US History and actual History.

[Lonewolfm16]

Honestly, in my history class we learn a lot about how many crappy things America has done, usually accompanied with someone yelling "'murica" afterwards. And we tend to learn the "American machines, American money, Soviet men" style history of WWII, where America is the "Arsenal of Democracy" supplying goods to the Allies for a while before arriving and helping take out Hitler with heavy British support, while the Soviets push back more than half of the German army in a race to Berlin after suffering more casualties than any other nation. Though in the Pacific theater we do learn almost entirely about the American offensive with Australia being mentioned as something to be protected. And we learned about the fire-bombings of Tokyo and other American attacks where they tried to minimize damage, but struck at civilian occupied targets. As for the bombs, very messy issue. The Japanese fought to the last man, often committing Banzai charges or just plain suicide rather than surrender, and if the populous shared the soldiers mentality then the war would have been long, bloody, and only ended when most of Japan was destroyed and most men able to fight killed.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Honestly, in my history class we learn a lot about how many crappy things America has done, usually accompanied with someone yelling "'murica" afterwards. And we tend to learn the "American machines, American money, Soviet men" style history of WWII, where America is the "Arsenal of Democracy" supplying goods to the Allies for a while before arriving and helping take out Hitler with heavy British support, while the Soviets push back more than half of the German army in a race to Berlin after suffering more casualties than any other nation. Though in the Pacific theater we do learn almost entirely about the American offensive with Australia being mentioned as something to be protected. And we learned about the fire-bombings of Tokyo and other American attacks where they tried to minimize damage, but struck at civilian occupied targets. As for the bombs, very messy issue. The Japanese fought to the last man, often committing Banzai charges or just plain suicide rather than surrender, and if the populous shared the soldiers mentality then the war would have been long, bloody, and only ended when most of Japan was destroyed and most men able to fight killed.

The Japanese really only fought to the last man because of the partially true stories they heard of American atrocities being committed against Japanese POWs. The whole Pacific war gets bogged down in racism and both sides treated prisoners pretty horribly, ranging from pulling gold teeth out of prisoners, to beating and mutilation of dead bodies. There were cases of Japanese soldiers mutilating American bodies and leaving them as warnings (usually by shoving castrated genitalia in their mouths) but at the same time you have American troops decapitating or cutting the ears off of Japanese dead and wounded and sending them back home.

The best argument I have ever seen for saying that the population was ready to surrender regardless of the government is the fact that the there were virtually no killings or attacks on American or Australian soldiers during the occupation of Japan. Despite the fact that these troops tended to act like barbarians the whole time they were there.

 

[yunabomb]

The Mexican Repatriation is one of the events that I find is really left out of American history curricula.

I also think that (intentionally and/or unintentionally) the brutality of slavery and institutional racism in American is underplayed. It's pretty amazing/disturbing to read about how terrible white people have been.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

It depends a few of my history classes have been the standard, pro us and while not skewing things like a few posts make it seem more often than not they probably just omitted anything that wasn't in line with the US history. That being said I have had one or two teachers that have been fairly good at cutting through the flag waving and just told us what happened. The best example I can think of is the cuban missile crisis, our teacher told us at the start of the lesson, Kennedy got lucky so increadibly lucky you wouldn't believe and we pretty much did what Russia wanted we removed our missiles from Turkey and they removed them from Cuba. That's just the first thing I could think of since that's always pointed to as a huge american triumph.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Ok there are two different questions going on here.


1. US centred History. Every nation tends to focus on its own history and puts their own involvement centre stage. However because of US dominance in the entertainment market the rest of world sees the US version much more that they otherwise would do.

2. Political interpretations of History. To use the opening poster example of the use of atomic bomb on Japan, those that say Japan was willing to surrender tend to come from the left. Those historians are interpreting events through their own political views and in particular the Marxist Dialectic. If you believe that capitalist will stop at nothing to destroy the wonders of communism you tend to find things in history to support your view. This is not just a left wing problem but because of the dominance of left in the academic establishment its the one that gets to press more often.

