Chapter 2: Murrow Confronts Mccarthy: Two Stages of Historical Analysis for Film and Television

I remember fondly a high school history teacher from a half-century ago who would bring old items into class to get us talking. A few of the things he brought in may have been valuable enough to be considered antiques, but the idea was simply to give the students some sense of connection with people of the past. A soldier’s mess kit from World War II or a selection of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s or some other candidate’s campaign material from the 1930s seemed so much more real, more evocative of an era and its people, than a reprinted historical document appended to the end of a textbook chapter. Being able to touch and feel something from some exciting time in the past—particularly a time marked by danger or confrontation— brought history to life.