Elementary history lessons for Americans, _not_ by an Englishman.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

OK, a brief introduction. I was in the process of writing this to reply to Hussey's post, but decided that it would be more useful, more interesting, and more generally seen on the message board if I made it a thread of its own. This is not as tongue-in-cheek of a subject as Hussey's was; please respond in appropriate earnest (though, of course, civilly -- and I fully recognize that for the most part, in the later part of this post, there's not much to say outside of "yeah, we should reform our history classes").

So, my response to Hussey, below...

This is a tongue in cheek topic, so no one go ape at me for insulting their patriotic views.

I clicked on this thread with an inward smile -- I always enjoy, in a way, discussions of the simple, obvious fact that most Americans (in the sense of US residents; my apologies to Latin America, but this is more convenient for a quick-and-dirty name) have absolutely no idea of the entire history of the non-English-speaking world, nor any appreciation of why such history matters.

Instead, all I see is a flag-waving Englishman shaking his flag at flag-waving Americans...

Most of your points aren't worth bothering with too much; I'll weigh in with my thoughts on them, and after that, will go on to my own thesis.

1) The American revolution.
American has always been rightly proud of their victory over us Britishers in the 1700's. I feel there are some points that need clearing up.
a) Is it really a victory over the British? At that time our cultures were so similar it was more of a civil war.
b)Compare the size of the continental/french and royal armies in America at the time, especially after the French joined in.
c) Take into account the proportion of troops that got withdrawn from America to protect the sugar islands once France joined in.
d) Look at the battle statistics, amount of men lost, percentage of skirmishes/battles won/lost.

Indeed. Short answer here: the proto-US side had about 30% popular support. The English could not possibly lose unless they were utter, stark, raving, blithering idiots with no idea whatsoever of how to handle diplomacy or deal with a guerilla war.

The English lost.

I think the American Revolution is one of the low points of all historical generalship. People like Gage and Cornwallis make Santa Anna, the guy who, with artillery, stormed a run-down mission defended by three hundred militiamen with muzzle-loaders, and took two thousand casualties in the process, look almost competent -- or at least a little less bad.

English diplomacy in the war was about the same as their generalship -- exactly how many countries did the American rebels manage to get involved? France and (then-Bourbon) Spain, I know, but if there were others -- if this erupted into everyone's favorite early modern event, a general German war -- I wouldn't be surprised to learn it...

The cultures were similar, but they really had more in common in language than anything. The Puritans in particular were a very distinct culture from that of the greater English "cultural orbit," and look where the revolution began, look what region of the country was dragging everyone else along by the ear...

(And -- this is touched on elsewhere -- yes, I think Washington deserves much more credit as a politician, and as a spymaster, than as a general. He was above average in generalship -- and given the competition in this war, that tends to inflate his reputation -- but his knack for coordinating espionage, and above all his political abilities (defused two or three rebellions after 1783, one of them a really nasty-looking piece by a large chunk of the Continental Army), are both less common skills and much less common in a man who's also a general worth his salt.)

2) The enigma machine:
Surprisingly enough, despite what Hollywood says the Royal navy captured the German code machine, in fact before the Americans had even joined the war, it was subsequently deciphered by British and Canadian mathematicians and scientists.

Hollywood says Americans did everything, or Englishmen when there aren't any Americans available yet -- they'd probably call it "human interest." I think you put too much emphasis on its products; see my response to point 4 below.

3) The civil war:
You need to understand that many countries have had a civil war, therefore you mustn't complain when us poor Englishmen think you're talking about the roundheads and royalists, not the confederates and unionists.

I'm still surprised, myself, that no Englishmen seem to care much about the Wars of the Roses -- a more 'medieval' conflict than the ECW, to be sure, but a pretty far-reaching one.

On the other hand, the ghosts of a million-odd Irishmen, and one crowned Stuart, are now reminding me that you don't get consequences much more far-reaching than the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell...

4) The battle of Britiain.
Note. Ben Affleck was nowhere to be found during this conflict, no matter what your history teacher said. The battle of Britain was fought statistically entirely by British French, Canadian and expat (eg. Czech refugees) pilots

I don't think people actually think that. Hollywood inserts Americans, or Englishmen when no Americans exist yet, more or less everywhere; The Last Samurai comes to mind...

(By the way, while this is on WWII, anyone care to discuss the over-ratedness of Winston Churchill, and/or -- on the American side of the fence -- the conditions under which unrestricted submarine warfare and the use of mass incindiaries are permissable in war?

I was planning on taking the Mother of all Snipes at Churchill, but apparently he didn't actually use mustard gas against the Kurds in 1920 -- it was only in '32 that someone figured out how to deploy poison gas from aircraft. So there goes that one, but it could've fooled me...)

5) Joan of Arc was not a Saint,

This was directly sparked my response to your comment. Joan of Arc's conviction for heresy was overturned in 1456, by Pope Calixtus III, in words that have to be seen to be believed:

We say, pronounce, decree, and declare the said trial and sentence to be contaminated with fraud, calumny, wickedness, contradictions, and manifest errors of fact and law, and together with the abjuration, the execution, and all their consequences, to have been and to be null, without value or effect... We proclaim that Joan... did not contract any taint of infamy, and that she shall be and is washed clean.

(Quoted in Gies, Frances, Joan of Arc: The Legend and the Reality, p.236, quoted in turn by Carroll, Warren, The Glory of Christendom, p. 526.)

After this, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1909. I don't know the sense in which you're using "saint," but the literal sense is "a person formally canonized by the Catholic Church," in which sense St. Joan most certainly qualifies.