Fundamentally, any history has bias in it. There is no version of history that someone, somewhere disagrees with on the basis of differing interpretation of the evidence. The only thing you can do is read more than book on the subject that interests you and make up your own mind up on events.

>Imperial Japan
>Communist
>Pick one

Seriously, I'm not sure if I follow here. I apologize if I misread you.

 

[Haakmed]

The trouble I find is that when it comes to American public school it gives such a light skimming of subject matter that most people who go through it only remember a small percentage. I love me some history and out over everything I've learned through the years not nearly as much sticks as I would have liked. And being that American text books are written about America they tend to focus on the stuff we did as a county to the almost complete exclusion of most of our allies. I remember my high school text book telling us that when it came to WW2 America supplied EVERYONE with weapons of war and basically told everyone what to do when we did finally show up. Now considering the fact that while yes America had at the time the largest and completely untouched industrial capacity of any of its allies we could not supply the entire fucking war effort.

Now my own belief is that while America played an important roll in the war in both Europe and the Pacific I also think that Russia won the war in Europe. I also do not think the allies could have won without Hitler's failing sanity and Stalin's cold heartedness. However an American textbook will underplay everything but the bare basic facts and just hope some of it sticks to the people reading them. Most Civvies you talk to on any American History won't know what your talking about if you go into any sort of detail.

 

[Snotnarok]

As I gathered this next line may confuse many Europeans

The Wright Brothers were the first men to fly an aircraft.

This is what was/probably is still taught here, however Europeans hear it differently...or so I hear. Who's right? Hell if I know I haven't put much research into it (and I probably spelled their name wrong, oops.)

 

[Colt47]

I tend to find the History of Western Culture to be more interesting than the US history, largely because the United States didn't really do too much until the World Wars. There are some notable situations such as the US expansion to the west and eventual encounter with Japan, but compared to the events of Prussia it was kind of small fry. Otto Van Bismark is still one of my favorite figures in history to read about.

 

[VanTesla]

I am starting to wonder if this should have been in Religion and Politics... Damn hindsight... If possible and if needed to. It can be moved there, if so Mods allow.

I hope this can be kept civil but after reading another thread it got me thinking. How much of the US History (involvement with other nations), is just censored to make the US look better? Now as a US Citizen who did good in my US history class, I didn't feel it was bias.

What I meant was that it never seemed to shy away from all of the bad things we did and how we were straight up wrong in situations and so on.

One example I heard in another thread was that even before we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, apparently Japan was already gearing up to sign a surrender and then after we dropped the bombs they were almost ready to fully retaliate.

Which is much different than I learned. What I learned was that Japan wasn't willing to surrender and a land invasion would have been more costly and ended more lives than dropping the bombs. After the first bomb was dropped, apparently they didn't surrender and the second bomb is what happened.

Now I just don't know which is the truth, I would like to believe what I was taught, at least if I am remembering my class correctly (it was a bit ago...), is correct but I can't be sure.

So can anyone kind of give me some examples of events that are alerted in US history to make certain events in the history book look more pro-US than what happened?

Well the so called tyranny of the British Empire on the USA colonies was blown way out of proportion and made to look like it was all black and white, when in truth it was mostly complete bs. Many of the events like the british soldiers starting mass killings before the war was complete propaganda mostly and the main reason for the increase in taxes was to payoff the cost it took for Britain to protect and supply the colonies during and after the French Indian War... The two main complaints that hold true is that it was unfair for no voting rights and that King George III was a complete dick.

How we dealt with the Native Americans and US Chinese workers was toned down in most highschool and down history books to make it less bad and made our gov't/military look in the right... The assassination and overthrow of democratic governments in South America because they would not give us what our gov't wanted. Heads in gov't making deals with drug cartels and bringing drugs into the USA.

