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

[Treblaine]

Typical American arrogance to assume it's taught at all.

This is the most ridiculous statement I've read in a long time. Are you saying it isn't important for peope in the UK to learn about the successful uprisal of the colony and the dismantling of an Empire? I wonder how far your Eurocentric stereotypes will get you in life...

It wasn't the cause of the dismantling of the Empire. In fact it triggered the rise of what is known as The Second British Empire.

There so it was an important event.

The problem is the American colonies were just one of many colonies we had at the time, losing them shifted our focus to India. A country we seem strangely ashamed of our colonisation of though in the process we deny any good we possibly did. I mean it was a British architect who built New Dheli, an entire new city! Actually the whole history of the British empire I remember we glossed over quite a bit.

I think a far more important reason to study America in British curriculum is how much their constitution influences our country which does not have a codified constitution.

Though we have no love for the 2nd Amendment we talk as if America's 1st Amendment is one of our own.

 

[Cgull]

Truthfully, it wasn't really mentioned in any of my history lessons, they tended to either cover recent history (slightly oxymoronic but there we go) such as WW1/2 or go further back into Tudor/Stewart times.

It may sound a little crass but although it was a definitive moment (as I understand it) in the formation of the United States it isn't really all that big a deal over here, especially if you were to compare it to; our own civil war (that's right, we had one too!), the creation of the CoE and subsequent breakaway from papal influence (on a major scale anyway) as well as the whole Magna Carta business.

Those are just three examples, all of which played major roles in shaping the English way of life as it is now.

Looking at some of the previous posts I don't hold out much hope for a non-flamey (if any) response to this but...here's hoping!

 

[Agent Larkin]

"The Americans were doing badly. Very very badly. Until the French came along and helped them by taking out most of the difficulties the Americans faced. To the point that the French went bankrupt supporting American Independence."

Is how it was taught.

Personally I prefer the "It was a huge tax dodge" train of thought about that Revolution.

 

[rheianna]

Meh, all these debates on who did what in regards to US/UK relations when atrocities committed by the British Empire against inhabitants in other colonies (Asia/Africa) don't even seem to be mentioned in any other history books other than those in the the former colonies.

 

[jaykikass]

I love the way his upper class logic completely jumped over the fact that they would be easier to shoot at...

Back when they designed the uniforms, war had "rules". These rules generally were agreed to be:

-Stand in a line
-Shoot at each other
-The dude with the most dudes left wins

It was a very, very silly way to conduct war (not to mention one of the primary reasons the US actually won in the revolution). Thankfully, they've wised up since then.

This was the best way to fire with a musket... they were to inacurrate to fire at single targets, its not because the British didn't know how to fight wars.. they had a Empire for a reason.. The Americans broke the rules of war and won "dishonorably" in the eyes of the British...

 

[brainslurper]

basically the colonies were being taxed without representation over there, so they got pissed and declared independence.

 

[Tallim]

Typical American arrogance to assume it's taught at all.

This is the most ridiculous statement I've read in a long time. Are you saying it isn't important for peope in the UK to learn about the successful uprisal of the colony and the dismantling of an Empire? I wonder how far your Eurocentric stereotypes will get you in life...

It wasn't the cause of the dismantling of the Empire. In fact it triggered the rise of what is known as The Second British Empire.

There so it was an important event.

The problem is the American colonies were just one of many colonies we had at the time, losing them shifted our focus to India. A country we seem strangely ashamed of our colonisation of though in the process we deny any good we possibly did. I mean it was a British architect who built New Dheli, an entire new city! Actually the whole history of the British empire I remember we glossed over quite a bit.

I think a far more important reason to study America in British curriculum is how much their constitution influences our country which does not have a codified constitution.

Though we have no love for the 2nd Amendment we talk as if America's 1st Amendment is one of our own.

That's just a name they gave it for when the Empire expanded the other way. The revolution just made that happen sooner rather than later.

 

[brainslurper]

"The Americans were doing badly. Very very badly. Until the French came along and helped them by taking out most of the difficulties the Americans faced. To the point that the French went bankrupt supporting American Independence."

Is how it was taught.

Personally I prefer the "It was a huge tax dodge" train of thought about that Revolution.

I am glad no other countries go bankrupt supporting small revolutions elsewhere. Im really glad america saw frances mistake there and never decided to repeat it multiple times. OWAIT

 

[Sajuuk-khar]

I don't know about British history classes, but I think the American War of Independence wasn't very important to Europe (and perhaps the rest of the world)in itself. Don't get me wrong: America definitely is, but not the revolutionary war.

