The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.

Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

During the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, JFK cited the example of August 1914 to his advisers, reminding them how easily nations had slipped into World War I, as well as the difficulty in ending the bloody struggle. Bluffing one's way into a war is always easy--bluffing out of it all but impossible, and JFK reminded his advisers that great powers like the British in the Boer War and the Soviet Union in Finland had become mired in protracted and difficult campaigns with great loss of life with little to show for it. Guided by his knowledge of history, JFK found a face-saving way for both sides to avoid war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

History, as it did for JFK, provides the context in which we make all of our decisions. In order to understand the historical process, Lambuth offers its history majors a variety of classes in American and World history. We are especially strong in US Southern and British imperial history, but we have offered courses on World War I, Civil War and Reconstruction, Social and Political Thought of the American South, George Orwell, and modern U.S. History. In addition to providing a thorough knowledge of US and World history, our program develops students’ critical thinking skills and prepares them for careers in multiple fields. History classes at Lambuth also emphasize the ability to communicate both orally and in writing, and our goal is to train students to become effective thinkers and readers, with the ability to analyze historical documents and understand the nature of historical interpretation. To this end, we hope to produce students who know history, but more importantly, how to learn history.

Our small classes ensure that each student works closely with professors, and our History Club offers students opportunities to attend conferences and take local field trips. In the past, we’ve been to Shiloh, to the University of Memphis to tour their Egyptian Museum, and we've visited the Pompeii exhibit in Birmingham AL. We are also active in local conferences, and our students have presented award-winning papers at the regional Phi Alpha Theta history conference. Both Dr. Patterson and Dr. Humphreys have a variety of publications (see our individual pages on the Lambuth website), and our students are active both in and outside of the classroom. Owing to this collegial atmosphere, we build close relationships with our students during their years spent at Lambuth and we keep in touch with them after they graduate.

For those who are interested in becoming high school history teachers, we work closely with the Lambuth Education department to develop strong educators. Don Roe, a recent High School History Teacher of the Year for Tennessee, is the instructor for our Methods of Teaching History in the Secondary school, and we have placed several students in local schools.

If you have any questions please contact Dr. Steven Patterson at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or Dr. James Humphreys at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it