watervole | History as we are taught it

History as we are taught it

In 'Thought Experiments' issues 2, Genava Melzack is discussing the reasons why people study history. Several reasons were suggested by herself and her friends:

1. We study history to learn from our past mistakes.

2. We study history inotder to know where we came from and thus to know ourselves better.

3. We study history in otder to learn about human nature.

I would argue that for most people, none of the above are true.

My hypothesis is that we study history in order to reinforce our desired image of ourselves as a nation. In this hypothesis, I may be partly deviating from Geneva's original intent as I'm focusing largely on what governments desire us to learn, but the history we choose to study for ourselves is also often chosen to reinforce our prefered image of ourselves.

I was collecting information from other Livejournallers on what they had studied at school and it was generally reinforcing my hypotheses, when along came a news item that demonstrated it perfectly.

In Russia, a history book by Igor Dolutsky recently lost its licence from the Ministry of Education, as it mentioned among other things the crimes perpetuated by the Soviet era against millions of Russian citizens, and the participation of Allied forces in WW2 (didn't you know Russia won the war single-handed?).

Putin's directive to historians stated: 'Textbooks should provide historical facts, and they must cultivate a sense of pride among youth in their history and country.'

In China, there have been similar moves to whitewash history. Chinese school history texts fail to mention the 1979 invasion of Vietnam, the 1989 crackdown on democracy, or the 30 million Chinese who starved to death during the 'Great Leap Forward'. Ironically, there have been protests in China regarding a new Japanese history book that omits details such as the Chinese women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during the war.

Are Western democracies any better in what they teach their children? No. We too bias our history to fit Putin's directive perfectly.

Let's look at a few examples.

A friend of mine said to me recently: "We were on the wrong side in World War II and we lost." I told him he was crazy.

He replied that we went to war to defend Poland when it was invaded by Germany. After the war, we gave Poland to Russia. Ergo, we lost as we did not achieve what we had joined the war to do.

We sided against Hitler who massacred 6 million people. We sided against Stalin who massacred 20-30 million (deliberate death by starvation still counts as massacre).

I had to admit that my friend had a point. The way we in Britain are taught the history of WW2 tends to gloss over the facts that we betrayed Poland and our responsibility for the deaths of the one million Soviet prisoners that we forcibly repatriated (we knew what might happen to them).

American history books have their own slant (didn't you know America won the war single-handed?) and we all know what American movies about WWII do by way of blatently distorting history.

Australian history doesn't win the war single-handed, but focuses heavily on the Gallipoli landings which is where the greatest involvement of the ANZAC troops was.

No nation comes out well on the history study.

The main eras studied in the UK appear to be Egypt (ancient of course - none of those Islamic people to confuse things), Greece, Rome (because we see their civilisations as precursors to our own and they are regarded as very civilised. If you regard demcracy as important, then you focus on where it first developed). The Norman conquest (possibly because historians so love the Domesday book - we can trace your village to nearly a thousand years ago - we're a very old culture). The Magna Carta (look, our democracy is older than yours). Elizabethans (Britannia rules the waves - we have better explorers and navies than anyone else). The Tudors and the War of the Roses (Haven't quite worked that one out yet, but I'm open to suggestions). The Civil War (we're very democratic as Parliament won, but we're also kind to monarchs as long as they don't want too much power). The industrial revolution (everything useful was invented in Britain and we industrialised first). American war of Independence (but not in too much detail and making sure we know that lots of Americans were loyal to the crown). French Revolution (you can't trust the French, they guillotine aristocrats and murder lots of people - long live the Scarlet Pimpernel!) WWI + WWII (We won)

I had a flash of hope when

cobrabay said he'd done some modern Chinese history, but a quick check of the dates confirmed that he'd only done safe stuff well after the Opium Wars were history. (The Opium Wars can briefly be summed up as Britain fighting a war to be allowed to sell massive quantities of opium to Chinese drug addicts as we were making a massive profit out of it. This at a time when opium use was outlawed in England.)

Other periods that we never study: the Boer War (Britain invents the concentration camp); colonisation of sub-Saharan Africa (a lot of very underhand stuff); the 1812 war with America (apart from the bit where we're protecting Canada - our impressing American sailors seems to get missed out)

On the other hand, Americans (certainly some of them) are, of course, taught about British colonisation, not just of sub-Saharan Africa, but also about the British in China and the Opium Wars and India under the British (see, the British are evil bastards, colonilism is evil and we were proud freedom fighters when we kicked them out) They'll also get the War of Independence, the US Civil War (of course, it was all fought to end slavery, you know), the industrial revolution (everything useful was invented in America and we industrialised first), WWI and WWII (America won).