As to why God took sides in a fratricidal war in Europe, only God knows, but damage control for the Henry two Henries after Henry VI is a better guess than most.

and hollywood has been suckered in by the French by believing that. France is rightfully British, and those Frogs should be jolly glad that we didn't take what was rightfully ours from them after the first stages of the hundred years wars, and the Napoleonic wars.

Sorry. Sometimes one wins, sometimes one gets to be the only target of a direct divine intervention against a Christian country in recorded history.

6) The English language:
we made it first, if you want to change it to suit you thats allright, just dont sully our name with it, call it american, not english or american english. And don't listen to bigoted anti-French pronunciation blokes, you may as well decide you'll remove all the latin pronunciation from the latin words.  English is a conglomerate language from several differant languages, we have to deal with that.

Actually, it's Englishmen who've changed the language, much more than Americans. The venerable Americanism "I guess" goes all the way back to that venerable American, Geoffrey Chaucer; Appalachian English -- especially in its written form -- is a strikingly good facsimile of the English of the early Stuarts (James I and Charles I, though, not Bloody Bess); and I have no idea how they know it, but linguists have said that both George Washington and George III would have sounded more like a modern American than a modern Englishman, and that the speech of American blacks preserves most of the language of Jamestown.

Lesson one over. Discuss in your peer groups.

And now to my own subject. Why, again, is it that Americans teach history as if history were "things that happened in English-speaking countries and their direct ancestors" -- and (this is what I want you to answer, but it's not the primary subject of this part of the post) why did you not point this out?

I can understand a certain amount of prudential judgement on the Abassids versus the Umayyads, or a conscious decision to minimize the classroom presence of the Qin dynasty or Tokugawa Ieyasu or Ashoka or the classical Khmer in favor of more immediately accessible subjects, but why is the same thing done with central subjects of "Greater European" history?

In religious history -- but religious history of really, really extreme relevance to everything that has ever happened in "Greater Europe" since -- I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that not one in a hundred Americans has ever heard of Zoroaster or Cyrus I, and, thus, doesn't appreciate the extreme, if almost inadvertent, importance of those two in history. They probably have only a vague knowledge, if any at all, of the battles of Salamis and Marathon, probably the two most important events -- except, maybe, the Second Punic War -- in classical history. They have no appreciation of the continuity between the Roman and Byzantine empires, in all things save language and aesthetics; and, to transition from the classical to the medieval...

Most Americans probably wouldn't be able to describe the two extremely important battles of 627 AD. I do not expect Americans to know that Nineveh was Heraclius versus Khosru II, nor that Mohammed's "Battle of the Trench" occurred in the same year, but I do expect them to at least appreciate the patterns in which these two events occurred -- the mutual exhaustion of Persia and Byzantium, and the consequent facilitation of the Muslim conquest. (Many Americans do not seem to appreciate that the Muslim conquest even occurred. This is particularly galling when hearing historically-literate liberals complain about the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: the subject is a little bit more nuanced when one considers how exactly the Moriscos got there. ... And here the United States is, trying to fight a war in what is practically the geographic dead center of political Islam, among people who will say in casual conversation that "the past four hundred years have been hell," while not knowing... ... ugh.)

The rest of medieval history is perhaps not so urgent to know as the overarching struggle of Islam versus the West -- though I might add that for good measure, most Americans probably don't know about the Battle of Tours either. The Holy Roman Empire versus the Papacy is an interesting conflict, but not too too important for the Protestants, non-Christians, and non-religious of the country (a category not including myself, as you've probably guessed) -- not if it's a choice of Canossa or Salamis.

Early modernity, though, is the one area, above all others, where American historiography should not merely hang its head in shame, but should probably hang itself by its neck until dead out of shame. The fact that no Americans seem to appreciate that the Protestant Reformation precipitated a hundred years of practically Europe-wide civil wars, culminating in a conflict which is called "the Thirty Years' War," is beyond embarassing. How many Americans have heard of the Hapsburgs, who were basically the protagonists of most of Western history for approximately 250 years? By contrast, how many Americans have heard of Champlain? (And how many Americans appreciate just whom the silver output of Potosi was funding? Let me add that appreciating that makes Sid Meier's Pirates! a very different game indeed... )

And, of course, there's the little problem with how Americans haven't heard of and hardly see the point of distinguishing between the Wars of the Spanish and Austrian Successions, and how we insist on calling the Seven Years' War the French and Indian War, and on disinguishing between the Napoleanic Wars and the War of 1812...

But then again, American, and even English, history -- from a very early point -- really does end up existing in a parallel universe, which operates under rules very different from those used in the rest of the world. Here's a fun illustration of that -- a list of approximately contemporary historical events and figures, one American, or in a few cases English, and from the outside world. (Many or most of these, you'll note, are events that involve the Ottomans. What can I say? The Turks just made things feel old-fashioned, perhaps through still being barbarians fresh off the steppes who could make the -- deservedly famously -- bloody Iroquois look gentle...)

AMERICAN/ENGLISH                                        FOREIGN

Pilgrims arrive in Massachusetts                        Battle of White Mountain

The Pilgrim's Progress;                                      Siege of Vienna
Paradise Lost

Jack Cade's Rebellion                                      Fall of Constantinople

The American Revolution                                Partition of Poland

Andrew Jackson                                            Heinrich Heine;
                                                                  Karl Marx

The Gilded Age                                              Ci-xi

Teapot Dome                                                Russo-Japanese War

And the best of them all...

Abraham Lincoln                                            Hong Hsiu-chüan

On that note, Ex_Ottoyuhr, signing off.

 

[Jaghatai Khan]

(Many or most of these, you'll note, are events that involve the Ottomans. What can I say? The Turks just made things feel old-fashioned, perhaps through still being barbarians fresh off the steppes who could make the -- deservedly famously -- bloody Iroquois look gentle...)

Can you explain that part? And I fail to see the main point of your thread.