Christopher Columbus was not the first European to discover America and in fact never set foot on North American land... Christopher Columbus was also a genocidal monster that would allow his crew that comprised of many prisoners to kill, rape, and pillage Native tribes people.

 

[Mcupobob]

I don't know why other countries are so super concerned with how we tell our history. Damn Australia could teach that they single handedly won war world 2 and ended the cold war for all I care.

Anyways, not sure how the rest of the western world does it. History a subject thats taught particularly sparse especially American history. Might be because I came form a California School, The American Revolution wasn't even covered and neither was evolution. The only thing covered about ww2 the Nuclear bombings and how we should feel guilty about it.

 

[Setrus]

I don't know why other countries are so super concerned with how we tell our history. Damn Australia could teach that they single handedly won war world 2 and ended the cold war for all I care.

Anyways, not sure how the rest of the western world does it. History a subject thats taught particularly sparse especially American history. Might be because I came form a California School, The American Revolution wasn't even covered and neither was evolution. The only thing covered about ww2 the Nuclear bombings and how we should feel guilty about it.

Because how we view our past affects our perception of the now. If Australia taught that they wond World War 2 on their own, that would cause conceit, make them look down on all they "rescued" (I'm sure the French just LOVE being the butt of all war-related jokes) and in turn cause resentment between the people of various nations. It's also a form of government control, remember North Korea? Their leaders are the descendants of a great emperor who rode a unicorn, making them superior to all their neighbours and the born leader of a people...not much of a step to say that that would make them the rightful rulers of ALL of Korea too.

I won't lie, my history studies focused more on Europe than anything else. That said, each time period DID have studies of Asia and Africa in it. (obviously a lot in the middle east due to it being a cradle of civilization) Most importantly, these history lessons started by touching on the STONE age before moving forward...you know, ALL of history. (well, obviously it went past that too, but I mean in terms of what was touched on in human history)

Now, teachers aren't perfect, nor are historians and perception, which means the presentation of history always gets skewed, if nothing else because we'd be applying current thinking to time periods where that was entirely alien. But I think that striving to present history as a evolving system and a sequence of events with as little judgement as possible is the way to go, once that's done you can argue over what was right or not all you like. Facts first, discussion later.

 

[Eggsnham]

-Snip-

You know the old saying "history is written by the victor"?

It's basically just an eloquent way to say that whoever wins the war, wins the right to make themselves look good -- regardless of what actually happened, and there is A LOT of that in US history (and history in general, of course).

For instance, the "Boston Massacre" was really just a result of angry colonists provoking the hell out of British soldiers by throwing rocks, snowballs, and insults at them. Not to mention that 6 dead people, while tragic for their families and friends, doesn't constitute a massacre. Then there's the whole business with "The shot heard round the world"; that was most likely just a convenient lie to excuse an overly aggressive reaction from the colonial militia.

Even today, we try to excuse our actions in the Middle East with 9/11 and by claiming that we need to stop terrorism and bring stability to that region; though it's quite obvious that the whole thing is about resources, there are dozens of places on Earth that are effected by terrorism and governmental instability, most of which are ignored by us and everybody else.

I don't know the facts about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki any more than you do, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that nuking the Japanese during WWII was completely unnecessary.

I'm not trying to say that we're the bad guys, I just think it's necessary to look at history (ours in particular) with a grain of salt.

 

[Nieroshai]

I love how everyone here is arguing even though they agree. "America's a bunch of dirty liars!"
"No, you're wrong! They're a bunch of dirty liars!" "Well, they pat themselves on the back too much!" "No way, they're full of themselves!" "I can't believe you're taking their side, have you ever read history?"

Seriously, I'll probably get a warning for this, but the whole thread is just a big circle jerk of anti-US sentiment disguised as "needing to put them in their place." Seriously, no one "celebrates" anything over here related to war except for the days marking when those wars stopped.

