Author Information...
My ideas are derived from my education at Cornell, Harvard, and Michigan State, from my absorption since a teenager in history and current events, from the directions I took in my career: teaching American government and world history in a public high school; teaching the humanities in a university; and from a Ph.D. dissertation on the coming of the First World War, that nasty global surprise, that catastrophic breakdown of the international order, which gave shape to the further history of the 20th Century. That alone was an education within the shadows of catastrophe. As the director of the Michigan Humanities Council, I spent many years fostering public programs in the humanities and advocating for the essential role of historical understanding in American culture. During those years, I made frequent trips to Washington for meetings and events sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and spent days on Capitol Hill visiting with members of the Michigan Congressional Delegation and their staffs, reporting on our work in Michigan, and advocating for the missions of NEH and the State Humanities Councils.
