A Less Dark Rendering of Western Civ Courses

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/a-less-dark-rendering-of-western-civ-courses.html

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To the Editor:

In “The Crisis of Western Civ” (column, April 21), David Brooks argues that the traditional way of teaching the history of the West, as exemplified by Will and Ariel Durant’s multivolume study, “The Story of Civilization,” gave way in academia to a darker view of the rise of the West, one that stressed a history of oppression, leading in turn to the contemporary waves of illiberalism and authoritarianism.

Mr. Brooks not only attributes too much influence to scholars and teachers, but he also doesn’t seem to understand the perspectives of college courses that deal with global history.

The two of us introduced a graduate seminar on comparative colonialism at Princeton University 40 years ago, and while the course readings and discussions dealt with the slave trade, racism and imperial militarism, they did not neglect the economic, political and cultural contributions that Western colonial rulers made to Asian and African societies.

Especially important was their belief in the benefits of democratic institutions, capitalist economic development, Western education, modern science and a rising middle class for colonized peoples.

STANLEY J. STEIN, ROBERT L. TIGNORPRINCETON, N.J.

The writers are emeriti professors of history at Princeton University.

To the Editor:

David Brooks writes that “the share of young Americans who say it is absolutely important to live in a democratic country has dropped from 91 percent in the 1930s to 57 percent today.”

We are about to collectively pay the price for the half-century of underfunding public education and relegating civics to the back burners in our schools.

Given a few more years of defunding and underfunding public education, we may look upon that 57 percent figure with nostalgia.

IRA FELDMANBELLE HARBOR, QUEENS

The writer is an adjunct lecturer in the mathematics department and School of Education at Brooklyn College, CUNY.