 

[Albino Boo]

Ok there are two different questions going on here.


1. US centred History. Every nation tends to focus on its own history and puts their own involvement centre stage. However because of US dominance in the entertainment market the rest of world sees the US version much more that they otherwise would do.

2. Political interpretations of History. To use the opening poster example of the use of atomic bomb on Japan, those that say Japan was willing to surrender tend to come from the left. Those historians are interpreting events through their own political views and in particular the Marxist Dialectic. If you believe that capitalist will stop at nothing to destroy the wonders of communism you tend to find things in history to support your view. This is not just a left wing problem but because of the dominance of left in the academic establishment its the one that gets to press more often.

Fundamentally, any history has bias in it. There is no version of history that someone, somewhere disagrees with on the basis of differing interpretation of the evidence. The only thing you can do is read more than book on the subject that interests you and make up your own mind up on events.

>Imperial Japan
>Communist
>Pick one

Seriously, I'm not sure if I follow here. I apologize if I misread you.

Its not a case of either or here. Essentially you are the jury and each historian comes along with their version of events. They tell the story as they perceive it and its you pick and chose which bits you think are right. You don't have to take 100% of 1 historians narrative, you can if you want but its not necessary.


Lets take the case of the Japan debate. The leading scientists who built the bomb were predominantly politically left leaning, Jewish and many were refugees from Nazi occupied territory, so their thinking naturally was dominated by Nazi Germany. If the bomb was built by Chinese refugees from Japan do you think the view of scientific community would be the same?

The senior political and military leaders had been signing off on the aerial destruction of cities from 1942. Did they see the use of nuclear weapons as fundamentally different? How important was the fact there was 1 million US voters in the pacific theatre plus there millions more voters at home who were their relations? How much concern was there over possible ww1 levels of casualties over an invasion of Japan. How much weight was placed on the long standing Russian territorial ambitions in Japan. The Russians had wanted Japan since the 1840s.

I could go on and list all sorts of factors in the decision making process for all sides but that would a long and boring read. The point I'm trying to make is that you have to make your own mind on these factors. You can say X historian is strong on this area but way off beam in another, the choice is yours, not some so called expert and their own views.

 

[Raesvelg]

In my experience talking to Asians and Europeans, the way US history is taught is about par for the course. I had a very interesting conversation with a Frenchman once who had no idea that France, for all intents and purposes, started the Vietnam War. He somehow was under the impression that France gracefully withdrew from all of its foreign colonies at the behest of the United States...

And don't even get me started on the Japanese.

As in most things, the US just gets a lot more flak from it, mostly from hypocrites who gloss over the fact that the history of their countries that they learned in school glosses over the evils committed by their ancestors, pretties up their failures, and generally tries not to bring up anything that shamed them.

In discussing a couple of the of the early (and unsurprisingly WWII-related) points:

One of the reasons why the Soviets get possibly less credit than they deserve for WWII might just be the fact that they started out on the wrong side. Just throwin' that one out there.

Yes, Japan was discussing the possibility of surrender, but it wasn't serious talk. It'd be roughly the equivalent of having the a mid-level government official from an unrelated bureau come talking about surrender; it's... arguably interesting, but not really relevant. Once the first bomb dropped, they made an offer of conditional surrender, wherein some of the conditions were a trifle ridiculous. Like guaranteeing the preservation of the Japanese state, including the position of emperor; no occupation of the Japanese home islands; Japanese control over war crimes trials; and placing the responsibility for Japanese disarmament in the hands of the Japanese military.

 

[Vegosiux]

As I gathered this next line may confuse many Europeans

The Wright Brothers were the first men to fly an aircraft.

This is what was/probably is still taught here, however Europeans hear it differently...or so I hear. Who's right? Hell if I know I haven't put much research into it (and I probably spelled their name wrong, oops.)

Well, everyone knows it was actually the Wrong brothers, duh!

