[osk.sta]

Hi,

First off I’d like to thank you for a great lecture series. I just finished all 42 lectures, and I really enjoyed it. I found the tone, pace and coherence great troughout all of them, and I’m looking forward to whatever additional lecture series you will produce in the future.

I studied a little bit of history in upper secondary school here in Sweden, and although that was a couple of years ago an my memory of it is not entirely fresh I think I basically got the same perspective there as I got here. I’d like to ask what what you would say differentiates this series from the mainstream history you get in school, or at least in US school?

[Jason Jewell]

Oskar, the topics covered in this series are for the most part the same you’d get in a traditional lecture series. You might be surprised at how few of these there are remaining, at least in the U.S. Many colleges and universities no longer offer Western Civ surveys. Those that do weight the lecture topics heavily to gender issues or some other thing that is trendy in the academy at the moment.

As far as the perspective is concerned, this series takes the opportunity to point out free-market economic ideas that connect to the topics under discussion more so than most traditional courses. It also gives greater emphasis to the role of Christianity in the West.

I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the lectures, and I look forward to your continued participation on the site!

[samgheb]

While we are giving thanks I want to praise you as well Prof. Jewell. I knew more American history than I even did European despite me being a European(Danish). So this course was much needed for me and very interesting. Especially thought your take on cultural/philosophical changes was particularly interesting since I have given that much attention to those things.

I too can attest that I recognize certain themese. My history teacher for European history 1800-2000(a course I took at the same time as I was listning to your courses) talked of Burke and didn’t give the French Revolution a positive spin. My university was built for marxists and I certainly recognize that this presence is still there in the form of some old school socialists but mostly cultural marxism. However despite this my teacher is a famous conservative and another professor is a former famous marxist who since denounced the old communists from cold era. A danish Eugene Genovese if you will. So I gues appointments are perhaps less political here.

[Jason Jewell]

Thanks very much, Samgheb.

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