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The article examines students' historical thinking skills and preconceptions about historical study in the U.S. The author also interviewed history department colleagues to ascertain those historians' conceptions of the bottlenecks to student learning. A central bottleneck cited in the interviews involved the misconceptions about history as a discipline. Students may view the textbook as the central source from which all factual answers for exam emanate, while professors see textbooks as secondary tools providing students with a general narrative that must be compared to scholarly writings.

The article offers opinion on helping students read and write history effectively. It is proven that the key to improving the asking of good questions is developing a better understanding of how professional historians do their work. Some students will always love history but almost all need to be taught how to write the kind of history that history instructors are fond of reading. It is important to share with the students the lesson that historian themselves have learned, that some questions are better to work with than others.

Pays tribute to historian and history professor Raphael Samuel, who died in 1996. Career background; Information on his works; Contributions to history education.