Good point.
If you’re ever at rope’s end to find a book, I’d suggest trying the following book searches:
ABE isn’t bad, but it is ONE site. The three I just listed hit between 15 and 30 web sites, and probably hit 90% of all bookstores with an online presence, via one intermediary venue of another.
I am surprised you say this; I would have thought the whole American Frontier concept was based on people leaving to go elsewhere. Surely the fact that it was on the same continent does not make much difference to the driving forces and the experience.
It came to me that I had visited the most wonderful bookshop in the world in Praed Street, London.
It was decades ago but left a very lasting impression that if there were a book they didn’t stock, it wasn’t worth having.
I have been racking my brains - if that is the word - to try and remember the name of the store, enlisted the help of my sister in law (she and my brother in law deal in antiquarian books) and she came up with this:
Modern Book Company that looks well worth a try.
As I was about to post, I remembered the name of the store.
Foyles
Drop them an email describing your requirements and I am sure that if they themselves are unable to provide you with exactly what you are looking for then they will be able to suggest someone who could.
Foyles is in Charing Cross Road, not Praed Street. The Modern Book Company *is *in Praed Street and very good for textbooks.
Was Foyles in Praed Street sometime in the past?
I have a CRC Chemical Handbook (out on loan at the minute) that I bought there and was sure it was Foyles. It was definitely Praed Street.
Foyles has been in Charing Cross Road since 1906 according to Wikipedia. It was certainly there when I first visited it in about 1975.
Strange - must have got something mixed up somewhere - I think it would be '76 when I was there.
Interesting perspective. I’d agree that the driving forces and the disposition of the folks who left the continent, including some restless spirit, some adventurous nature, some quest to find a better life, and so forth were behind what we call Western expansion and the frontier spirit. I guess that the notion of “going elsewhere” in the above post implied ex-patriotic, as opposed to within the country. However, as you point out, maybe they are two sides of the same thing. In any case, I’m still searching for the British take on the beginnings of what turned into a pretty large matter - the USA.
I don’t know anything about the British education system but the two I am familiar with (US and Russia) private schools would not want the same textbooks used by public schools if they gave them away for free.
FWIW, when I went to school in the UK (20 years ago) the whole Mayflowr/Pilgrim thing was never taught.
It’s easy to settle this.
If you shopped at Foyles in the seventies (or any time before about 2000) you would have experienced its bizarre and unique procedures. You couldn’t just pick up a book and pay for it at the counter (far too easy!). You picked up the book, took it to the nearest counter, where you queued up, then gave it to the assistant who gave you a receipt. You then took this receipt and joined a second queue at the payment booth, handed the receipt to the cashier along with your money, who stamped the receipt and gave you your change if any. You then returned your stamped receipt to the counter and got your book.
No-one who shopped at Foyles was likely to forget this experience. If you remember this, you were at Foyles in Charing Cross Road. If you think you just bought the book in the same way you would do at any other book shop, you were probably at the Modern Book Co. in Praed Street.
Foyles was stuck in a time warp for many years, thanks to Christina Foyle who had owned it for centuries and refused to change anything. They paid terrible wages and you were lucky if you could find anyone who spoke English, never mind knew anything about books.
Bear in mind that a large emphasis in KS3 history is on how we answer the questions ‘why?’ and ‘how do we know?’, rather than simply ‘what happened when’. There’s a big concentration on the use of various types of historical source.
A better context might be the American West element of GCSE exams (i.e. ages 14-16) - GCSE History - BBC Bitesize is a good introduction to the perspective expected from this age group.
Impressive how progressive the British system is. I can tell you that despite pleas for this type of approach in American schools - going back to John Dewey in the early 1900’s - we’re still pretty much stuck with memorization of facts.
Nice link. Two things: 1) What the heck is “revision”? I have seen it in the titles to books I’m considering buying, but I don’t really understand the use in that context. 2) This link starts with western expansion. The page before it makes no references to the beginnings of the US, let alone the War for Independence (in which Brittain did play a role, I hear), the framing of a constitution, slavery, etc. I wonder why.
Studying for exams - perhaps just another example of Americans not using the correct words for things? 
It’s a trade-off: the more emphasis there is on historical techniques, the less there is on covering larger periods of time in any detail. Also, bear in mind that slavery gets covered in some detail in KS3, in the context of the British creation of the slave trade.
Umm! Don’t get too excited - it sounds good but the actual practice is less than wonderful. Narrative has been de-emphasised so much that children come out of school with no clear sense of the continuity of British history - never mind the development of the United States!
There is a lot of emphasis on sources and analysis starting from Yr8 (age 11) which in many kids just induces confusion given the limited range of sources they are capable of understanding at this age. This problem is compounded by the fact that primary schools (age 5 - 11) are not obliged to teach history as a separate subject and pupils can choose to drop the subject at age 14.
“Revision” in this sense indicates that the books are designed to help with revising (studying) for exams. They’re not text books in the usual sense, they assume the topics have already been studied and provide notes and sample questions. The numbers of them available are another consequence of the English education system with its repeated tests. School children will sit national tests at 7, 11, 14, 16, 17, and 18 :smack: Those at 7, 11, and 14 (the Key Stage 1, 2, and 3 SATS) are meant to check the quality of the teaching rather than the individual pupil but, inevitably, parents want their child to do well - hence the Revision Guides.
The American Revolution (sorry, the War of Independence ) is a possible topic in KS3 but I haven’t found a good source yet.
Yep, I forgot to mention that!
However, I don’t agree with this…or rather, I don’t agree that anybody used to come out of school at 14/15/16 with a clear understanding of the progression of British history.
Agreed - there certainly wasn’t a Golden Age. Until I went back and started reading history as a hobby my clearest impression of English history came from 1066 And All That. 