Two Great Web Resources Of American History And Culture—Everybody Has The Ability To Learn And To Act

While much of what is on the web is junk, there are some great resources for folks who want to use their discretionary time effectively.

C-SPAN has a full archive of all its programming over the years.

One thing I find of value at the C-SPAN site is the Booknotes page. Booknotes was a weekly interview program that ran each week for a number of years.

The most recent interview I listened to was one from 1989 with Colonel David Hackworth. Colonel Hackworth was a decorated solider from Korea and Vietnam who came to oppose war and much about how the Army operated. This is programming you can listen to on your home computer while you are getting other stuff done.

Here is a Colonel Hackworth’s obituary from 2005. 

An interview on Booknotes I found of interest was one from 1998 of Iris Chang who wrote The Rape of Nanking–The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. This book is about the Japanese occupation of China. Here is an obituary of Iris Chang 

If you look on the top left on this link, you’ll find access to a full list of old C-SPAN series and programs about a great number of topics. There is a great deal of interest here on a wide variety of topics relating to American history and American authors.

Another great resource is the website of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

While there is a great deal of interest at this site, it is the new American wing that most holds my attention.

Here is a New York Times tour of some of the exhibits in the American wing.

You can look at and read a bit about every piece of art in each gallery of the American wing. You can do this for the art in the other galleries of the museum as well.

This works on a mobile device as well if you look it up that way.

Each work also has a link to its place the very good Heillbrunn Timeline of Art History.

This art is an insight to the political, cultural and personal lives of Americans.

If these resources don’t sail your ship, find something that does.

Everybody has the capacity to understand complex things. The resources are out there to learn all sorts of stuff.

Empowered with what we learn, we all have the ability to put forth our views and to act. Progress is up to each of us.

(Below–Enoch Wood Perry‘s Talking It Over from 1872.)