 

[Archonsod]

Instead, all I see is a flag-waving Englishman shaking his flag at flag-waving Americans...

It's simply tongue in cheek ribbing, in much the same flavour as the revocation of American Independance which is floating around the net.

Indeed. Short answer here: the proto-US side had about 30% popular support.

Depends on what you call support though. 30% may have been in favour of going the full road to independance, but if the question was "do we need to take action over the British government's policies in the colonies" you'd be looking at more than double that, it was simply that the disparate groups couldn't agree on the precise nature of the action which should be taken.

English diplomacy in the war was about the same as their generalship -- exactly how many countries did the American rebels manage to get involved? France and (then-Bourbon) Spain, I know, but if there were others -- if this erupted into everyone's favorite early modern event, a general German war -- I wouldn't be surprised to learn it...

Countries England was already at war with, or at best an uneasy peace. It's not that surprising, since the Royal Navy was well on it's way to dominance in European waters, hence the enemies of England struck at the point she was weak at - the colonies.

(And -- this is touched on elsewhere -- yes, I think Washington deserves much more credit as a politician, and as a spymaster, than as a general. He was above average in generalship -- and given the competition in this war, that tends to inflate his reputation -- but his knack for coordinating espionage, and above all his political abilities (defused two or three rebellions after 1783, one of them a really nasty-looking piece by a large chunk of the Continental Army), are both less common skills and much less common in a man who's also a general worth his salt.)

Your underselling both sides. The course of the British side of the war had more to do with the political situation in parliament than it did the generalship. Before the expeditionary force arrived it had underwent a change of generals because the originally proposed commander fell out of political favour. Once in the colonies it found itself hamstrung by conflicting parliamentary orders (Partly because parliament never did make up its mind about whether to concentrate on the war in the colonies or focus on the European theatre, partially because Parliament couldn't decide what the hell it was doing or who it was supposed to be fighting).
Washington himself was an excellent politician, though he wasn't the best general of all time. In fact, I think a key factor to his success was that he recognised his lack of tactical ability and wasn't too proud to listen to those men whose expertise lay in that area. He also recognised the inferior quality of the continental army when employed in direct combat, and had the sense to avoid this whenever possible and fight to his strengths (Guerilla warfare, using the knowledge of local men who understood the terrain).

I'm still surprised, myself, that no Englishmen seem to care much about the Wars of the Roses -- a more 'medieval' conflict than the ECW, to be sure, but a pretty far-reaching one.

There's still rivalry between Lancastrians and Yorkists to this day It's not really considered a civil war over here so much as a political struggle. Truth be told, it was little different from a number of similar scuffles for control of the political landscape of Britain by any number of royal or noble families in the history of England. The Cromwellian civil war on the other hand once and for all decided whether parliament or king would rule our country, and as a result is still accorded great importance. I guess the end answer is that Cromwell decided the form of government, while the War of the Roses merely changed kings.

On the other hand, the ghosts of a million-odd Irishmen, and one crowned Stuart, are now reminding me that you don't get consequences much more far-reaching than the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell...

Despite it possibly being the most ridiculous civil war in history - Cromwell overthrows monarch in favour of parliament. Parliament decides to declare Cromwell a monarch in everything but name. Cromwell rejects this as being counter to his motives, Parliament can't decide what to do so Cromwell re-instates King. Army gets pissed off at fighting for parliament, winning and still getting King. King decides to do the precise same things which triggered the civil war, Cromwell deposes king again, re-instates parliament. Parliament once more can't decide what to do, suggests re-instating of King. Cromwell kills king, tells parliament to sort it out among themselves and washes his hands of politics.

Anyone else notice a common theme running in the English parliament here?

I was planning on taking the Mother of all Snipes at Churchill, but apparently he didn't actually use mustard gas against the Kurds in 1920 -- it was only in '32 that someone figured out how to deploy poison gas from aircraft. So there goes that one, but it could've fooled me...)

He didn't personally mustard gas anyone. Nor did he order it used (British governors were only answerable to parliament. Parliament has always been careful to merely suggest courses of action rather than dictate them). I'm not so sure if Churchill could technically be overrated, since he was an absolutely amazing politician (how many times was he kicked out of politics, only to return. How many times did he switch parties?).

After this, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1909. I don't know the sense in which you're using "saint," but the literal sense is "a person formally canonized by the Catholic Church," in which sense St. Joan most certainly qualifies.

I believe it was a dig at the hollywood/pop culture thing of Joan of Arc essentially being wonderwoman for God - lasers firing out of her arse and similar kinds of nonsense.

Actually, it's Englishmen who've changed the language, much more than Americans.

There was no such thing as English as a language until after the Americans declared independance. Hell, it wasn't till King James published (or at least ordered the publication) his english bible that it became possible for people from the different regions to understand each other. Even today, people from different regions have difficulty understanding each other.

And now to my own subject. Why, again, is it that Americans teach history as if history were "things that happened in English-speaking countries and their direct ancestors" -- and (this is what I want you to answer, but it's not the primary subject of this part of the post) why did you not point this out?

