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Welcome to Zeke’s Guide to History, where you can find comics that illustrate the practical uses of social studies!

In The Republic, Plato says: “The aim of education should not be to fill the soul with knowledge, but to turn the soul towards right desires.” What I will attempt to do here is to build a site that is regularly updated with comics and illustrations that go beyond the names and dates of history and that try to explain WHY those names and dates are practically meaningful to our lives today.

Social studies is the hub. If you want to see the best of any other academic subject (Language Arts, Math, Science, Health, Art, Economics, etc.) look no further than social studies. Try explaining colonization without understanding bacteriology. Try explaining demographics without understanding mathematical proportions. Try explaining music without understanding culture. Want the top-shelf in English writing? Read our founding fathers… everything in the world points back to some illustration that can be found in Social Studies.

If all social studies ends up being is just a list of names and dates to memorize, then we have failed our kids. That kind of knowledge will only benefit them if they go to a trivia-night somewhere or end up on Jeopardy someday. Students might know that Nazis were bad, but need to understand WHAT was immoral about them.

Kids need a context for all of their learning, and social studies is that hub.

An article from The Economist in Dec. 2018 put it best: “When nothing seems to make sense, history becomes the supreme discipline. Knowing who you are and where you came from matters.” And that is my focus through “Zeke’s Guide to History and the Humanities.”

 
 
MAKING A WEBCOMIC: Since I was so late in putting together this month’s episode, I’ve been doing most of the process in the last few days rather than weeks! I figure that this can give a good opportunity for a step-by-step guide. 1. I s
Imagine Lenin: The leader of Communist Russia from the Bolshevik Revolution to the start of the Soviet Union. Linen: A textile made from fibers of flax plants. Developed even before Mesopotamia, it’s one of the oldest fabrics in the world. L
Unnecessary Steppes... The Mongolians had long lived in Northern Asia, but in 1206 AD Genghis Khan unified the Mongolian tribes and filled them with aspirations of becoming an empire. In an astonishingly short period of time the Mongolians had conque
Sounds Fishy… Herodotus (c. 484- 425BC) was an ancient Greek writer best known for his records of the Greco-Persian Wars. He is known as “The Father of History” because of the way that he not only records events, but also interpre
The Big Red Scare After World War II, America began to grow suspicious of foreign countries who may be trying to influence and subvert our way of life. Of particular concern was a genuine fear (with some substantiated examples) that the Soviets were
If you appreciate “Zeke’s Guide to History” comics, you’ll LOVE the history comics produced by @mrhughshistory My art is simplified for kids, but this is cerebral stuff for adults. Simply put, you NEED to follow this guy. His
Trailing Behind The Oregon Trail was a 2,170 mile route that was the embodiment of the American idea of “Manifest Destiny.” Since their early colonial days, Americans had always been interested in spreading further west and after the Lou
The Monroe Doctrine In the early 1820s, many countries in North and South America were controlled by Spain and Portugal. Inspired by America’s revolution about 50 years prior, these countries started to also aspire to be independent of their o
A quick teacher sketch. Technological Literacy is the Civil Right of the 21st Century- if you don’t know how to navigate a website or fill out an online form all of the other traditional forms of discrimination aren’t even relevant. If ki
When James K. Polk was running for president, he was up against Henry Clay- a far more popular candidate. In order to clench his victory, though, he tapped into a real hot-button current issue of the 1840s: Manifest Destiny. At this time, the land t

Copyright © 2019. Timothy Love | Zeke’s Guide to History and the Humanities | All rights reserved.

 
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MAKING A WEBCOMIC: Since I was so late in putting together this month’s episode, I’ve been doing most of the process in the last few days rather than weeks! I figure that this can give a good opportunity for a step-by-step guide. 1. I s
Imagine Lenin: The leader of Communist Russia from the Bolshevik Revolution to the start of the Soviet Union. Linen: A textile made from fibers of flax plants. Developed even before Mesopotamia, it’s one of the oldest fabrics in the world. L
Unnecessary Steppes... The Mongolians had long lived in Northern Asia, but in 1206 AD Genghis Khan unified the Mongolian tribes and filled them with aspirations of becoming an empire. In an astonishingly short period of time the Mongolians had conque
Sounds Fishy… Herodotus (c. 484- 425BC) was an ancient Greek writer best known for his records of the Greco-Persian Wars. He is known as “The Father of History” because of the way that he not only records events, but also interpre
The Big Red Scare After World War II, America began to grow suspicious of foreign countries who may be trying to influence and subvert our way of life. Of particular concern was a genuine fear (with some substantiated examples) that the Soviets were
If you appreciate “Zeke’s Guide to History” comics, you’ll LOVE the history comics produced by @mrhughshistory My art is simplified for kids, but this is cerebral stuff for adults. Simply put, you NEED to follow this guy. His
Trailing Behind The Oregon Trail was a 2,170 mile route that was the embodiment of the American idea of “Manifest Destiny.” Since their early colonial days, Americans had always been interested in spreading further west and after the Lou
The Monroe Doctrine In the early 1820s, many countries in North and South America were controlled by Spain and Portugal. Inspired by America’s revolution about 50 years prior, these countries started to also aspire to be independent of their o
A quick teacher sketch. Technological Literacy is the Civil Right of the 21st Century- if you don’t know how to navigate a website or fill out an online form all of the other traditional forms of discrimination aren’t even relevant. If ki
When James K. Polk was running for president, he was up against Henry Clay- a far more popular candidate. In order to clench his victory, though, he tapped into a real hot-button current issue of the 1840s: Manifest Destiny. At this time, the land t

Copyright © 2019. Timothy Love | Zeke’s Guide to History and the Humanities | All rights reserved.