Yeah the general trend seems to be that countries don?t like covering certain things, such as past defeats and some acts of dickishness. Although I stopped history in year 9 and I have no idea what?s covered latter at GCSE or A level.
How is the American War for Independance taught in the UK?
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American territories had always been a problem for the British empire, due to piracy and lack of communication. I wouldn't say the empire was glad to see it go, but they definitely didn't care for long. Our sight's were firmly on holding India and Pakistan. Which we failed to do in the end, thus the empire started to crumble.
Urban legend. No historical basis has been found that red was favored because of the supposedly demoralising effect of blood stains. Red was used mostly as it provided a means of distinguishing friend from foe.JacobShaftoe said:BTW the red coats were because some paragon of the British officer class thought it'd stop the men freaking out over the wounded, as you'd hardly notice the bleeding and screaming over the loudness of their jackets
Well, the main qualifications in England at least are the GCSEs, sat at age 16, and AS and A2 exams, sat at 17 and 18. In primary school (4-11), history topics are basically chosen at random, I remember doing Egyptians, Ancient Greece and the Tudors about three times >.> In the first few years of secondary school, that pretty much carried on, but with more emphasis on the two world wars. at GCSE, there's normally some kind of choice. The most common option is modern world, so it's a mix of russia, world wars and I think a bit of American history. I did a mix of history of medicine, elizabethan history, local history and the Arab-Israeli conflict. At AS and A2 level, there are loads of diffferent specialties depending on what kind of history you're most interested.
That's prety much it, so there's not a whole lot on the war of independance. I think the modern world GCSE covers it briefly and there's options to do it at AS and A2, but it's not on any compulsory curriculum.
That's prety much it, so there's not a whole lot on the war of independance. I think the modern world GCSE covers it briefly and there's options to do it at AS and A2, but it's not on any compulsory curriculum.
Technically, the South of the American Civil War wanted to keep slavery because the North needed to fuck off.henritje said:
That's basically it, really. There's a whole host of economic factors that played into it, but the short version is that the North (and some Southerners) wanted to abolish slavery, some for moral reasons, others to break the economic stranglehold the South held over the country. To do so, the North went to the federal government and said "slavery is bad, yo". Then the South said "Whatever! I do what I want!", and they had a punchup, culminating in a loss for the South and more American deaths than any other conflict we'd ever fought in (with the possible exception of WWII, I don't remember the US death toll in that), combined.
Essentially, the South resented the federal government violating their rights as outlined in the Constitution and started a war over it, that the North won.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/739-Velvet-AssassinWaaghPowa said:
at 04:00 minutes
You know every time you say that it's a great insult to those Brits who died fighting in the war. Please don't.harmonic said:
You see I think that's a shame, as others have mentioned, learning from history is more important than just learning history. in any country there seems to be this method of just talking about the victories and what makes your country look great... in truth we should learn about what war really does to a nation and the world.Agayek said:
For example, I think learning about post Vietnam would probably help the young ones cope with things like Iraq and Afghanistan.
I had a teacher from Texas and he didn't really cover it (to the best of my memory, anyway) we mostly learned about the history of medicine (Black Death, etc.) and the slave trade. I there was a textbook we had that did have a lot of information on it, but we chose to learn about the history of medicine instead, which was good because I was far more interested in that subject as it's more based in science.
Oh I definitely agree (though I assume you meant to quote one of my other posts, as the one you did was talking about McCarthy instead of 'Nam). I really wish they had spent more time on the ramifications of Vietnam, as well as more of the reasons behind it past "Communism is bad, mmkay?"googleback said:
They don't though, and it makes me sad.
i took history at A level (so, pre university to any americans who don't know what a levels are) and honestly, we weren't taught it. at all. i know about it generally, but that is from my own knowledge, not because it was something on the curriculum. throughout 7 years of history lessons, we didn't do it.
I don't know about the UK (although they have alot more history to cover). But here in Norway it's barely scoffed upon. Since, we have the revoulution of France (or the 3 of 'em) and alot of other grounds to cover when it comes to history. Also, about the german way of teaching WWII. They steer clear of the SS for obvious reasons.
As an English student currently studying a degree in History who just sat an exam on the subject I think I've got a fairly good understanding of how the English treated the American War of Independence!
We don't study the war of American independence much in schools for two reasons;
a.) As a resoundingly Liberal country, even in the 18th century most people didn't like the idea of Empire as it conflicted with our moral values so we were all secretly quite glad to get rid of the place!
b.)It's generally considered that the War of Independence changed very little for Britain economically, and we'd already got bored of America (hence why we gave it up so easily.) and were beginning to search for new Economic ventures in Asia.
As King George III wrote in his diary on the 4th July 1776, 'Nothing important happened this day,' for us the loss of America was a pretty small affair compared to the social and industrial revolutions that we were experiencing in the period, we only bother to really start studying America in schools when it started to get interesting around the Antebellum period.
We don't study the war of American independence much in schools for two reasons;
a.) As a resoundingly Liberal country, even in the 18th century most people didn't like the idea of Empire as it conflicted with our moral values so we were all secretly quite glad to get rid of the place!
b.)It's generally considered that the War of Independence changed very little for Britain economically, and we'd already got bored of America (hence why we gave it up so easily.) and were beginning to search for new Economic ventures in Asia.
As King George III wrote in his diary on the 4th July 1776, 'Nothing important happened this day,' for us the loss of America was a pretty small affair compared to the social and industrial revolutions that we were experiencing in the period, we only bother to really start studying America in schools when it started to get interesting around the Antebellum period.
Being English myself, I can say that it was barely mentioned - but in saying that, its not a surprise, as from what I remember of History in secondary school (I took it as an option then but didnt take it in college), pretty much all we learnt about was the two world wars.
I remember even at the time everyone was sick to death of learning about it, it became a running joke. Every year we would finish with some sort of exam about them, and when we came back the next year we would find that the areas we were learning were ... WW1 and WW2 in more detail. Don't get me wrong we did learn other things briefly as well, stuff like Victorian England /Industrial Revolution, but every single year we would cover both world wars in some form yet again.
I remember even at the time everyone was sick to death of learning about it, it became a running joke. Every year we would finish with some sort of exam about them, and when we came back the next year we would find that the areas we were learning were ... WW1 and WW2 in more detail. Don't get me wrong we did learn other things briefly as well, stuff like Victorian England /Industrial Revolution, but every single year we would cover both world wars in some form yet again.
Erm well at my school we didn't learn about them but rather the Nazi's rise to power, the problems in germany and stuff like that.theonlyblaze2 said:
Also I think a friend of mine school either taught them about the wild west or the slave trade but I covered the slave trade in year 8. I don't remember learning much about it though.
We have a compelling history, America isn't the only country who used to be colonial but gained independence (honestly the ones who didn't are doing quite well for it) so what makes you think we would care? The world would be no different if America were still a colony.