I think it's self evident that most history classes are taught from the perspective of the nation they are taught in. When I studied history (bear in mind that to continue history past the third year of senior school in those days you had to give up religious studies and geography. Nowadays I believe history is lumped into a general "humanities" course, if it's even taught at all) we never covered any US history at all. Medieval England in the first year (note this was exclusively English history, no mention of things like the Holy Roman Empire or pretty much anything in Europe that didn't involve us killing Frenchmen in some way), Renaissance to Napoleonic in the second, with especial focus on Elizabethan times, (and a complete ignorance of Napoleon himself, though a disproportionate amount of time was devoted to the Continental System and the Corn Laws) Modern history in the third year (WW1, Influenza epidemic, General Strike, WW2, cold war (still ongoing at that point), 60's cultural revolution) and the Industrial revolution in the fourth and fifth year. I think the closest we got to US history was a brief mention that Sir Francis Drake sailed over there at some point.
Prior to senior school, we covered classical history (Egyptians, Romans) and pirates (only so we could understand Treasure Island). At college I studied classical civilisation (Ancient Greeks & Romans), but only because I chose to. International history (beyond important worldwide events or the fact that we were fighting them at the time) wasn't covered. Nor were certain things you'd expect to be covered either - we never touched on the Opium Wars for example.

but why is the same thing done with central subjects of "Greater European" history?

Firstly, the concept of 'central' is relative. There's no reason an Italian needs to study the War of the Roses in depth for example. Secondly, history is seen, at least by the current government, as something of a waste of time. It's one of those "you need to teach it because we always teach it, but it's not important" subjects, like Religious education, Geography and similar. Finally, I guess part of the problem would be picking out the important from the unimportant. There's a wealth of history recorded in Europe, but not all of it is essential to understanding the world. In addition, unless the student has an actual interest in history then your on a hiding to nowhere. I suppose the basic idea of teaching history is not to give the student an understanding of why the world is the way it is today, but to instill a rough idea of their own cultural identity and heritage.

In religious history -- but religious history of really, really extreme relevance to everything that has ever happened in "Greater Europe" since -- I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that not one in a hundred Americans has ever heard of Zoroaster or Cyrus I

It's no different from any other nationality to be honest. If you exclude actual historians/academics from the population. To be honest, how many non-English people would have heard of the War of the Roses if it wasn't for Shakespeare? How many people would know about Laurence of Arabia if it wasn't a two hour epic film?
But then, the problem is if you really wanted to learn history, you'd need to devote time to it. Given that all we had was two hours a week in which to digest several thousand years of world history, can you really blame people for having gaps in their knowledge? I think the important emphasis in history should not be on teaching about specific events, but as it was taught to us - equip and enable the student to be able to research and learn about those events which interest them by themselves, rather than being given a one sided or restricted view of history.
What we were taught in history was things like veracity of sources, including the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary. How to efficiently research, consider and debate a subject, how to verify sources and events, how to recognise bias, and the types of things which can lead to bias and similar. In my opinion, this is much more important than imparting an understanding of the actual events from the classroom. After that, it should be left to the student to decide if they wish to learn further. While it may seem ridiculous that certain important events are unknown to many, it does fit in with specialised knowledge. To complain that Americans don't know about the Battle of Salamis is like a physicist complaining that most people don't understand the difference between General and Special theories of Relativity, or a Philosopher complaining about the lack of understanding of the concept of Self.

 

[Bellum]

Personally, barring the Civil War I hate American history. And I'm an American. I wish they'd teach more European history, too. But then, I don't think it's unreasonable. You have to understand, we live on a different continent thousands of miles away from you. Even though it only takes a day to get there, the distance still represents a great boundary. We are not European. We don't seem to have anything in common with most of Europe.


I can't speak for the whole of America, but most southern Americans don't seem to know or care about anything that happens in Europe. This is dangerous for a nation that continues to attempt being international police, but most Southerners are a bit more isolationist, I think, sooo.... 

 

[Eldarion]

I can't speak for the whole of America, but most southern Americans don't seem to know or care about anything that happens in Europe. This is dangerous for a nation that continues to attempt being international police, but most Southerners are a bit more isolationist, I think, sooo.... 

Actually... I've learned more of europe history (through ancient and medieval history study) than american history (leaving aside, of course, argentinian history)

 

[Bellum]

I don't think that's standard.

 

[Eldarion]

I don't think that's standard.

Are you going to tell me what's standard in my country? no... I believe that's pretty standard... we don't really give a **** about the US

 

[Bellum]

Ah, I assumed that, as you were replying to a post about the state of American education, you received an American education.

EDIT: Ah. And by 'Southern' I meant 'Southern'. Not 'South'.

 

[Eldarion]

Ah, I assumed that, as you were replying to a post about the state of American education, you received an American education.

EDIT: Ah. And by 'Southern' I meant 'Southern'. Not 'South'.

oh, sorry... I assumed by "southern" you meant "from the south"... and last time I checked... southern americans refers to those evil, low-lives, half-black, mestizo people from latin america

 

[Bellum]

Nah, I was referring to us rednecks below the north/south border. 

 

[Archonsod]

Personally, barring the Civil War I hate American history. And I'm an American. I wish they'd teach more European history, too. But then, I don't think it's unreasonable. You have to understand, we live on a different continent thousands of miles away from you. Even though it only takes a day to get there, the distance still represents a great boundary. We are not European. We don't seem to have anything in common with most of Europe.

The point I made. Though I guess it would depend on your point of view - do you consider the history of America pre-colonisation (i.e. the native americans) to be part of your cultural heritage, or would you consider the shared portion of European history (i.e. your ancestors before they crossed the pond) to be more pertinent? Beyond the notion of cultural identity, then there isn't much reason to learn the minutae of European history beyond the key events which changed the world - industrialisation, world war and similar, especially not when you have nearly six hundred years of US history to draw from which would have slightly more relevance to yourselves.

 

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Personally, barring the Civil War I hate American history. And I'm an American.

Glad I'm not the only one...

(Though, I have to wonder what exactly I was thinking, getting involved in a discussion in the Off-Topic forum. This is a *lot* of stuff to go through...)

I wish they'd teach more European history, too. But then, I don't think it's unreasonable. You have to understand, we live on a different continent thousands of miles away from you. Even though it only takes a day to get there, the distance still represents a great boundary. We are not European. We don't seem to have anything in common with most of Europe.

