Historians Describe How The Use the Mueller Report When Teaching

Walter Isaacson is an award-winning historian and history professor at Tulane University, where he teaches a course called “The History of the Digital Revolution, From Ada [Lovelace] to [Mark] Zuckerberg.” Last semester, he said, he assigned the report from former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — mainly Volume 1 — so students could learn how Facebook and Twitter were used by Russians and others to “polarize American society and influence our election.” 

“We discussed exactly what the Internet Research Agency did, who helped them, how the social networks responded, what could be done to prevent interference in the future, and what Facebook and Twitter should do,” he said.

Isaacson is not the only educator to use the report — officially titled “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election” — as a focus of discussion in class. Teachers and professors have used it in history classes and in government, law, political science and other courses in high school, college and law school.

Meanwhile, a host of book clubs have been formed to read, learn about and discuss the report, which has been a bestseller. One can be found on the website “Muellerbookclub.com,” which is conducting online readings and discussions of the report. PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, has its own free Mueller book club, which does weekly readings from the report, with analysis provided by PolitiFact journalists.