Sadly, America too has missing chunks. I had a flash of hope when

redstarrobot said she'd done South and Central American history, but it was all about the Aztecs, Incas, etc. (we've got some old civilisation too, so sucks to Europe). Nothing about more recent history and the CIA's role in setting up repressive dictatorships. Nothing about the invasion of Canada.

Are Australians any better?

The older Australians in particular had a very Eurocentric version of history (we've got more history than the Aborigines and we've brought our culture with us including the Greeks and the Romans) They get the explorers of Australia, European, Dutch and British (this continent was discovered by brave, heroic men and there wasn't really anyone here before they discovered it). Then there's the inland explorers and the early settlers (no one used to have convicts as ancestors, but it's more fashionable now to have at least one in the family tree as eveyone knows the English courts would transport people for trivial crimes). They used to jump straight from there to Gallipoli (we suffered, but we won a pyrrhic victory), but now Australia is allowed some modern history (see, we're democratic too).

As Australia develops much closer political and economic links with Indonesia, Australian school children have discovered, to their surprise, that Indonesia has a history too.

Aborigines? Who are they? (this isn't their country - it's ours! We found it.)

This is an extremely potted version of what we are taught at school and I'd liketo thank

greengolux,

kat_erine,

cobrabay,

temeres,

reapermum,

wychwood,

lexin,

mistraltoes,

redstarrobot,

sallymn,

hawkeye7 and

kerravonsen for their input on their respective countries. The information was theirs, the interpretation and sarky comments are all mine.

I'll finish with a story my husband told me. I haven't been able to track down a reference to know if it is true or false. He said that in a private document, Churchill wrote what he could never say in public. We lost the war.

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I think you mean to say, "We sided with Stalin." Sheer numbers of victims seems an inadequate measure. They were both unprecedented evil, and staying out of it would have been letting the winner be chosen for us, so I think we took the least bad alternative in that particular situation.

That seems a fair summary. I'm trying to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge, but find I'm doing a hurrah for Britain in places. We abolished slavery before you, look what a mess you've made of your country since independance from us, that sort of thing. It's difficult to move on from there.

Hm. I wonder if the people in the Baltic States and the Balkans would have agreed with that? The Americans and British effectively gave Stalin a large chunk of the Balkans as a sphere of influence.

We see history through so many imposed filters that it's hard to realise how little we know. We don't even realise how *much* we don't know.

We're all parochial in how we view the world. Even when we think we're enlightened, there are countries we know virtually nothing about.

I no longer know which side was worse, but I'm trying to question the view I was taught simply because I know that 'history' is often an attempt to make our own actions seem justified.

No one is evil in their own eyes.

Sorry I was too busy to contribute earlier. Coming from a Baltic state that Stalin tried to invade in a war separate from WW2, it's... well, history is a pretty damn difficult for a liberal Finn. We had to side with the damn Nazis so the Russians wouldn't take us over amidst WW2, and when the Nazis buggered off (burning down most of Finnish Lapland in their wake), Russia started a separate war on *us*. By that time we did have British troops coming in to defend us (not many, about two dozens--Christopher Lee was one of them and he said the Brits just stood in snow for a couple of weeks without seeing a single Russian). The tension was *insane* all the way to the end of the Soviet Union, and the tension still remains. Our President had to go to Russia to celebrate the end of WW2, gritting her teeth over the fact that the bastards did try to annex us during that war. My father's side of the family comes from the parts of Karelia that the Russians took over when the wars ended, and I'm damn bitter about that as they've more or less ruined the place, and killed several Finno-Ugric languages in their attempt to make Russian the main language in the Baltic. Grr.

So, yes, Russia being praised for defeating Hitler pisses me off... I really do *not* like the fact that their invasion of my country, as well as (the successful invasion of) Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are being brushed under the carpet, even now the politicians have to pretend that this crap never existed. I'm not a hardcore nationalist, but I would like to have Karelia back, as it really is mostly a Finnish area and the Russians are basically using it a place to dump their toxic waste in. :(.

Actually while the history course I did was aimed at covering the history of communist China, we did cover, briefly, some earlier Chinese history, and did go back as far as the Opium Wars in order to give a little bit of background into the involvement of Britain and other major powers in China, and the collapse of Imperial rule, rise of the warlords etc., not in any detail though.

