What aspects of human life have improved over the last one hundred years? What has stayed the same, and what if anything has got worse? Do you think that the sum total of human happiness today is more or less than it was in the past? Support your answers with details from your research.

What, in your opinion, is the purpose of studying history? What value is there in learning about the history of one's nation or culture?

Watch the 1992 movie version of Waterland and note whether it stays true to the story line of the novel. Does the novel easily lend itself to adaptation as a film? In the movie version, the location for the present-day sections is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with flashbacks to the fens in England. What, if anything, is lost in such a switch?

In what sense can a...