I love how everyone here is arguing even though they agree. "America's a bunch of dirty liars!"
"No, you're wrong! They're a bunch of dirty liars!" "Well, they pat themselves on the back too much!" "No way, they're full of themselves!" "I can't believe you're taking their side, have you ever read history?"

Seriously, I'll probably get a warning for this, but the whole thread is just a big circle jerk of anti-US sentiment disguised as "needing to put them in their place." Seriously, no one "celebrates" anything over here related to war except for the days marking when those wars stopped.

You...haven't been reading the thread well enough then, have you? There were several people ringing in by how their own respective countries gloss over some issues.

One of the reasons why the Soviets get possibly less credit than they deserve for WWII might just be the fact that they started out on the wrong side. Just throwin' that one out there.

"Started out on the wrong side"? Is this another case of that "non-aggression pact equals alliance" error? The Western powers wouldn't give USSR the time of day, so Stalin did basically the only thing he could do if he didn't want USSR to be completely on its own - and tried to get Hitler off his back through diplomacy.

History loves irony, though, and operation Barbarossa accomplished what years of diplomatic attempts couldn't, getting USSR and the West on the same side. And, mind, USSR never fought on the axis side, when they entered the war, they were on the so-called "right" side already.

Stalin was just a complete and utter tool, thinking Hitler wouldn't stab him in the back that soon, though.

But we don't like those dirty commies, so it's okay to pretend we'd have won the war without their help, I suppose.

 

[ellieallegro]

BA in History here and it depends on what you mean by History? Do you mean verifiable facts, dates and figures? Interpretations? Social, Political, Economic, Military, Environmental, Cultural, Intellectual, Top-Down, Bottom-up, Anthropological, Women's, Men's, Ethnic, Queer, Minority, Classic, Ancient, Post-modernist, People's, King's and Queens History? etc etc... Which History do you mean?

History is a great field of study because every new generation of historian asks [or should ask] new questions because their relationship with History is different. History like philosophy and psychology tells us about ourselves. Unfortunately, quite alot of people do not understand that it is this ever-changing viewpoint and perspective that allows us to grow and learn from Historical inquiry. History is all interpretation based upon [always biased] evidence: This is its greatest strength not its greatest weakness.

People who see History as just a collection of absolute facts where someone did something to somebody during this exact time and place make me weep for the future [and their lack of imagination].

 

[Raesvelg]

"Started out on the wrong side"? Is this another case of that "non-aggression pact equals alliance" error?

No, this is a case of "Let's divide up Eastern Europe between the two of us."

That little part where the Soviet sign a cease fire with Japan, and invade Poland. All of two weeks after the Germans did. And what's that? Strong-arming the Baltic states to submit to "mutual assistance pacts" that basically amounted to annexation? Or maybe it was when the Soviets invaded Finland, resulting in the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations?

Or wait, it's possible that it's a case of the Soviets signing a trade pact with the Nazis to help Germany bypass Allied blockades? A trade pact of sufficient magnitude that it has been argued, quite convincingly, that had the Soviet Union not signed it, Germany would have been unable to invade the USSR in 1941.

Yeah.

It's not as simple as a non-aggression pact when you start invading everything you think you can grab while the rest of the world is distracted by Germany. You can argue that the Soviets were attempting to create defense in depth against a future German invasion, buying time with a trade pact, and otherwise getting ready for war with Germany, but that does tend to undermine your argument that Stalin was a fool for trusting Hitler, doesn't it?

You can define the Soviet entry into the war with the commencement of Barbarossa, but I think the Poles would disagree.

 

[Toy Master Typhus]

No, this is a case of "Let's divide up Eastern Europe between the two of us."

That little part where the Soviet sign a cease fire with Japan, and invade Poland. All of two weeks after the Germans did. And what's that? Strong-arming the Baltic states to submit to "mutual assistance pacts" that basically amounted to annexation? Or maybe it was when the Soviets invaded Finland, resulting in the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations?

