How is the American War for Independance taught in the UK?

[ACman]

It is really impressive how some Americans here are isolated from the rest of the world.

1. The American Revolution WAS NOT the first nationalistic revolution... At all. I really can't make a list; nationalistic revolutions have been a part of history since the dawn of time. The modern definition of "Nationalism" is indeed more refined, but the sentiment existed before.

2. The American GOVERNMENT inspired the organization of the French Government after their revolution; the American revolution did not inspire the French revolution that much. It would've happened eitherway.

3. It is NOT that important for the rest of the world, not even for the British. I'm Spanish; we have years of World History before we even have a class just about Spanish History. We touched upon the revolution and your civil war; but considering we have THOUSANDS of years to touch upon, you're just two paragraphs. American influecen becomes important in History Class when it became important in reality; the XX century.

It is really sad how History is taught in some places. Ours wasn't that bad. We touched upon every bit of Spanish History, and believe me, we have a share of embarassing stories.

Just a Hypothesis: Considering the fact that about 50% of Americans believe in creationism, could it be in part becasue of your History class model? Those numbers, 50-50, are worse than any civilized country except Turkey. Could that be in part because you're only taught recent history? Evangelism has done it's big part, of course. But think about it.

Oh, and some people refused the idea that you're only taught recent history by mentioning Magna Carta... yeah, that's still pretty recent, you know? What about the Islamic Empire? The Romans? The Greeks? The Egyptians? The Mesopotamians? And what about Asian History? The Chinese had a civilization earlier than anyone around these parts.

Hold on, let me put down my bible and shotgun so I can type this post.

How long have you been alive? Anywhere from 20 to 30 years I imagine. That happens to be my age range as well. Yet, since you were born on a land mass that has had developed human settlements longer than the land mass in which I was born, you are allowed to subtly speak down to everyone living on my land mass, implicit in your belief that we are a backwards, unrefined people. I know your post wasn't intended to be outright hostile, thus, the key word being implicit.

Yes, schools here are pretty lacking. Students are allowed to pass through the ranks without a modicum of learning or effort. However, many of us, me included, actually do take some things in life seriously, and care about expanding our understanding of the world. For instance, why don't we have a conversation about Spain's bloody warpath through 2/3 of the new world? Or the drama involving the Hapsburg dynasty as it lead to the War of Spanish Succession? (I would list a hell of a lot more Spain-centric things but I believe I've made my point and appear nerdy enough already.)

...As long as I can manage to work this fancy computery-internet computer screen thingy despite my country's brief history and my backwards American brain.

If the English hadn't been fighting the French, Spanish and Dutch its unlikely that you'd have won.

Britain's wars with its former colonies were considered a bit of a sideshow.

Yes, but you lost the war of American Revolution. A rag-tag band of revolutionaries from a 150 year old set of sparsely populated colonies beat a global, highly-developed empire. We are aware of your country's prestigious position during that time period. We are also aware that you lost, and should probably stop appearing butt hurt about it, especially considering how much the tables have turned in the modern day.

I'm Australian.

But you were helped by the French. If it weren't for them you'd still be singing God Save the Queen. :-D

 

[Kathinka]

similar with second world war, where the american role was greatly exaggerated. it was taught as if america came to the rescue of the poor world under the jackboot of the nazis. while in reality when the u.s. quit sitting on their thumbs and landed in france in mid 44 the war already pretty much over and the soviet troops had already done the vast majority of the fighting

While it's true that the US was basically out of the war until Pearl Harbor, we most certainly were not uninvolved until '44. For example, Patton was active in North African by 1942 fighting against Rommel. We were also basically the only people fighting on the Pacific front, and that's where most of our troops ended up after Pearl Harbor.

The primary advantage the US brought to the war was the single largest production facilities of any country involved in the war, and FDR was sending as much as he could get away with to the Allies well before we officially got involved in the war.

You're definitely right, insofar as American history books are skewed towards patriotism for some god-awful reason, but it's not quite as bad as you make it out to be.

maybe it also depends on the school. but when i went to highschool in the u.s., i was sitting silent in terror and disbelieve about some of the horrible, horrible inaccuracies taught. it really really was that bad^^

 

[Agayek]

One thing I wasn't really taught about was Vietnam, is that covered much in America?

Kinda. We do spend a decent amount of time on it, but I never got the details in a way that didn't seem slanted rather spectacularly, one way or another. The facts of the war are covered, from the Gulf of Tonkin [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident] to the Fall of Saigon, without a huge amount of detail. Basically just a timeline.

Beyond that, not a whole lot is mentioned. There's very little, in my experience, taught about the reasons behind the war, the effects the civil unrest it generated had and all the other fun stuff it caused.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It isn't.

And from what I hear, it's a very idealised version taught in the States.

 

[Robert Ewing]

The Indian independence is taught more in the UK because it was more important than American Independence. But even the Indian revolution isn't taught THAT much. American history isn't considered important enough. We CAN learn about the 'wild west' on some courses. And we learn a lot about JFK. But thats the absolute extent of American subjects.

Just out of curiousity, do they ever touch on the Great Depression? I'm not terribly well-informed on the foreign impacts of it, aside from the effect it had on Germany and the consequences thereof (ie, Hitler), so I'm just curious if it's deemed "important".

Yeah, we did do a lesson on the great depression. But that was a branch on the rise of the third Reich, and how the depression caused all sorts of trouble for Germany. We learned how the chancellor overcame it with flying colours. But that's all i'm afraid.

ALSO, we did do coursework on Of Mice and Men. If that counts?

