If turning the history classroom into a place buzzing with intellectual excitement is your goal, then Engaging the Past: Action and Interaction in the History Classroom is the book for you.

Sam Wineburg, Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and History, Emeritus, Stanford University

Americans don’t know much about history, but the larger problem is that they don’t know how to think about the past. In this wide-ranging and compelling primer, Elizabeth George shows how beginning teachers (and even full professors!) can enlist innovative pedagogies to address one of the great challenges of our time: how to rethink the past.

Mark C. Carnes, professor of History, Barnard College, Columbia University, author of Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College

Elizabeth George recognizes that ‘hands on’ activities are not necessarily ‘minds on.’ George’s realism about her own recommended teaching methods is refreshing. She supports her ideas for making history instruction intellectually rich and personally engaging in learning science and scholarship on history teaching and learning. Her methods are field tested, too, allowing George to give concrete advice about how activities can go wrong and what to do when that happens. But what I like most about Engaging the Past is George’s recognition that for new teaching methods to win acceptance, they must not only improve student learning but see to the flourishing of teachers’ lives, too. That means reducing the burden of grading while creating more opportunities for teachers to immerse themselves in life-giving moments doing history with students.

Lendol Calder, professor of History, Augustana College