AP Exam Review

It has been a busy few days so far as we've reviewed for the AP Exam. Your brains are no doubt full, and I'm sure your hands tired of writing. Keep up the good work and continue to press forward!

If you do need a break from studying, it may be a good idea to relax and read a chapter from this book.

I've provided some links for additional study materials. At this page you will find helpful lists of key terms, geography, people, and documents. Although Hank hasn't posted in over a year, his podcasts are nevertheless illuminating. It probably wouldn't hurt to read through the AP Central site on European history.Here's a downloadable, mammoth review guide compiled by an adventurous AP Euro student, and a set of on-line quizzes you can take to test/refresh your knowledge of the course content. Finally, here's a good storehouse of information on the course itself along with tons of review items, as well as this repository of resources.You can find more resources and study guides here, as well as here.

If you come across any other helpful study sites, please leave the URL in the comments section and I'll add them to this list.

Watching History: Triumph of the Will w/Nathan Barber

A few weeks ago during our unit on WW2 we viewed segments of Triumph of the Will. I've asked a good friend, former SBS Dean of Students, and historian Nathan Barber to offer commentary about the film. He's read your comments from the previous post, and responded with what I've posted below. Read his response, and leave your comments (i.e., additional questions, follow-up points, etc.). Avail yourselves of this great opportunity for additional dialogue about this most important film.

Thanks, Nathan!

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Dear Dr. Sinitiere and the SBS Euro classes,
Thank you for providing me the opportunity to participate in your Triumph of the Will assignment. I trust that each of you understand and appreciate the significance of the film you watched. Riefenstahl’s film has been both praised and vilified in the years since its release more than seventy years ago. Hitler issued a blank check to Riefenstahl to complete the project and she gladly accepted the challenge. As historians, you must remember the historical context of the project: the mid-1930s when the Nazi party had begun its climb to power out of the rubble and ruin that was post-WWI Germany. Riefenstahl could not have known where Hitler would lead the Nazi party and Germany over the next decade. For most who have vilified Riefenstahl and her work, the issue is whether or not she knew, at the height of Nazi power, the extent to which Hitler and the Nazis had taken their anti-Semitic nationalism. Evidence may suggest she knew but failed to separate herself from the party.

Let’s take a look at the film itself. Based on your blog comments, you clearly picked up on much of the symbolism, themes and allusions in Riefenstahl’s film. Well done. I’m impressed with your astute observations and articulate comments. I would like to offer two of my own observations for your consideration, observations that were not noted in the classes’ comments.

First, the film looks in retrospect to be propaganda. I cannot argue this point. I ask you, however, to consider Riefenstahl and her approach to the project. What she created was a portrait of Hitler and the Nazi party. Think back to your study of the Renaissance, specifically of Renaissance art. During this time, patrons commissioned the greatest artists of the day to create portraits. The visual description or likenesses portrayed the patrons as the patrons wished to be perceived by the viewer, perhaps strong or valiant or rich. Hitler, the patron, commissioned Riefenstahl, an artist, to create a portrait fashioned with camera and film rather than with brush and canvas. The finished work, Triumph of the Will, provides the viewer with the description or likeness of Hitler and the Nazis exactly as Hitler hoped: as savior and messiah for a broken and suffering people. Did you notice the joy and excitement on the faces of the Germans in the film in spite of the fact that their nation lay in economic shambles around them? Riefenstahl’s intent was to illustrate how Hitler and the Nazis gave the Germans hope. Your interpretation of Riefenstahl’s Hitler as a savior, as a messiah, as a divine figure, serves as evidence that Riefenstahl succeeded in creating the portrait Hitler desired. I offer to you that perhaps Riefenstahl the artist, not the propagandist, created Triumph of the Will as art and the Nazis then used the art as propaganda. After all, in that sense, is a commissioned portrait any different inasmuch as it is designed to propagate a particular idea about the subject of the portrait? This is not to suggest, though, that Riefenstahl didn’t know how her art would be used.

Second, I’d like to bring to your attention a certain bit of irony about Triumph of the Will. Though your comments did not indicate that you discovered this, I wonder if any of you noticed where the rally in the film was held. The rally in the film took place in Nuremberg as did so many similar rallies over the next dozen years. The irony? The famous trials in which Nazi war criminals were convicted also were held in Nuremberg. Coincidence? Not likely. While Berlin originally seemed an ideal location for the trials, Nuremberg offered a more suitable venue and seemed a fitting place to put to death the Nazi spirit which had, in a sense, been born out of the Nuremberg rallies in the 1930s.

Thank you again for the opportunity to offer a few thoughts on Triumph of the Will for your consideration. I look forward to any comments you may have. And for those of you taking the AP exam, I wish each of you all the best in the rest of your AP Euro course and on the exam, which happens to be just over the horizon.

This I Believe....

This post considers a national communications project called "This I Believe."

From its website: "This I Believe is a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives. NPR [National Public Radio] airs these three-minute essays on All Things Considered, Tell Me More and Weekend Edition Sunday. This I Believe is based on a 1950s radio program of the same name, hosted by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Murrow. In creating This I Believe, Murrow said the program sought 'to point to the common meeting grounds of beliefs, which is the essence of brotherhood and the floor of our civilization.'"


I've long listened to "This I Believe" essays on the radio driving into school each day (after all, one needs something to help pass the time in Houston traffic), and I occasionally check in at the This I Believe website to read what people have to say. Always, I find the essays, both written and spoken, interesting, noteworthy, and intriguing.


I don't always agree with what I hear or read, but I'm always eager to learn something new, to see how someone else views the world or to hear someone else's story.

For tonight's blog assignment, I'd like you to explore the This I Believe website (hyperlinked above), simply to see what's there. Then, find a more recent essay that you find intriguing. (As you will see, on each page there are multiple search options.)