Again, though, it leaves a really limited understanding of the big picture -- which has all sorts of unpredictable bad consequences. Like I said, disconcertingly few people seem to appreciate where, for example, all those Muslims all over the Middle East came from -- they seem to think the region just came that way.

I can't speak for the whole of America, but most southern Americans don't seem to know or care about anything that happens in Europe. This is dangerous for a nation that continues to attempt being international police, but most Southerners are a bit more isolationist, I think, sooo.... 

Certainly -- I'm a Southerner too, though you'd never guess it from my listed location, and I agree there's a serious issue there. Now, at the present, we've been able to get away with knowing little European history, but how long exactly will that last...

 

[Bellum]

I suppose only time will tell as we seem incapable of effective educational reform.

 

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Jagatai on Turkish barbarism:

I was thinking of things like their making amulets out of the bones of Skanderbeg after he died, or their gruesome conduct in Wallachia -- their method of killing Dracula's father, for example. (He fit right in, only, again, almost looked gentle in comparison...)

Of course, the Turks are much better now -- and it didn't really take them long to civilize, not more than a couple of centuries: Skanderbeg and Dracula were 16th-century, by the 17th they were much more civilized. Although they never did lose their knack for making history feel really wierd...

As to the main point, well, read on -- it's that Hussey made a post and I'm being a high-school English teacher about it. As to the Turks, though, again, it's all mostly good. I like the Iroquois too, though they also certainly have some ugly moments in their history...

Eldarion:

I know. *Boy* do I know. I don't like the use of "American" for "Inhabitant of the United States" any more than you do...

Anyone have an alternative name suggestion, preferably one that doesn't mean "Greek"?

Archonsod:

(Good, only one line-by-line to go through. These things are ugly in parallel.)

Instead, all I see is a flag-waving Englishman shaking his flag at flag-waving Americans...

It's simply tongue in cheek ribbing, in much the same flavour as the revocation of American Independance which is floating around the net.

And so I take it seriously. Typical for me... -- I do think, though, that this is a real issue, and the tongue-in-cheekness was a little mis-supplied...

Indeed. Short answer here: the proto-US side had about 30% popular support.

Depends on what you call support though. 30% may have been in favour of going the full road to independance, but if the question was "do we need to take action over the British government's policies in the colonies" you'd be looking at more than double that, it was simply that the disparate groups couldn't agree on the precise nature of the action which should be taken.

I was going off of back-of-the-envelope figures -- I'd heard that the soon-to-be-country was about one third Tory, one third Rebel, and one third sitting on the fence. "30% Rebel" makes it sound like "70% Tory," though -- a mistake...

English diplomacy in the war was about the same as their generalship -- exactly how many countries did the American rebels manage to get involved? France and (then-Bourbon) Spain, I know, but if there were others -- if this erupted into everyone's favorite early modern event, a general German war -- I wouldn't be surprised to learn it...

Countries England was already at war with, or at best an uneasy peace. It's not that surprising, since the Royal Navy was well on it's way to dominance in European waters, hence the enemies of England struck at the point she was weak at - the colonies.

Though one would have hoped they could've contained the war a bit. Then again, perhaps I'm thinking too much of the Chinese there -- who invented containment...

<Washington as General or Spymaster or What>

Your underselling both sides. The course of the British side of the war had more to do with the political situation in parliament than it did the generalship. Before the expeditionary force arrived it had underwent a change of generals because the originally proposed commander fell out of political favour. Once in the colonies it found itself hamstrung by conflicting parliamentary orders (Partly because parliament never did make up its mind about whether to concentrate on the war in the colonies or focus on the European theatre, partially because Parliament couldn't decide what the hell it was doing or who it was supposed to be fighting).

Now I get it. One more chapter of bad American historiography -- I hadn't heard about the political side of the British military -- though I do have to say that this may excuse the soldiers, but it doesn't excuse, say, Howe. I hadn't known about the Parlimentary indecision either, but it makes sense -- I did know already that the Tories were almost pro-American-independence, and I suppose I'd forgotten about them. You know, when both houses of the legislature, and the executive, are all members of one political party, it can be hard to remember that the opposition does, after all, exist...

Washington himself was an excellent politician, though he wasn't the best general of all time. In fact, I think a key factor to his success was that he recognised his lack of tactical ability and wasn't too proud to listen to those men whose expertise lay in that area. He also recognised the inferior quality of the continental army when employed in direct combat, and had the sense to avoid this whenever possible and fight to his strengths (Guerilla warfare, using the knowledge of local men who understood the terrain).

Indeed -- I had given him credit as a better diplomat than general, but I hadn't realized just how good a general. Thanks for filling me in on that.

(Also, sidenote: Valley Forge is my favorite debating point from the Revolution -- "If the American style of fighting was superior to the European one, why did Washington spend an entire winter having his troops trained in European drill?" )

I'm still surprised, myself, that no Englishmen seem to care much about the Wars of the Roses -- a more 'medieval' conflict than the ECW, to be sure, but a pretty far-reaching one.

There's still rivalry between Lancastrians and Yorkists to this day

Yeah, you're not the American South. Rub it in.

It's not really considered a civil war over here so much as a political struggle. Truth be told, it was little different from a number of similar scuffles for control of the political landscape of Britain by any number of royal or noble families in the history of England. The Cromwellian civil war on the other hand once and for all decided whether parliament or king would rule our country, and as a result is still accorded great importance. I guess the end answer is that Cromwell decided the form of government, while the War of the Roses merely changed kings.

Thanks -- and you're right there, there certainly was a heck of a lot more at stake...

On the other hand, the ghosts of a million-odd Irishmen, and one crowned Stuart, are now reminding me that you don't get consequences much more far-reaching than the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell...