My hypothesis is that we study history in order to reinforce our desired image of ourselves as a nation.
This is certainly the way the Prime Miniature sees it. He condemned the incorporation of material about the aborigines in recent years as "the black armband" view of history. His view of the role of history is identical to Putin's.

Australian history doesn't win the war single-handed, but focuses heavily on the Gallipoli landings which is where the greatest involvement of the ANZAC troops was.
My reasons for the Australian focus of my own research have been spelt out in my journal, and are purely practical. The British reviewer of my Masters thesis upbraided me for "Australian exclusivism a la C.E.W. Bean" ie not covering the British. My take is that there are British historians outnumber us and can write up their own history. (They've got the documents.)

We Australian historians have a more warts-and-all view of the past which makes it difficult to have meaningful conversations with British historians.

Gallipoli was not where the greatest involvement of ANZAC troops was. Three divisions of ANZAC troops served at Gallipoli in 1915; six served on the Western Front from 1916 to 1918. This is one of the reasons I attempted to translate the Anzac Coda into French for my Anzac Day livejournal entry this year.

But if you go to Anzac, which is close by for you and therefore pretty easy, you might well find that you are the only British people there at any time of the year. (The only live ones, that is - they have an impressive collection of dead ones.)

It's only natural for people to demand to know about what they see everyday. Surely someone who wanders through Trafalgar Square would eventually become curious about what Trafalgar was, who Nelson, why an earlier generation thought so highly of him to raise him above his fellow citizens.

Anzac is like that. And nobody thinks that it was a victory, even a pyrrhic one. (When Americans ask me: "Why celebrate a defeat?" I always answer: "Remember the Alamo.")

The history I remember was Eurocentric. I think it has been drifting towards Australiacentric for many decades. I think my grandparents would have told of a Britain-centric history. Our coverage of the 19th Century covered the drift to democracy. In 2001 there was a big advertising campaign after it was discovered that few people knew much about Federation. The ad showed Aussies being asked who the first Prime Minister was (Edmund Barton) and only a couple of old timers knew.

People were transported to Australia for trivial offences. The problem was that the needs of a colony differ from the profile of people in prison. Therefore, tradesmen and men with skills and wimmin were far more likely to be transported.

I personally don't think that the effort to understand Indonesia is going anywhere in Australia or Indonesia. The two cultures are too different for any kind of understanding.

One thing I recall from my trip to the UK in 1995 was Peter Simkins at the IWM complaining that WWI is not taught in the UK and many British people believed that they had lost the war. The other was this ridiculous mantra that between the fall of France and Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, Britain "fought alone" without allies. This was a major insult.

Good to see that the Russians are getting there due this time.

The notion that backing Hitler would have been better (David Irving was heavily into this) flies in the face of all logic, not to mention the historic fact that nobody came out ahead from a deal with Hitler. It seems to get an airing in recent times over British insecurity about the EC. The gist of the myth (embodied in the Churchill story) is that without WWII, Britain would have been a superpower and the British Empire would have been retained to this day. The notion is no more than a ludicrous nostalgia.

Nobody won WWII.

And, yes, nobody thinks that Gallipoli was a victory, not even a phyrric one. But of course, the ANZACs were valiant, because it was all the British generals fault, for landing at the wrong place, and not synchronizing their watches.

I do agree, we get taught history to make us proud of our country. But we need to be proud of our country -- but also be aware of the warts.

History repeats itself.
Has to.
Nobody listens.
(Steve Turner)

I think there's a difference between concentrating on certain eras, and trying to whitewash and distort what is taught (like the US saying that they won WWII -- bah!)

History is very political. God only knows what the historians will say about the invasion of Iraq...

