Traveling with History in Your Pocket
I know that many of you have heard me rave about podcasts - and yes, I have yet another one to rave about. This one is straight from the classroom…Berkeley University.
There aren’t many things I would do different in my life; however, if I could go back to my 18th year, I would change one thing. I would have paid more attention in my high school history class. Mr. Durham wasn’t the best history teacher in the world - but I honestly didn’t have any passion for the subject a that time either. If I would have had some passion for history, then maybe I would have actually taken an American history class in college - but I didn’t and I opted for history of American Jazz instead.
I am one of the many Americans that knows very little (ok - nothing) about American History. Don’t evern get me started on World History…one thing at a time please. Therefore, before I started on my around the world journey, I decided that I better make up for lost time and try to educate myself a bit on American History. As I was searching around the internet, I found my answer…a History podcast!
Berkeley University has successfully moved into the technical age and is offering podcasts of class lectures to the world for free. Now - if I were a parent paying college tuition for my kid to attend Berkeley - I’m not real sure how I would feel about this development. However - as a freeloader - I loved it! I downloaded the complete lectures from American History 7B - Civil War to the Present and I took off for my big trip in September of 2006.
On flights or bus rides, and sometimes on runs - I would listen to the History Podcast as if I were a student again. Professor Jennifer Burns had passion for her subject and a great style of teaching. It amazed me at how much I learned. It made me wonder how much more I could have learned in University if I had just had simply paid more attention and enjoyed my classes.
I highly recomend this podcast for anyone - but specifically for travelers. It will provide you a basis for how the world see Americans, why we were involved in various global conflicts, what our stance was on various issues and why, and most importantly - it helped me understand how the US became who we are today and why we act the way we do globally. Now - I didn’t say that I agreed with it all, but it sure did provide me the context and knowledge I needed when I was frequently asked questions about my own culture, politics, and history from other international travelers.
If you are looking for some entertainment for the road - then consider getting educated while being entertained - I promise you that you won’t be sorry!
You can download the podcasts from the Berkley website and listen to them on your computer at this website.
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978276
or you can download them from itunes. Just ltype ‘jennifer burns’ in the itunes search function and you will find it.
Loading ...