not die. These treatments at this time offered the feeling of control to the scary situation for its victims and gave a sense of hope to get better. Knowing theriac and bloodletting were used as treatment for victims, it helped to feel less overwhelmed and made it seem like health workers would be the redeeming feature to their deadly crisis.
Established Medical Knowledge
During the medieval period, health workers were able to recognize and understand that miasma, contaminated air, was the main causing factor of why the Black Death was spreading so much and killing everyone in its path. Due to this understanding, they implemented environmental purification strategies to end exposure of miasma. “The dangers of corrupted air” by Bengt Knutsson, shows great emphasis on this fear of the contaminated air and goes into methods that were used and done to cleanse the space and environment people were living in. A practice that health workers implemented to stop the miasma from taking over was to “Therefore let your house be clean and make clear fire of wood flaming. Let your house be made with fumigation of herbs, that is to say with leaves of bay tree, juniper…”[7] while also explaining opening windows at certain times and remedies if you feel sick.[8] These techniques reflect how established medical knowledge can be used in order to come up with ways to treat and combat the plague. Including the purification methods into the plague’s prevention by health workers, they were able to adapt with their knowledge on air quality and turn that into strategies to combat the Black Death.
Through the fears of the Black Death, health workers were relying on past medical knowledge, practices and strategies to manage the spread of this disease and to treat those who have been infected. The “Ordinances against the spread of plague, Pistoia, 1348” elaborates on how these workers used their past medical knowledge to reduce the spread and create a safer environment to go about treatments. This chronicler explains limiting your exposure to those who are ill by completely restricting people and patients’ interactions.[9] This will provide health workers with the safest opportunity to apply these treatments, like bloodletting or giving theriac, in a more controlled environment. This approach further reflects the combination of traditional medical knowledge and practical adaptations so then health workers could attempt to combat the plague’s destruction.
Health workers relied heavily on past medical knowledge and theories during this time of uncertainty to combat the Black Death, bringing together adaptations with established knowledge. The understanding of bad air being the cause helped them greatly in purification techniques like burning the herbs to mask the miasma. The ordinances stressing the need for isolation and restriction for interactions to give a safer environment for the health workers showed their adaptability to meet the demands of the plague as well as their preservation of historical medical theories of those in the past doing it. This shows the continuity and innovation that came during this period when trying to understand and combat the plague.
Adaptation and Preventative Measures
One way that health workers attempted to treat and combat the plague was through the development of treatments that were adapted from past medical knowledge. An example of this was imperial powder, in John Burgundy’s “The Treatise of Burgundy, 1365” being known as a “powerful preventative” that was thought of to be stronger than theriac. Burgundy explains how “gentile emperors used it against epidemic illness, poison and venom, and against the bite of serpents and other poisonous animals”[10] This powder was made from some herbs like St John’s wort, medicinal earth from Lemnos and dittany which shows us the diverse ingredients to kill off poison that were believed from the past and venoms that were inside the body. To use this powder, they would either apply it directly to the skin or by mixing it with a drink like wine for ingestion purposes. This shows the health workers willingness to experiment with past medical treatments to adapt it to the current plague they were going through, to find a better treatment for the Black Death.
Looking past medical treatments, to do them, health workers were implementing strict isolation strategies in order to combat and limit the spread of plague while also keeping the environment safe in order to treat those who fell ill. “The plague in Avignon” by Louis Heyligen shows emphasis on this isolation of staying away from neighboring areas and people so then health workers can do what they needed to do to help. This was an attempt made to manage the spreading of the disease through the town. It states how “…avoid getting cold, and refrain from any excess, and above all mix little with people – unless it be with few who have healthy breath; but it is best to stay at home until the epidemic has passed”[11]. Having this advising gives the reflection of the public health strategies that were employed in the cities being tied to medical treatments, because limiting the exposure would directly allow more health workers to safely treat those who were sick and in need of treatments. Trying to minimize contact with one another was a great strategy in controlling the transmission to get the disease to slow down in spreading. From the emotions brought on from the Black Death, it shows the willingness people were taking, to make it safer conditions outside for families and health workers.
Combining both the experimental treatments like imperial powder with the isolation policies, it opened the view of just how much health workers were combining the preexisting medical knowledge with their preventative measures to successfully combat the plague while treating it. Having this adaptability further influences medical practices and lays a greater foundation for future prevention strategies for diseases that come.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have explored several ways in which health workers attempted to treat the plague and combat it through pre-stablished medical knowledge and practical methods. These health workers, being remarkably diverse in who they were, applied many strategies and methods that were used including enforcing strict public health ordinances, the practice of bloodletting by barber surgeons, air purifications, use of Theriac and experimenting with the use of the imperial powder to attempt treating the plague. These health workers showed great standing adaptability to what was going on while building off the existing knowledge of medical treatments to address the deadliest crisis in history. This analysis gives a deeper understanding of medical knowledge and how they used their past resources to understand and try to save those who contracted this disease. Also, this shows how these attempts were deeply rooted into the intellectual history of these times through health workers drawing information from past medical scholars and past knowledge to gain a better understanding in how to perform their practices and methods. Involving themselves in this intellectual history, they were putting a building block on top of centuries of their medical knowledge through experimenting with it and adding new responses to how they attempted to treat their new disease. These contributions to the Black Death only strengthens our understanding of past medical history during the Black Death and past centuries.
References
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Burgundy, “The Treatise of Burgundy, 1365” pp.184-193
Chiappelli, A. “Ordinances against the Spread of Plague, Pistoia, 1348.” pp 194- 203
Fabbri, Christiane Nockels. “Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac.” Early Science and Medicine 12, no. 3 (2007): 247–83. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20617676. Heyligen, “The Plague in Avignon.” pp.41-45
Horrox, R., ed. The Black Death (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994).
Knutsson, “The dangers of corrupted air” pp.173-177
Murphy, Neil. “Plague Ordinances and the Management of Infectious Diseases in Northern French Towns, c.1450–c.1560.” In The Fifteenth Century XII: Society in an Age of Plague, edited by Linda Clark and Carole Rawcliffe, 139-160. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2013
Raj, Danuta, Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska, Maciej Włodarczyk, and Jakub Węglorz. 2021. “The Real Theriac – Panacea, Poisonous Drug or Quackery?” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 281 (December): N.PAG. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2021.114535.
[1] Murphy, Neil. “Plague Ordinances and the Management of Infectious Diseases in Northern French Towns, c.1450–c.1560.” In The Fifteenth Century XII: Society in an Age of Plague, edited by Linda Clark and Carole Rawcliffe, 139-160. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2013 2 Murphy, 146.
[2] Archambeau, Nicole. “Healing Options during the Plague: Survivor Stories from a Fourteenth Century Canonization Inquest.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 85, no. 4 (2011): 531–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44452234.
[4] Fabbri, Christiane Nockels. “Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac.” Early Science and Medicine 12, no. 3 (2007): 247–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20617676.
[5] Raj, Danuta, Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska, Maciej Włodarczyk, and Jakub Węglorz. 2021. “The Real Theriac – Panacea, Poisonous Drug or Quackery?” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 281 (December): N.PAG.
[6] Burgundy, “The Treatise of Burgundy, 1365” in The Black Death, ed. And trans. Rosemary Horrox (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 189.
[7] Knutsson, “The dangers of corrupted air” p.176
[8] Knutsson, “The dangers of corrupted air,” p.176
[9] Chiappelli, “Ordinances against the spread of plague, Pistoia, 1348,” p. 195
[10] Burgundy, “The Treatise of Burgundy, 1365” p.190
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