history is a pretty damn difficult for a liberal Finn
We can tell. Let's see if we can get the events back into the correct order:
1939: After the British and the French turn down Soviet overtures to band together to stop Hitler, the Russians conclude a secret treaty with the Germans. This treaty cedes Russia the old 1914 frontiers. When Germany invades Poland (and looks like winning), the Soviets invade eastern Poland. (The Germans actually have to pull back to the treaty line.) Russia anexes Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldavia, in accordance withe the treaty. Russia then demands Karelia from Finland. [Who claims what is murky here. A treaty between Sweden and Russia in 1323 divided the area between them. Then in 1721, Sweden ceded the lot after losing a long war with Russia. After another war between Sweden and Russia in 1809, Sweden ceded Finland too. Finland became a semi-independent country within the Russian Empire. Russia also incorporated some of its old Karelia into Finland. Finland becomes independent in 1917 and new borders were drawn which Russia didn't like much.] Finland turns Russia down and a war starts which is usually called The Winter War. Finland fights well. Due to geography, Britain and France cannot help easily. An expedition is assembled but before it gets going...
1940: Finland throws in the towel and cedes lands including part of Karelia to the Soviet Union in March. The British and French were coming and this triggers a German invasion of Norway in April. Norway is occupied.
1941: Germany invades the Soviet Union in June. Not all of its allies join in but Finland does! It grabs back the lands ceded to Russia in 1940. Germany fights the Russians in Russian, Finnish and ultimately Norweigian Lapland. A German army also fights alongside the Finns in Karelia.
1944: With Germany on the ropes, Finland sues for peace. The 1940 frontier is restored. Although the peace treaty requires German troops in Finland to be interned, the Finns allow them to leave unmolested.

Most neighbouring countries rightly regard Finland as lucky not to have been occupied and as having gotten off very lightly.

Although Finland is a model state in this regard today, it's treatment of linguistic minorities in the past is nothing I'd be trumpeting.

Also, having travelled around Karelia, I am astonished at the notion that it is the Russain part that is spoiled. On the contrary, it looked very much like the Finnish part was the spolied part. This was especially notable from the air where the border was a straight line. Forests Russian side. No forests Finnish side. Much of Russian karelia is ike in a time warp. They have not done a thing since 1940.

Er--no. Russians have dumped waste in Karelia, and not cared for the people there very much. I'm surprised that you slag Finns off for not recognising linguistic minorities, when Russians have done their best to stamp out Finno-Ugric languages in the Baltic states. Sámi and Swedish-speaking Finns are recognised fully as official languages in Finland. And the Baltic states, ravaged by the Russians, are rapidly losing some of the last remaining Finno-Ugric languages.

Oh, and did you know the damn Germans burned everything they could while withdrawing from Finland? Burning down all of Lapland? That really wasn't easy. They destroyed a shitload of stuff up here. I wouldn't call that "lucky" because we weren't occupied--they buggered up the place completely. We were in a damn difficult position whilst wanting to retain the Finnish-speaking parts (like the 1917 borders), and had to choose between two evils struggling against each other because we share a border with Russia.

I do happen to know a lot about this stuff--losing Karelia was a big damn blow. And I HAVE visited Karelia, and so has my grandfather who was born in Karelia, and the place is a *mess* from the Finnish POV. I don't like the fact that Finns cut down forests, no, I do prefer old forests the way they are.

Please read up on your Finnish history--I did because I am a Finn and do care about my heritage, and have also read our history and studied all possible viewpoints. We *never* started a war with Russia, they did in fact blow some gunshots around the border, blamed it on us, and thus "justified" trying to take Finland over again. Even (some enlightened) Russians admit this today. They set it up--both the Winter War and especially the Continuation War.

It's disgusting what's happened to all the beautiful architechture in Viipuri (Vyborg, or whatever it's in English--my grandpa's birth town) and how there are starving children in the streets and the crime rate is high--even when Finns have offered help (for restoration, and humanitarian aid), time and time again the money has somehow disappeared when it's crossed the border, and the humanitarian aid has not gone through. And that cannot be blamed on the Finns, but the crap way Russians are "organising"(hah!) things.

No, I really don't like it when a part that's essentially Finnish being ruined by Russians governing it the way they usually do--full of corruption and bribery and greed, not giving a toss about human rights, especially those of women and children. It makes me pretty damn pissed off.

Sorry, but I DO KNOW about these things, living here and knowing my history and seeing what happens across the border each day. The Russians have fucked Karelia up big time.

Nobody won WWII.
But Hitler and his Nazi, Fascist and Militarist minions were defeated. And never has justice been better served.

but of course, the ANZACs were valiant, because it was all the British generals fault,
Prof. Robyn Prior calls this the "pointed stick" myth.

for landing at the wrong place,
True, but landing further a few hundred metres further south wouldn't have helped much.

and not synchronizing their watches.
Heh. Couldn't let this one pass. Tragic but true: it was the ill-fated lighthorsemen who had set their watches wrong.

