100 FREE COURSES TO TEACH YOURSELF WORLD HISTORY

by Anna Kathryn Lanier

I was told about http://www.onlinecollege.org/ last year, and did post about it on another blog, but thought I’d post an updated blog here, since it looks as if the site itself has been updated, too. As Caitlin Smith says on the site, “With new technology making the world more interconnected every day, it can be beneficial no matter what field you work in to have a good idea of the history of not only your own country but those around the world. These open courses will help you to learn about history in diverse countries and time periods to give you a well rounded knowledge of the social, political and intellectual history that has shaped the modern world.”

It’s not as if you will actually participate in an online college class, where you’ll have a teacher and assignments that are due. What this site offers you are links to the course information, downloadable and free of charge. You would then go over the information at your leisure and, if you want to do the assignments, more power to you.

Now, how does this work? Let’s look at one of the MIT courses. Once you click on the link from the 100 Courses website, you are taken to the website of the course. On the left hand side is a menu:

• Course Home
• Syllabus
• Calendar
• Readings
• Assignments
• Study Materials
• Related Resources
• Download Course Materials

From this page, you get the course handed to you. As said, there is no teacher; you study on your own. The courses are free, but I see that MIT asks for a donation, to support “the production and distribution of high quality MIT course materials.”

Most of the courses are offered through MIT, but other universities are present as well: Notre Dame, Berkeley, John Hopkins, UMass Boston, Yale and WGU.

So, what courses can you take? Here’s a short list of the 100 classes Caitlin mentions:

The World Since 1492: This course focuses on four major areas of world history: the struggles between Europeans and colonized peoples; the global formation of capitalist economies and industrialization; the emergence of modern states; and the development of the tastes and disciplines of bourgeois society. [MIT]

Monarchs, People and History: This course will help you learn about the origins and reasons for the monarchy and the role it played in the history of Europe and around the world under European imperialism. [UMass Boston]

The Civil War and Reconstruction: Learn more about this particularly tumultuous period in American history, from the events that brought it about to the eventually reunification of a nation. [MIT]

The Emergence of Europe: 500-1300: This course will cover a wide range of European history, including the crusades and various other conquests. [MIT]

Nineteenth Century Europe: This course will take you through European history from 1815 to 1900. [UMass Boston]

The Ancient City: This course will focus on urban architecture in Greece and Rome, using current and past archaeology as a starting point. [MIT]

Medieval Economic History in Comparative Perspective: Learn more about the social and economic changes in medieval Europe and its connections to Islam, China and central Asia. [MIT]

History of Western Thought, 500-1300: This course will help you to learn more about intellectual traditions from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages. [MIT]

French Revolution: Here you can learn about the origins of the French Revolutions and the bloody aftermath that followed. [OpenLearn]

Check out all the great courses at 100 Free Courses to Teach Yourself World History.

Anna Kathryn Lanier

Where Tumbleweeds Hang Their Hats

http://www.aklanier.com/
http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/

Frontier Medicine

In my novella SALVATION BRIDE, the heroine Laura Slade, is a trained doctor. Set in the 1870’s, this was not common, but possible. By this time, several medical schools admitted women. Laura, however, didn’t. Instead, she apprenticed under her Uncle John, who had been to medical school and served as a doctor in the Civil War.

More common in the 19th Century women were home-trained healers and midwives, who learned the art of healing from their mothers and grandmothers. My current work in progress takes place in the 1860’s shortly after the Civil War. The hero, Garrison and the heroine, Sammie, are on a wagon train heading West. Sammie has been trained as a healer by her mother. She takes with her on the trip her medicine chest.

The chest would contain such items as those listed in BLEED, BLISTER, AND PURGE by Volney Steele, M.D. Common household remedies would be “feverfew, fleabane, boneset, rhubarb, oak of Jerusalem, thyme [and] marjoram,” (page 138). A few store-bought items would also be included: Opium tincture or laudanum and whiskey for pain and surgeon’s plaster to bind broken limbs (the latter comes in handy when Garrison breaks a bone during the trip).

Sammie would know how to make poultices to relieve pain, help heal burns and possibly, even, to prevent pregnancy. She’d make plaster of mustard to “ease the ache of bruises, arthritis, and pleurisy.” She might even apply sugar to wounds, once commonly known to dry out a fresh wound and inhibit the growth of bacteria. (page 143).