 

[Valksy]

I was never taught about it. Now, I would argue that we have so much history to cover that there just is not room for everything in the syllabus. But when I was 15 or 16, as one of my modules for GCSE history, we were taught about Custer's Last Stand. So, go figure, teachers do some odd shit sometimes and I have no explanation for why my teacher did that. And on reflection, I would sooner have learned about an interesting war than the bastard bloody boring Corn Laws.

Of course, just because a subject is not taught in school does not mean that a curious mind cannot go and pick up a book in the school library and read. Hell, for most of my courses, I was self taught because teachers talked too slowly and always had to pander to the dumb fucks I was in class with (oddly, although science, maths and english classes were streamed by ability, history was not).

 

[Agayek]

maybe it also depends on the school. but when i went to highschool in the u.s., i was sitting silent in terror and disbelieve about some of the horrible, horrible inaccuracies taught. it really really was that bad^^

Fair. I grew up in a relatively liberal area, so the patriot affect was likely to be greatly lessened.

And you are right in your post above, it almost certainly was a remnant of the Cold War. There was a lot of baseless patriotism back then, mostly because if you didn't espouse it, you'd be dragged off as a Communist and shipped to Gitmo.

McCarthy was such a nice guy.

 

[Exocet]

If anyone is interested, it's covered in French programs, but only for 2 hours tops.
You have to understand, countries go in depth about their own independence and history, but not as much about others.

Also, as much as people in the USA think otherwise, your independence wasn't as important as you think at the time. It was just another English crown vs French crown pissing contest over colonies. That along with the fact that it brought nothing new to the table(unlike the Russian revolution and Indian revolution for exemple) pretty much condemns it to a couple pages in a book.

If it makes you feel any better, I've been complaining for years that we don't learn enough about other countries. We barely touched the English revolution, and I consider that one to be the most important one of all.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I think if our Prime Minister and President are down with having barbecues in the back of Number 10 we can all leave that behind us right?

Spoiler: Nothing is on fire so not a real British BBQ

LOL. That's so true. It also isn't pouring with rain and having to be cooked under the grill in the kitchen.

I suspect they turned on the 'Dr Death Weather Machine' for that day.

 

[Seagoon]

The American attitude on Independence and free speech is very different from the UKs...

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Damn, 13 pages? Screw that, here's my 2p:

Britain has fought over a hundred wars in the last three centuries. There's no way we can cover them all in school. The American War of Independence was and is an understandably big deal in the US, but here in the UK it's just another war we fought. When it comes to wars, our school history classes tend to focus on WW2 I think.

 

[MurderousToaster]

Didn't cover it during my years in history class.

In Standard Grade History (the Scottish system) there is a unit named "People and Power - America", but I can't remember which years it covers. I think it covers the Civil War (I remember the dates being in the 1800s, vaguely) but it might cover the war for independence.

Regardless, my school chose to do the Russia unit for my year.

 

[3quency]

It's pretty much just assumed knowledged at the moment, as far as I can tell the school system doesn't cover it because everybody knows it happened. If you take history further (such as to A-level) it's looked at in a bit more detail in some courses, but only in terms of the Empire. E.G: The American war for independance cost England it's empire there and this affected how they expanded the rest of said empire. However, other aspects of American history, the rise and fall of the American west for instance, are covered at GCSE level (which is admittedly not a compulsory lesson by this point). I have just finished my A-levels and half of the first year course of history looked at the civil rights movement in the US, from post-reconstruction to about the end of the Vietnam war.
But the war for independance? Meh, I know it happened, you know it happened, it's not seen as "important" in an educational sense because *anybody* can tell you about it and its significance.

 

[Wintermoot]

-not UK here dutch if it matters-
they kinda teach it they kinda teach it here but not in-dept they only cover European history they teach about the Frontier era and a bit about the civil war (the only thing I can remember is that the North won and the south wanted to keep slavery for the cheap labor)
they don,t teach allot about stuff like Vietnam (allot of my history is from me watching TV)

 

[Gralian]

When i was at school, we learned about WW1, WW2, the cold war and the American civil war in history. Oddly enough there was never anything about the American war for independence. I'm not sure why, i suppose it just wasn't relevant. The reason we covered the civil war is that we were also looking at slavery and the civil rights movement as a whole, and obviously after the war was won for the unionists that had a big impact on slavery. The focus was really more on recent world history, which covered WW2 and the cold war.

 

[Agayek]

Yeah, we did do a lesson on the great depression. But that was a branch on the rise of the third Reich, and how the depression caused all sorts of trouble for Germany. We learned how the chancellor overcame it with flying colours. But that's all i'm afraid.

ALSO, we did do coursework on Of Mice and Men. If that counts?

Alright. You cover the important bits at least, can't really ask for more than that.

As for Of Mice and Men, it technically counts. I see it as less Great Depression and more Dustbowl, but the latter fed the former, so whatever.

If you're not familiar with the Dustbowl, it was a huge drought for most of the middle of the US (which is 98% farmland) combined with massive dust storms. They went 6 years with no water, and basically broke whatever of the economy was left after the stock market crash. It was probably the single worst "natural disaster" in American history.

 

[Elivercury]

Never learnt it, however I stopped doing History before GCSE so I'm probably not the best person to comment. We mostly just learnt about our own early history and WWII.

I'd also agree that at least to the level I learnt history to, there was no need to learn about the American independence. Covering WWII in limited detail and covering a small portion of our very long internal history pretty much took all the teaching time they had.

I'd say that learning about times before England, Scotland and Wales were all part of the same country is more relevant than one of many colonies we owned for a while that then claimed independence. Even if they do happen to now be one of the largest players in global politics.

 

[Gazisultima]

It's not taught, mainly because it really isn't a substantial part of our history, unlike for you guys, who treat it as symbolic, over the pond, not many people seem to care at all.