Mel Gibson lied to me! (shock, horror)

we study history in order to reinforce our desired image of ourselves as a nation

One of the things I find irksome about medieval history is the anglocentric bias of the literature. I tend to pick up books second-hand (coz they're cheap) and quickly found out that there are plenty of titles on medieval England, far less about the rest of Europe, let alone beyond. Not even Scotland and Wales get much attention. I wouldn't mind a nice easy-read potted history of the Holy Roman Empire, or the Capetians, or somesuch, but I haven't found one yet.

The Norman Conquest (of England) was a definitive event in the shaping of Europe and can't be ignored, though Norman influence elsewhere (Sicily, southern Italy, North Africa) tends to get overlooked. Magna Carta strikes me as being overhyped. The Wars of the Roses are just plain boring.

I don't dabble in medieval history to find past mistakes to learn from. I'm not particularly interested in how it laid the foundations of the world we live in today. I don't look for insights into human nature, and I don't seek to reinforce my perception of my country. I read about it because it's interesting and it's fun, pure and simple.

Um. I suspect you're right in general, but, well, the way 20th century history is taught here ever since the 60s (not immediately post-45; until the 60s, history lessons tended to end before WWI, even) is definitely not designed to reinforce our desired image as a nation. You get the Third Reich in history, literature, sociology and ethics/religous education (depending which subject you choose) classes, in great detail.

Also, due to the horrible overdose of nationalism we as a nation went through, history before the 20th century is taught in a manner trying not to create any "weren't we grand?" feelings at all, which is helped by the fact that "Germany" didn't exist as such pre 1870 other than as a collection of individual states, and before that (from Charlemagne until Napoleon, who officially dissolved it) as the Holy Roman Empire, to quote the official medieval title.

Melzack is discussing the reasons why people study history... and then there are the probably shallow ones - like me. "The past is a foreign country..." and I'm simply fascinated by the foreigners.

I think, though, it needs to be recognised that "we went to war to defend Poland when it was invaded by Germany," is really only a half-truth; it was the actual, formal step that caused the actual, formal declaration, true (the Rubicon, as it were) but it was more the straw that broke a lot of people's stay-out-of-it-all backs.

It was more that "we went to war because we finally decided sooner or later we were going to have to stop him..." Whether 'we' was right or wrong is another point.

Anzac is like that. And nobody thinks that it was a victory, even a pyrrhic one. Also, I have this private theory that it's our British heritage coming out whether we like it or not. There is nothing the British love more than a romantic lost/doomed cause, after all (Hereward the Wake, Mary Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Charge of the Light Brigade, even Dunkirk in a way...) and Gallipoli is both romantic (only at a distance) and was lost.

Hm, personally, I study history because I'm curious about stories that are, frequently, stranger than fiction!

It's years since I read it but I seem to remember that Runciman's "The Scilian Vespers" was good, but first published in 1958.

I'm collecting the Fontana History of Europe series from second hand book shops, the readability varies with the individual author but they do cover a lot of territory.

With regard to what was covered in school, my strongest impression is that it didn't really matter because no one, or hardly anyone, was remotely interested. In the case of the Civil War, as I remember, 'teaching' consisted largely of getting the class to copy large chunks out of an antique textbook. Just write it out, verbatim, along with a diagram of the 'steps to the execution of Charles I' - a kind of staircase with a date and event on each step. One of them might have been the Bloody Assizes. No explanation of what any of them were, let alone what they meant. We just copied it out like the dutiful sheep we were and promptly forgot it all.

The French Revolution was little better, though rather than hurrah for the Scarlet Pimpernel it was more hurrah for the unwashed trouserless ones for getting rid of Louis the Wotsit and the cake-eating bint.

And that's near enough all I can remember from four years of compulsory history three or four times a week. Ghod knows what else we covered but it must have been really, seriously, profoundly uninteresting. I know we didn't do either world war, but I knew quite a bit about the second one because I was one of those spotty little schoolboys who collected all the Airfix kits. Actually I knew nothing about it except the gun calibre of each grade of panzer (because German tanks were the coolest even though they lost).

As for the Wars of the Roses, I think they appeal to so many people because they're just a bloody great real life soap opera. Which is probably why they fail to arouse my interest.

I've managed to pick up volumes on the Italian city states and the Reconquista. Undergraduate level texts seem to be around my optimum level, but I don't live in a university town so they're not exactly thick on the shelves in the one decent local secondhand bookshop.

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History as we are taught it

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