Or wait, it's possible that it's a case of the Soviets signing a trade pact with the Nazis to help Germany bypass Allied blockades? A trade pact of sufficient magnitude that it has been argued, quite convincingly, that had the Soviet Union not signed it, Germany would have been unable to invade the USSR in 1941.

Yeah.

It's not as simple as a non-aggression pact when you start invading everything you think you can grab while the rest of the world is distracted by Germany. You can argue that the Soviets were attempting to create defense in depth against a future German invasion, buying time with a trade pact, and otherwise getting ready for war with Germany, but that does tend to undermine your argument that Stalin was a fool for trusting Hitler, doesn't it?

You can define the Soviet entry into the war with the commencement of Barbarossa, but I think the Poles would disagree.

You also have the fact that Stalin massacred upward a million of his own countrymen before hand, the real reason why we keep USSR on the down-low in U.S. history books is so we don't have to ask answer the question:"Why is it wrong for Hitler to kill Jews but we Let Stalin slip on by"

I would say most of the U.S. history books aren't as big censored toward the U.S. being the big heroes as much as it is censored of violence. In my high school history book they ignored most of the campaigns in WW2 and just summed it really as "bad things happened". Mostly it was about home politics about how only 30% actually wanted to join the war until Pearl-Harbor happened which sent us in a Nationalistic fervor.

Vietnam war was mostly ignored and we read about the counter culture which the book had an affinity for. Saying that they were fighting against the tragedies of Vietnam but never told us what they were.

Most of it was over the politics of the Our civil war.

 

[Vegosiux]

No, this is a case of "Let's divide up Eastern Europe between the two of us."

I do not see how that puts them on the axis side.

That little part where the Soviet sign a cease fire with Japan, and invade Poland. All of two weeks after the Germans did. And what's that? Strong-arming the Baltic states to submit to "mutual assistance pacts" that basically amounted to annexation? Or maybe it was when the Soviets invaded Finland, resulting in the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations?

Again, I do not see how that puts them on the axis side.

Or wait, it's possible that it's a case of the Soviets signing a trade pact with the Nazis to help Germany bypass Allied blockades? A trade pact of sufficient magnitude that it has been argued, quite convincingly, that had the Soviet Union not signed it, Germany would have been unable to invade the USSR in 1941.

As I said many times, history loves irony. While USSR held up their part of the trade agreement, while Germany didn't. Also, I do not see how this puts USSR on the axis side.

Yeah.

Yeah?

It's not as simple as a non-aggression pact when you start invading everything you think you can grab while the rest of the world is distracted by Germany. You can argue that the Soviets were attempting to create defense in depth against a future German invasion, buying time with a trade pact, and otherwise getting ready for war with Germany, but that does tend to undermine your argument that Stalin was a fool for trusting Hitler, doesn't it?

My argument? Let me quote myself for you.

"Stalin was just a complete and utter tool, thinking Hitler wouldn't stab him in the back that soon." I can reword it for you while keeping the meaning. "Stalin was a complete and utter tool, thinking that Germany wouldn't give him any significant amount of time before turning to the east.

So no; I did not claim that Stalin "trusted" Hitler.

Care to address the argument I actually made as opposed to a strawman thereof, then? I don't care whether you misinterpreted that deliberately or because you simply didn't care to listen to what I was saying, either way that makes me a tad cross.

You can define the Soviet entry into the war with the commencement of Barbarossa, but I think the Poles would disagree.

I personally make distinction between opportunistic looting and pillaging and actual acts of war. And that's not to say I support either, I'm just saying that looting and pillaging while the world is distracted by the invader, does not make you an ally of the invader. Even if the invader decided in advance to let you loot and pillage.

Hitler and Stalin were never on the "same" side. They just agreed that they'll keep out of each other's hair for a while. And one of them thought that "a while" would last a lot longer than it did.