Bring a hard copy to class. After reading, be prepared to discuss WHAT the essays are about and WHY you found the subject interesting or intriguing. This will provide a discussion context to work on your own "This I Believe" essay--which will be titled "This I Believe....is the most important event in modern European history (and why)."

Begin thinking about what event you think is the most important in the last 500 years of European history. Come up with at least 3 reasons why. You will write your essay in class on Friday 4/24 and Monday 4/27.

Blogging from Atlanta

I write to you from the Lovett School in Atlanta where I'm engaged in conversations with teachers about using and implementing 21st century technology in the classroom. You may recall a post about my first meeting of this nature last fall (right after Ike), and then an earlier post in which I asked you to reflect on technology in the classroom.


Quickly, I’d like for you to share your thoughts quickly….what does it mean to be a 21st century learner? What is your best learning experience via technology in the classroom? Was it teacher-led? Student-led? A combination of both? Why was it meaningful to you? What kinds of technology are you interested seeing more of in the classroom? Put another way, what kinds of technology would you use to teach a lesson or make a presentation? Why?

For students outside the walls of SBS (or teachers)--please connect with us and comment about your experiences.....

Cold War

Tomorrow we will bring the Cold War to a close. To the left you see a pic of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We'll use this image to build our discussion.

Here's a little something on the fall of the Berlin Wall from ABC, and Ronald Reagan's famous quip to "tear down this wall." Related to Cold War culture, let's not forget this amazing Andy Warhol interview. Below you will find a scene from one of the best Cold War movies of all time: Rocky IV. The movie uses boxing as a metaphor for the collision of the superpowers, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. This scene features Rocky and Ivan Drago prepping for the big fight, a clip, as we discussed in class, filled with rich irony. Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

World War 2: Propaganda

For part of our study of World War 2, we will view selected clips from Triumph of the Will (1935). Controversial, it has been called one of the most important propaganda films of all time. After viewing clips (about the first 20 minutes, and then from 40:00-55:00, a segement that shows a rally of Hitler Youth), we will discuss the film in relation to Hitler's theories of propaganda. Also, from about 1:01-1:15 there is an important segment of a mass rally.

Finally, here is a site with important information about the filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl.

Holy Mavericks Update

I'd like to draw your attention to several places Holy Mavericks appeared on the web this week.

In addition to my post about it, my friend and historian-blogger extraordinaire John Fea (Messiah College) threw up a nice announcement post. Dallas Morning News religion reporter Sam Hodges mentioned the book and provided a link to a great story on Shayne and Holy Mavericks that appeared in New Wave, Tulane's campus newspaper.

I also found Holy Mavericks on several other sites around the web. Journalist Sara Posner reviewed our book and Jonathan Walton's great study on black televangelism at Religion Dispatches. An announcement appeared at Library Journal a few weeks back, and the media and religion program blog at USC mentioned Holy Mavericks as well. It also showed up at the PoliPoint Press site.

I'm doing a couple of Q&A's about the book in the coming weeks, and as soon as they go live I'll provide links. I'm also building a page for Holy Mavericks for my own web site, and will provide a link once it is ready.

In the meantime, feel free to leave comments, questions, and criticisms about the book. Looking forward to the conversations.

In Print: Holy Mavericks

I'm pleased to report that my book Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace (co-authored with Shayne Lee) is out today.

You can view the Table of Contents and the Introduction. Purchase a copy here.


Here’s a description of the book from the NYU Press website:

Joel Osteen, Paula White, T. D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and Brian McLaren pastor some the largest churches in the nation, lead vast spiritual networks, write best-selling books, and are among the most influential preachers in American Protestantism today. Spurred by the phenomenal appeal of these religious innovators, sociologist Shayne Lee and historian Phillip Luke Sinitiere investigate how they operate and how their style of religious expression fits into America’s cultural landscape. Drawing from the theory of religious economy, the authors offer new perspectives on evangelical leadership and key insights into why some religious movements thrive while others decline.


Holy Mavericks provides a useful overview of contemporary evangelicalism while emphasizing the importance of “supply-side thinking” in understanding shifts in American religion. It reveals how the Christian world hosts a culture of celebrity very similar to the secular realm, particularly in terms of marketing, branding, and publicity. Holy Mavericks reaffirms that religion is always in conversation with the larger society in which it is embedded, and that it is imperative to understand how those religious suppliers who are able to change with the times will outlast those who are not.


Here’s what others have said:

“Introduces us to some of the most prominent religious innovators in the United States today—savvy spiritual suppliers,’ as the authors say—who are skilled at recalibrating their messages and ministries to fit particular audiences. Religious scholars will welcome the attention given to cultural themes in the analysis, and the emphasis on more than just individual choice; general readers will be enthralled by the creativity of the producers but also appalled at the captivity of religious faith to contemporary culture.”
Wade Clark Roof, University of California at Santa Barbara

“A fascinating journey into the worlds of five of the most influential religious leaders in the United States. Holy Mavericks provides an open window to view change both in American religion and American culture. In reading this book, you will find that these five religious giants do not practice old time religion, and yet, ironically, they do. Holy Mavericks shows us how.”
Michael O. Emerson, Rice University

“Takes us beyond the scandal-mongering and speculation so common in popular media coverage of religion to provide a deeper level of insight into some of the most influential ministries in the spiritual marketplace of American religion today. Combining keen sociological analysis with crucial historical contextualization, Lee and Sinitiere explain what have been the keys to the relative successes of these ministries' leaders as individuals willing to do business’ outside of traditional ministerial boundaries in a variety of ways. . . . A must-read for those seeking to understand this intersection of faith, commerce, and politics.”
Milmon F. Harrison, University of California at Davis