In the midst of the heated battles swirling around American humanities education, Peter Stearns offers a reconsideration not of what we teach but of why and how we teach it. A humanities program, says Stearns, should teach students not just memorized facts but analytical skills that are vital for a critically informed citizenry. He urges the use of innovative research as the basis of such a curriculum, and he offers specific suggestions on translating...

Shame varies as an individual experience and its manifestations across time and cultures. Groups establish identity and enforce social behaviors through shame and shaming, while attempts at shaming often provoke a social or political backlash. Yet historians often neglect shame's power to complicate individual, international, cultural, and political relationships. Peter N. Stearns draws on his long career as a historian of emotions to provide the...