Despite it possibly being the most ridiculous civil war in history - Cromwell overthrows monarch in favour of parliament. Parliament decides to declare Cromwell a monarch in everything but name. Cromwell rejects this as being counter to his motives, Parliament can't decide what to do so Cromwell re-instates King. Army gets pissed off at fighting for parliament, winning and still getting King. King decides to do the precise same things which triggered the civil war, Cromwell deposes king again, re-instates parliament. Parliament once more can't decide what to do, suggests re-instating of King. Cromwell kills king, tells parliament to sort it out among themselves and washes his hands of politics.

Anyone else notice a common theme running in the English parliament here?

I don't say this often at all, but, LOL! Yeah, Parliamentary... uh.. Parlimentariness... is a bit of a running theme... Then again, many of the most serious historical events have a way of degenerating into farce. The storming of the Tsars' Winter Palace comes to mind...

I was planning on taking the Mother of all Snipes at Churchill, but apparently he didn't actually use mustard gas against the Kurds in 1920 -- it was only in '32 that someone figured out how to deploy poison gas from aircraft. So there goes that one, but it could've fooled me...)

He didn't personally mustard gas anyone. Nor did he order it used (British governors were only answerable to parliament. Parliament has always been careful to merely suggest courses of action rather than dictate them). I'm not so sure if Churchill could technically be overrated, since he was an absolutely amazing politician

Again, I did at least catch the mistake -- though it seemed like the kind of thing that he might well *have* done if pressed. However, I suppose I'm reacting to his reputation in America here -- where he appears to be held in higher regard than King Arthur. Now that you mention it, I don't think that is the case in Britain...

[/quote]
(how many times was he kicked out of politics, only to return. How many times did he switch parties?).
[/quote]

Perhaps more importantly: exactly how many times did his career end? I'm thinking of two at least -- Gallipoli, and more generally the fall of... Asquith, was it?, in WWI, and again his Chancellorship of the Exchequry (serious spelling error in the preceding) in 1929 -- and yet, despite having two career-ending events on his record, he went on to run the country at THE time when it absolutely could not do without good government, and proved perfectly up to the task. So, the question is how he was able to keep his reputation despite his defeats... Irrepressable, certainly.

After this, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1909. I don't know the sense in which you're using "saint," but the literal sense is "a person formally canonized by the Catholic Church," in which sense St. Joan most certainly qualifies.

I believe it was a dig at the hollywood/pop culture thing of Joan of Arc essentially being wonderwoman for God - lasers firing out of her arse and similar kinds of nonsense.

You left out "proto-feminist".

That sainthood I don't have too much trouble with complaining about -- though, in my defense, (a) her career really was very impressive, a good look at a saint's proper conduct on the battlefield, and (b), Paddy Griffith, the only really strongly English historian out of the English historians I've read (despite the name, go figure), had it seriously in for Joan as often as he talked about her. He doesn't seem to spit fire often, but this was a subject where he certainly did...

Between that and Shakespeare's scurriliosity about her, I was suspecting that Joan d'Arc-bashing was something of an English tradition...

Actually, it's Englishmen who've changed the language, much more than Americans.

There was no such thing as English as a language until after the Americans declared independance. Hell, it wasn't till King James published (or at least ordered the publication) his english bible that it became possible for people from the different regions to understand each other. Even today, people from different regions have difficulty understanding each other.

True, certainly -- I suppose I was aiming my sights too low, on that point. I do find it interesting, though, how the colonials have changed the language much less -- but it's probably for a familiar and rather unflattering reason, a lack of complete confidence with, mastery of, the language -- rather like lack of mastery of stories, folksongs, etc., which you see all the time, and which produces some extremely entertaining versions of Gaelic-English bilingual songs when straight-English-speakers try to preserve the sounds of the original...

And now to my own subject. Why, again, is it that Americans teach history as if history were "things that happened in English-speaking countries and their direct ancestors" -- and (this is what I want you to answer, but it's not the primary subject of this part of the post) why did you not point this out?

I think it's self evident that most history classes are taught from the perspective of the nation they are taught in. When I studied history (bear in mind that to continue history past the third year of senior school in those days you had to give up religious studies and geography. Nowadays I believe history is lumped into a general "humanities" course, if it's even taught at all) we never covered any US history at all. Medieval England in the first year (note this was exclusively English history, no mention of things like the Holy Roman Empire or pretty much anything in Europe that didn't involve us killing Frenchmen in some way), Renaissance to Napoleonic in the second, with especial focus on Elizabethan times, (and a complete ignorance of Napoleon himself, though a disproportionate amount of time was devoted to the Continental System and the Corn Laws) Modern history in the third year (WW1, Influenza epidemic, General Strike, WW2, cold war (still ongoing at that point), 60's cultural revolution) and the Industrial revolution in the fourth and fifth year. I think the closest we got to US history was a brief mention that Sir Francis Drake sailed over there at some point.

I'm not certain that it's a given, though. Chesterton railled at English history for being uniquely lacking in depth and insight, even in his day -- observing how Richard the Lion-Hearted had the reputation of being an impractical cavalier for getting involved in the Third Crusade, whereas in France, Philip Augustus was famous as a hard-headed, practical statesman for doing the exact same thing. Can some of our non-Anglo-Adjective readers weigh in here on their own experiences?

Eldarion, what is Argentine history instruction like? Judging from Nestle's Mexican "Carlos Quintos" candy bar, I have high hopes -- but one never knows in advance...

Prior to senior school, we covered classical history (Egyptians, Romans) and pirates (only so we could understand Treasure Island).

Yeah. Pirates. Pirate Studies would be a much better class if only, again, it would take into account the fact that such silver as the pirates didn't intercept was going to the support of the Hapsburg dynasty...