Cholera was the most common and the deadliest disease to sweep through a wagon train or settlement. It wasn’t understood at the time that cholera was caused by contaminated drinking water. The best way to fight the disease was to replace fluids ‘volume to volume” as the patient suffered from severe diarrhea. However, this treatment was not well known. Opium, if available, was also given to “relieve the pain and slow down the increased bowel action and cramps,” (page 80).

Diphtheria, measles, small pox and scarlet fever were all deadly diseases, especially among children, with no cures but to wait it out. Diphtheria, in particular, was the most dreaded. Highly contagious, a single case could start an epidemic, resulting in a high number of children dying when a “pseudo-membrane in the throat and pharynx…obstructed the windpipe and shut off air to the lungs.” If the child survived this, she might still die from heart failure, caused when a potent toxin was secreted that effected the heart, (page 264).

One often overlooked disease on the frontier was scurvy, which was almost as deadly to the immigrants as cholera. With a common diet of corn meal, flour, beans and boiled or salted beef and few fresh vegetables and fruit, scurvy ran rampant in the West. Scurvy affects the overall health of the patient, causing extreme fatigue, nausea, pain in the muscles and joints of the body, bleeding of the gums (oftentimes resulting in the loss of teeth) and hair and skin become dry. The simple cure for scurvy is the intake of Vitamin C, but the correlation between diet and scurvy was not discovered until the late 1800’s. Ironically, a common native plant along the trail, watercress, was full of Vitamin C and would have been a simple cure to this disease, if the immigrants had only known.

Many an immigrant’s diary is filled with entries of sickness and death on the journey. In COVERED WAGON WOMEN by Kenneth Holmes, two journalists note such occurrences. Anna King, on page 42, relates, “I wrote to you at Fort Larim that the whooping cough and measles went through our camp, and after we took the new route a slow, lingering fever prevailed….Eight of our two families have gone to their long home. Upwards to fifty died on the new route.”

Sallie Hester reports “We had two deaths in our train within the past week of cholera – young men going West to seek their fortune. We buried them on the banks of the Blue River, far from home and friends,” (page 237).

By today’s standards, medicine in the 19th Century was crude in the best of hospitals. On the frontier, it was downright rudimentary. As much as I’d love to give my heroines insight to the knowledge we have now, I shall have to resist and let them heal their patience with the remedies tired and true at the times.

_______

I’ll give away a copy of SALVATION BRIDE, an best-seller from The Wild Rose Press to one lucky commenter. Also, anyone leaving a comment on my blog today will be eligible for the Seduced by History monthly prize, a book bag full of romance novels (see left for the details).

Anna Kathryn Lanier

Where Tumbleweeds Hang Their Hats
http://www.aklanier.com/
http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/

Historical Research

Last month, I was one of the 2,000 plus RWA members who converged on Washington DC and attended the National Conference. Aside from escaping from reality for a few days, I had a wonderful time visiting with 'cyber' friends and attending workshops.

One of the workshops I attended was Lauren Willig's “How to Live in Another Century or Just Sound Like You Did.” I recommend it for any historical writer (though I really don't know if she's doing it again....but worth it if she does so near you).

Lauren talked about the different stages of research, she said there were three, but alas, I only have two starred, so not sure what the third one was.....my fault, but it's okay, we'll muddle through.

The first stage is Deep Research—reading anything you can find from the time period: letters, biographies, diaries, and literature. Lauren commented that letters are especially good because you can catch the cadence of the time, as well as figuring that people aren't lying about everyday things. An example she gave was the blooming of a flowering bush that one might write about. Why would the letter writer lie about a bush flowering in May? Okay, you might need to mention a bush flowering in May, but hey, it could be an important scene in your book. All right, the point is, when reading a letters written in your time period, the every day facts are more than likely true, because there was no need to lie about them in a letter to Cousin Clara. Of course, it is much easier to find letters from the 18th Century than from the 8th Century, but they can be found. It just takes a little research.

In doing research for a wagon train story, I have read several diaries and letters of women who rode in the trains themselves. These are wonderful sources for daily life and I have blogged about them in the past, especially at my own site, Chatting with Anna Kathryn, as well as on Seduced by History.

