I assigned what?

So a few weeks back, a small package arrived in my department mailbox.

“Willikers!” I thought. “Another interesting book I won’t ever have time to read!”

Sure enough, I discovered this catchy little fellow tucked inside the envelope. Figuring I’d ordered it as a desk copy because (a) everyone knows you have to suck up to Rauchway on this blog, and (b) I’m too cheap to fork over the $6.87 for a used copy, I placed it on top of the “I’d Read You if I Didn’t Have a Toddler, Seriously I Would” pile, superseding Leon Litwack’s Been in the Storm So Long, which is much, much longer and written by someone who, to my knowledge, was never photographed in a wetsuit.

Earlier this week, as fate would have it, I received a phone call from one of my favorite students. He’s planning to take my historiography and methods course next semester, and he was wondering which of the books we’d be reading first. I told him we’d be looking at History in Practice by Ludmilla Jordanova, followed by a shitload of articles, then History on Trial by Gary Nash and friends, then another shitload of articles, then . . . I dunno. Haven’t decided yet.

“What about this shorter book?” he asked.

“Blood Done Sign my Name?”

“No, the other one,” he said. “I got my list here — oh, yeah, Blessed Among Nations.”

“I assigned that?” I asked. “Good to know!”

So I forget things like this from time to time — things like, you know, what I’m actually assigning to my students. But that’s not actually the point of the story. The point of the story, rather, is two-fold:

(1) Eric should give me a kickback on this. (There are five students enrolled in the class.)
(2) There is no #2.