Columbus Day No More

[ursulav]

The Oatmeal has a great thing up about Columbus Day. Go read it, I’ll wait.

This was rather relevant to me today because I’ve been on planes a lot, and was reading A Voyage Long and Strange by Horwitz, which is about the stuff that happened in America between 1492 and the Pilgrims.

Spoiler: There’s a lot of it.

Every time I read anything about

Comments

[kevinbunny]

Yeah.. there's this... drive.. to cast the creation of our nation as a pure, blessed event, untainted by the sins of other lands, a shining beacon of prosperity and freedom. The fact of the matter is, we have just as much blood on our hands as everybody else... we just got ours a lot faster.

[louisadkins]

It's closely related to the urge to believe in the myth of American Exceptionalism..

[kevinbunny]

Closely related enough that they are not legally allowed to marry.

[nigel_tangelo]

My theory is that a lot of us, one way or another, still want to believe in the Divine Right of Kings. We want be sure that our country is doing things the Right Way, always has, and always will, that it has been blessed by God/Fortune/Freedom from its very creation. This is especially true when there are still inconvenient records of how messy that creation actually was.

If you don't have any actual Kings, the process becomes a little more complicated.

[nomadicwriter]

At my (English) school we skimmed over 90% of world and British history in a rapid leapfrog of, "Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, Normans, Tudors & Stuarts, French Revolution, Victorians, WWI, WWII," and then spent forever learning about the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.

Apparently it was not important that we learned anything about the world beyond Europe, events after 1945, or anything at all about the British Empire aside from when it disbanded, but by God, just ask me anything you like about crop rotation, the Enclosure Act, Jethro Tull's seed drill and his book Horse Hoeing Husbandry, Jedediah Strutt's stocking frame, Richard Arkwright's water frame, the Spinning Jenny, Davy lamps, bell pits versus drift mines or the Factory Reform Acts of the early 19th century.

[ursulav]

*boggle*

I should note that the only thing I learned about the British Empire was the American Colonies. I had to read Rudyard Kipling to learn that the British had some vague connection to India. (Insert any historian weeping gently here.)

Our European History class (and I did take one!) was pretty much All French Revolution, All The Time. Also something about the tragedy of the commons. If you mapped my class's understanding of Europe, it would have been something like "Charlemagne caused the French Revolution, which lasted for a thousand years and led to "A Modest Proposal" and Adam Smith. The end."

[dogmatix_san]

*weeps gently* Not a historian, but I grew up in South Africa, which would not exist in the form it does today if not for the Spice Route from Europe to India. We have lots of influences from all over(mostly England/Netherlands/France), and the food is pretty varied and meat-heavy, so, yeah. Brits being dicks all over the world and conquering India for spices is, uh, pretty much understood in SA.

[nomadicwriter]

The joy of teachers being pressed to teach to the exams. The Agricultural/Industrial Revolutions were the topic set by the local exam board for our GCSEs, so the last two of my five years in history classes were devoted to that subject and nothing else. Almost everything I know about history, geography, and world politics has since been patched together from internet research, documentaries, educational computer games (seriously, if it wasn't for Seterra I still wouldn't be able to pinpoint 95% of the world's countries) and books that I've read on my own time. I'm still embarrassed by gigantic gaps in my knowledge I regularly stumble over.

[aurora77]

My research for vaguely medieval LARPs has led down some fascinating paths. People make so many assumptions and generalizations. There was a lot of regional variation in so many things. I don't mind if we fudge some things for safety, comfort, feasibility and narrative. Just so long as people aren't trying to claim it's accurate. That annoys the hell out of me

[blaisepascal]

"one if by land...". For a long time I've had a painting in my head (since there's no way I have the skill to put it on canvas) of a Charleston militiaman looking across the river by spyglass at three lanterns in the church-tower. NExt to him, holding his horse, is a lad, looking upwards, slackjawed, at the dirigibles with union-jacks.

[ursulav]

That would be pretty freakin' AWESOME.

[mmegaera]

I want to read the book that goes with that illustration.

[aurora77]

O_O That needs to happen! Doooo eeeeet!

[beetiger]

Oh my goodness, I just looked these up, and the guy who wrote them is the same person who wrote "Who Moved My Cheese?", the highly beloved "imaginography" used by middle managers to teach you to be a more manipulatible wage slave.

[agoodwinsmith]

Urgh.