We used A Patriot’s History of the United States as our principle text for the study of U.S. History during homeschool. We had not planned to do that, but needed something after we were sorely disappointed by our experience with Joy Hakim’s politically correct and simplistic A History of the US provided by the Sonlight program. This was the one glaring weakness in what we feel is a stellar homeschool offering. Hakim’s screeds were just a bridge too far in terms of both focus and dumbed down content. Hakim’s highest earned degree is a Masters degree. Her undergraduate degree was in Government and I could not find the area of her Masters degree so who knows whether she has any formal training in History.
Two profoundly more knowledgeable, professional historians wrote the New York Times #1 best selling A Patriot’s History of the United States. Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen are both college History professors with long lists of refereed journal articles in their curriculum vitae. The book was more readable, less agenda-driven and covered U.S. History more deeply and broadly than the Hakim books. I found an article on a talk given by Larry Schweikart about the book. The article featured a photograph of four homeschoolers who used his book as a text for their homeschool study of U.S. History and were impressed enough with the book they wanted to come hear the author speak. It is nice to know we are not the only homeschoolers that used this book. We have hope Sonlight will eventually see the light on this and make the switch, but it has been several years since we raised the issue.
Betty Blonde #332 – 10/23/2009
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