At college I studied classical civilisation (Ancient Greeks & Romans), but only because I chose to. International history (beyond important worldwide events or the fact that we were fighting them at the time) wasn't covered. Nor were certain things you'd expect to be covered either - we never touched on the Opium Wars for example.

Really!? I would've thought the Opium Wars would be pretty important, given that it was England versus China. Certainly American history classes always include a "China Chapter," talking about the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and so on...

but why is the same thing done with central subjects of "Greater European" history?

Firstly, the concept of 'central' is relative. There's no reason an Italian needs to study the War of the Roses in depth for example.

That's true; I never meant to assert that the Wars of the Roses were a central subject -- though I'd say that the Tudor dynasty probably is, at least to the tune of a couple paragraphs of text. I feel that "central subjects" would be the ones that appear in multiple countries' histories, especially the ones that naturally coalesce into what we might call "narrative arcs" -- the rise of Islam, again, as a major example, or the whole career of Rome, or the Popes, the Emperors, and the development of modern states, or... I'm sure you get the idea.

Secondly, history is seen, at least by the current government, as something of a waste of time. It's one of those "you need to teach it because we always teach it, but it's not important" subjects, like Religious education, Geography and similar.

I agree, that's a large part of the problem; dealing with it is necessary, though not sufficient -- we won't have history taught well unless the government in question genuinely cares about it, but caring will not be enough alone.

What does English religious education cover? I hadn't known it was still on your school cirricula -- I'm guessing it's exclusively the legacy of Henry VIII and his passel of schismatics, though...

(Fun fact: Because the first Anglican bishops had been validly ordained as Catholic bishops, the Catholic Church considers Anglican Holy Orders to be valid -- most of the time. A woman can never be ordained in the Catholic Church, but a male Anglican priest who converts to Catholicism is recognized as a Catholic priest, although he's expected, as a Catholic clergyman, to be celibate, whether married or not. I think that Anglican bishops are recognized, too, though I'm less certain... Anglicanism is the only non-Eastern Orthodox denomination for which this is true -- though almost everyone's baptisms are "common currency.")

Finally, I guess part of the problem would be picking out the important from the unimportant. There's a wealth of history recorded in Europe, but not all of it is essential to understanding the world. In addition, unless the student has an actual interest in history then your on a hiding to nowhere. I suppose the basic idea of teaching history is not to give the student an understanding of why the world is the way it is today, but to instill a rough idea of their own cultural identity and heritage.

I think that a rough idea of the world as a whole can and should be presented, as well as a rough idea of one's own culture -- though I'm not entirely sure which of the two should be chosen, if one were to have to choose between them.

Getting people interested in history is, of course, a ticklish sort of task -- but as far as means to do it, well, we're standing in them.

In religious history -- but religious history of really, really extreme relevance to everything that has ever happened in "Greater Europe" since -- I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that not one in a hundred Americans has ever heard of Zoroaster or Cyrus I

It's no different from any other nationality to be honest. If you exclude actual historians/academics from the population. To be honest, how many non-English people would have heard of the War of the Roses if it wasn't for Shakespeare? How many people would know about Laurence of Arabia if it wasn't a two hour epic film?

I can understand and pardon non-Englishmen and/or non-English-speakers not being familiar with the Wars of the Roses (our favorite subject this thread ) or Lawrence of Arabia (I'm an American so I get to use a "w"), but I think that's on the same level as a non-Frenchman not knowing about the War of the Three Henries, or a non-German not knowing about the Smalkaldic War. Not knowing about the Thirty Years' War, though, is more like not knowing about World War II...

But then, the problem is if you really wanted to learn history, you'd need to devote time to it. Given that all we had was two hours a week in which to digest several thousand years of world history, can you really blame people for having gaps in their knowledge?

I think there would be time if the effort were made. Two hours a week, for, not counting primary school, four or eight years -- that should be enough to cover at least a little of everything.

Or, one can cover the Magna Carta and Andrew Jackson in insane depth, and not even notice the Germans, Frenchmen, Poles, Swedes, Swiss, Turks, Spaniards, Portugese, Italians, Scots, Pomeranians, Dalmatians, ... (several hours later), ... Lithuanians, Lichensteiners, Czechs, Wallachians, Moravians, Ukranians, and Uzkoks off destroying each other's civilizations two countries over.

And, of course, a civilization that's been the victim of a dozen inadvertent efforts to destroy it is generally more dangerous afterwards than it was starting out. I'm sure everyone here has heard of Mad Max...

I think the important emphasis in history should not be on teaching about specific events, but as it was taught to us - equip and enable the student to be able to research and learn about those events which interest them by themselves, rather than being given a one sided or restricted view of history.

The problem there, though, is that if you consciously "teach to the encyclopedia," you get people pulling up Google to answer the question of when the War of 1812 began. Teaching a framework of content, I think, is a better way of equipping people to fill in the gaps...

Although, again, if they're modern teenagers, that might not go so well.

What we were taught in history was things like veracity of sources, including the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary. How to efficiently research, consider and debate a subject, how to verify sources and events, how to recognise bias, and the types of things which can lead to bias and similar. In my opinion, this is much more important than imparting an understanding of the actual events from the classroom.

Research skills most certainly are important, but I've seen them -- and I was taught them -- as a support for several disciplines -- not just history, but literature and the sciences also.

After that, it should be left to the student to decide if they wish to learn further. While it may seem ridiculous that certain important events are unknown to many, it does fit in with specialised knowledge. To complain that Americans don't know about the Battle of Salamis is like a physicist complaining that most people don't understand the difference between General and Special theories of Relativity, or a Philosopher complaining about the lack of understanding of the concept of Self.