Wars for independence happened before and after; states were formed and split constantly. Rather simmilar to the American case is probably our Dutch 'Act of Abjuration' (which isn't even thought in our own schools). Also contrary to what someone earlier wrote is that it didn't really change colonialism/imperialism; that just continued (even by USA in time) until the second half of last century. America's revolution also proved to be an excellent opportunity for European powers to fight eachother instead of really caring much about the thirteen colonies.

Personally I think it's more important to teach the kids about the really bad parts of imperialism (in our case for example Indonesia), what caused WW1 and WW2 to happen (and the cold war afterwards) and the situation in the middle-east. It's not that America is being ignored in NL by the way: it's role in major world history is being thought.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Typical American arrogance to assume it's taught at all.

This is the most ridiculous statement I've read in a long time. Are you saying it isn't important for peope in the UK to learn about the successful uprisal of the colony and the dismantling of an Empire? I wonder how far your Eurocentric stereotypes will get you in life...

It wasn't the cause of the dismantling of the Empire. In fact it triggered the rise of what is known as The Second British Empire.

It had to fall before it rose again.

It didn't fall though, it stumbled at best. The Second Empire was essentially the first empire without the American colonies. Instead it branched out into the east. In no way did the revolution cause the empire to collapse.

It had an effect.

 

[Sajuuk-khar]

Argh double post, how do I delete this... sorry.

 

[GoGrapefruit]

Actually I cant remember what history I learned in school from what I read for myself.

 

[knighthawk42]

I just have to say this forum thread while huge is actually very interesting. As an American I am just interested in the point of view of different nations and cultures. Really it does not surprise me that it is not covered in great length, but I do not feel like it should have to be. It is appreciated to have different viewpoints. To give some context I know a lot of what is taught is filtered by the state and teacher. In Georgia the Civil War is treated like it happened the other day. When I was in other States it is not covered nearly as much. In my opinion there needs some time before you get facts,( Russia is so downplayed in WW2 because of the Cold War). All in all nice to see the back and forth (when it is not a flame war).

 

[Agayek]

This was the best way to fire with a musket... they were to inacurrate to fire at single targets, its not because the British didn't know how to fight wars.. they had a Empire for a reason.. The Americans broke the rules of war and won "dishonorably" in the eyes of the British...

It's really not though. The "stand in a line until one side is all dead" was a remnant of fighting with swords and whatnot. Where the armies would stand across a field from each and charge, whacking either other about the head with their melee weapon of choice.

You're correct insofar as muskets being horrendously inaccurate, but that doesn't change the fact that standing in a line out in the open is one of the worst possible ways to fight ranged combat, regardless of how accurate you (or your enemies) are. It was a spectacular act of stubbornness on the part of everyone involved that insisted "we've always done it this way, so we're not going to change".

The Brits kept winning because everyone was sticking to those asinine rules. Not because that was the best way to fight.

Edit: Even the US, who saw firsthand how effective attacking from cover and moving about was, adopted the "stand in a line until everybody dies" policy up until the Civil War. With the advent of machine guns and Minié ball, the death toll on both sides got so catastrophic that the world finally realized that they couldn't keep sticking to tradition.

 

[Death-of-Penguins]

Not mentioned in Scotland at all. Never heard a teacher talk about it.

 

[coolkirb]

Yeah In my canadian history class one of the major themes is Canada relationship with the US, economic investment, fear of invasion leading to Canadian confederation, war of 1812 and such, loyalist fleeing to Upper Canada and essentially seteling southern Ontario and pushing out the natives. Oh and how Quebec was indeferent to the whole thing. Their is a ton in my history class bassically talking about how Canada has shifted away from being british and to being american. The revoloutionary war is an important point here in Canada but its taught as how it affected us.

Oh we are also taught not to be fooled by what we see in the movies America and Britain did not win WWII Russia did and they payed in blood

 

[Ziel]

Didn't we basically let America win in favour of pushing back the french? I didn't stay at school long enough to find out if it was taught there, but apparently we felt we had better things to be doing at the time, let alone considering it of much importance over 200 years later.

 

[o_d]

Most English history classes seem to be divided into 2; one half focuses on our own history, and the other world history.

So, in my 7 years of Secondary school education we covered: the Norman conquest, the tudors, the blitz, the Stuarts, and the English Civil War on our end.
Worldwide we did: French Revolution, Civil Rights Movement, The Cold War, The Nazis, the Russian Revolution, and Stalin.

Annoyingly, we seemed to do about 4 years worth of the Nazis which just got really frustrating after a while. It would have been nice to do something else.

 

[duowolf]

While I was in school the only thing that was taught about Amercian history was the treatment of Native Americans, Custer and such. Nothing else was really touched on at all. The other major subjects we touched on where the history of medicine and the 2 World Wars.