Museums, especially folk museums, are an excellent research source, too. While living in Louisiana a few years back, I visited several of that state's antebellum homes, which were furnished with time period pieces. It's especially nice if you can visit on a day when they have live history activities going on, where people explain about the everyday life of the time period. I have also attended several battle re-enactments and encampments and have learned how to load a musket....not that I could do it in the heat of battle, but I did see how it was done.

The second stage discussed is Tailored Research. This is where you use footnotes in books, contact history professors, antique dealers and museum curators. Lauren suggested sending off one inquiry and if you don't hear back, leave them alone. But if you do use their information in your book and you credit them, quote and credit them right. Nothing is worse than crediting misinformation to a history professor!

Lauren suggests to Google societies for information, too. I know I corresponded with an association for sheep farmers concerning some questions. They were very helpful.

Okay, I think the third stage of research is Specific Research. I have it written in my notes, but I'm not positive if it is right or not. Specific Research may just be another name for Tailored Research.....

While we are historical writers and want to 'get it right,' our dialog is with our readers. Even if it is a word common enough in your era, if your reader is not familiar with it, you may want to think twice about using it. Or, at least explain it so they know what it is, should you really want to use it. After all, if at the time, it is well known to your characters, it is not out of place. It is just unfamiliar to the modern reader. Very few of us have footmen these days, and I don't think any of us really understand the smells that were common during the Medieval era (nor, do I think, we really want to). But both these examples were very familiar to your characters.

Lauren suggests that we watch TV shows and movies to get a feel for what our readers expect from the time period. Movies can also help you with the clothing, décor, and other normal daily activities of the time period. Though you do need to be careful. Hollywood is not always as true to the eras as we are.

And one final note....as writers, we ARE given artistic license to make small historical changes, such as the dates of when something happened, or when a song came out or where a person really was on March 28, 1156. Off the top of my head, I recall one book I read that changed the dates of the World's Fair in St. Louis and another book that had a song performed in the late 1800's a few years before it was composed. Neither of these changes took away the strength of the stories. And I'm sure there are a gazillion books who put a historical figure someplace other than where they actually were on any given day. So, as long as you don't put a cell phone in William the Conqueror's court, you should be okay with a few historical changes.

What is your secret research tool? Leave a comment and you could win your choice of one of two books by HHRW authors: “A Knight of Desire” by Margaret Mallory or “Tempted by His Kiss” by Tracy Anne Warren. as well as a copy of my own "Salvation Bride."


Anna Kathryn Lanier
Monthly Prizes to Win!
http://www.aklanier.com/
http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/

Anna Kathyrn Lanier

Hello. I'm here to introduce myself and my books. I'm a short story published author who first started writing in the early 80's, but quit for a several years to raise my daughters. Now that I'm a grandma, I have more time to write. So, a few years ago I started up again. Right now, I have two historicals out: TEMPT ME TWICE and SALVATION BRIDE. Both are available electronically.

TEMPT ME TWICE

Seven years ago, Meghan Shelton fell in love with Peter Bourne, Duke of Prestwick, only to learn his seduction was a means to win a bet. Ashamed and pregnant, Meghan flees England. On her return, she literally runs into Peter. This time she has more to protect than her heart, she has a daughter, too.

One look at Meghan and Peter knows he was foolish to think he could seduce her and not love her. Now he has to gain her forgiveness and work his way back into her heart. Will Meghan be tempted twice by the man she loves?

Buy it: http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookStore/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&cPath=53&products_id=1768

SALVATION BRIDE

The hot dusty town of Salvation, Texas has more than its share of secrets in 1873 when Laura Ashton's stage rolls into town. Sheriff David Slade has no idea what baggage his mail-order bride is bringing into his life. Throw in the nightmares from his Civil War days and he's got more than courting to contend with. Laura's a woman ahead of her time, a woman trained in medicine. And she's got a will that could move mountains. Unfortunately, the only mountains in Salvation are in Sheriff Slade's memory. Can the determined doctor heal his pain, or will the dark secret in her past turn up to steal his Salvation Bride?

Buy it: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=prod

Anna Kathryn Lanier

http://www.aklanier.com/