As a nitpick on these particular questions: the difference between General and Special Relativity never created a civilization. (I wish you'd said Cyrus here, in which case I could have said that "the difference between General and Special Relativity never created a nuclear standoff"... )

But is no one here familiar with the Taiping? I still haven't gotten over the fact that the Taiping Rebellion was occurring in the same timeframe as the slavery crisis and the American Civil War. You know -- on one side of the Pacific, Uncle Tom's Cabin, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, "Dixie" and stovepipe hats; on the other side of the ocean, Fan Qing Fu Ming, the siege and conquest of the second city of China, some at-least-partially-crazy Hakka proclaiming himself to be Jesus Christ's little brother and going from the head of a religion of three people to a serious threat to the Manchu conquorors...

It's just not the same world.

(It's worse than that, actually. If you've read Pearl Buck's Sons, anybody: If Wang the Tiger had existed, he and Groucho Marx would have been contemporaries.)

 

[Grocat]

The only thing that disturbs me about most of these posts, is the implication that this kind of ignorance is a solely United Station phenomenon.  We do have a lot of poor ignorant folk in the United States, and plenty of them are happily living their lives, not giving a care in the world that they don't know a bunch of useless **** about the Delian League and the Persian Empire.  Seriously, I'm willing to bet that England has, taking proportion of the population into account, just as many people who are ignorant of all that antiquated nonsense.  Seriously, reading that load of jizz crusted socks made me tired.

-Grocat

 

[thesneakster]

most off that stuff... the majority of the world does not know.

so, your getting pissed off because people don't know about something that happened in turkey (or something, just picking a random thing)?

well, all i can say is, people who don't know that, are not ignorant people. People who act like it didn't happen, or can't be true, are the ignorant ones.

 

[StarWolf]

History in my highschool was not very exciting, so I forgot most of it... I "re-learned" some of the geography parts of it from Rome Total War  , and the rest of it from my persian friend.  I still would like to learn more about it.  I estimate my knowledge of each era is only about 10%, and of major events, 20%.  Anyone know any books that cover world history?  What I love about history is being able to learn small parts at a time and piecing them together later when you learn more.

So when does the lesson start? 

 

[Johnathan Andrews]

The only thing that disturbs me about most of these posts, is the implication that this kind of ignorance is a solely United Station phenomenon.  We do have a lot of poor ignorant folk in the United States, and plenty of them are happily living their lives, not giving a care in the world that they don't know a bunch of useless **** about the Delian League and the Persian Empire.  Seriously, I'm willing to bet that England has, taking proportion of the population into account, just as many people who are ignorant of all that antiquated nonsense.
-Grocat

Quoted for truth.

I myself learned American history (a more complete history involving North America, including the pre-Columbus era, though sorely lacking in South American history outside of the Incas and the Spanish/Portuguese expansion) and found it to be rather bland, for the most part.  I've studied Russian history quite a bit (though by no means am I an expert) especially from the 1200s to the present day and find their history to be much more fascinating than our own.  I think a part of the disinterest by American students with regards to history is the fact that you only have 300-400 years to glance at, rather than a couple centuries.  The shorter timespan means that many of the events that are studied in class are by necessity less important and more boring than those gleaned from a longer timespan.

 

[Pladio]

History in my highschool was not very exciting, so I forgot most of it... I "re-learned" some of the geography parts of it from Rome Total War  , and the rest of it from my persian friend.  I still would like to learn more about it.  I estimate my knowledge of each era is only about 10%, and of major events, 20%.  Anyone know any books that cover world history?  What I love about history is being able to learn small parts at a time and piecing them together later when you learn more.

So when does the lesson start? 

I started with the Eyewitness books.


I live in Belgium, so I didn't get any American history except for the major events. We did learn about European colonization of the Americas and then up until the US independence. Then we went back to European history and we referred and sometimes went into depth (I have no idea if that's a correct English epression) to the US every time they came into play. WWI (with the Treaty of Versailles : Wilson), the Crash '29, WWII(Pearl Harbour, Roosevelt, Truman,...), Riga and Yalta axiomas, Cold War, Gulf War and then contemporary.

I always wanted to learn more about the Ancient civilizations most people don't talk to much about. Japan, Mongols, all the tecs (Aztecs, Oltecs?, Ultecs?, forgot all their names), Maya, Persia, Babylon, Thrace,...

 

[Valec SKylien]

The only thing that disturbs me about most of these posts, is the implication that this kind of ignorance is a solely United Station phenomenon.  We do have a lot of poor ignorant folk in the United States, and plenty of them are happily living their lives, not giving a care in the world that they don't know a bunch of useless **** about the Delian League and the Persian Empire.  Seriously, I'm willing to bet that England has, taking proportion of the population into account, just as many people who are ignorant of all that antiquated nonsense.
-Grocat

Quoted for truth.

I myself learned American history (a more complete history involving North America, including the pre-Columbus era, though sorely lacking in South American history outside of the Incas and the Spanish/Portuguese expansion) and found it to be rather bland, for the most part.  I've studied Russian history quite a bit (though by no means am I an expert) especially from the 1200s to the present day and find their history to be much more fascinating than our own.  I think a part of the disinterest by American students with regards to history is the fact that you only have 300-400 years to glance at, rather than a couple centuries.  The shorter timespan means that many of the events that are studied in class are by necessity less important and more boring than those gleaned from a longer timespan.

Beauty is the eye of the beholder.  Belittling a country by labeling it with a period of existence that is European in thought- since there is PLENTY of history before Europeans every came to America - is ignorant.  If I was to use your train of thought, then China's history must be one of the most interesting simply due to the long length of written history.

Oh and I think it is interesting that the starter of this thread thinks they can "teach history" to a whole nation of people many of which are qualified to be history professors in Britian.