It’s not. In general, we have too much history of our own that can’t get covered in the time available, and as some people have said, losing you (whilst painful at the time I’m sure) wasn’t the biggest thing that happened. Having said which, for GCSE and A level history there are various syllabi, and the ones I studied included the Depression, Prohibition and all that, World War II with some mention of you being here for part of it (:p), and the history of the United States from the War of Independence to the Civil War. These were courses I had chosen, though, not mandatory, and if I hadn’t chosen them I wouldn’t have studied any of it except maybe a bit of WWII. Knowing my students now, and their abysmal lack of general knowledge, I very much doubt that the current generation even has much clue that you used to belong to us. Sadly, I’m not kidding.
I was keenly interested in this myself, having grown up in the US (until the age of 14): being very keen on history, I’d studied most of the AP US History course before moving. Then I studied A-level history (A-level is roughly equivalent to a 100 level course at a solid but not stellar university - British students take 3-5 of these between 16 and 18 instead of the broader range of subjects American students study.) with a module on US History.
Even spending almost half of the course studying American history, we didn’t spend that much time on the American revolution. The American Civil War, manifest destiny and reconstruction were regarded as more interesting!
The big difference between my American studies of the revolution and the British ones was (perhaps unsurprisingly) the perspective on the British. In my US history lessons, the British were considered as a monolithic entity in this period; in Britain we spent some time considering the parallels between ‘no taxation without representation’ and the situation in the rotten boroughs of Britain and generally drew a much stronger distinction between the policies of His Majesty’s Government and the people of Britain.
I’m surprised to hear this. I have a lot of Canadian friend from all over Canada and most, if not all, told me they actually had one American History class in high school.
Not true for you?
This was my experience too. For O level (14-16) I did 20 Century World History which was mostly the two wars, there were other choices, but I remember nothing about the US being taught.
At the time of the American revolution, it wasn’t the biggest game in town, not by a long shot.
The real effects of this event on ordinary Britons are largely felt in the UK around a century or so later.
In between a great many other things of more importance ocurred, as far as the UK is concerned.Things such as the abolition of slavery, the reform of parliament act 1832 the growth of the Chartists, the combinations acts, corn laws, industrial revolution - much of history at grade school is now about social change, even when we look at the Tudors we tend to look a lot at the workaday lives of of ordinary folk. There seems to be less about empire, and much more about local history and the place it takes within larger events - contexting it all.
We are taught quite a bit about the French Revolution, a certain amounts about the Napoleonic wars - since they were tied to British Navy power, a fair old bit about the rise of social movements, such as unions, universal suffrage (which is not at all exclusively about women getting the vote) First world war and its causes, and Second world war and its causes, we are now starting to look at post 1945 events, cold war and the fall of the Berlin wall.
Not to mention substantial portions of the 13 colonies were of German and Dutch origin, hence the original name for New York being New Amsterdam and the Pennsylvania “Dutch” who were actually German.
No, I didn’t. I’m from Saskatchewan, if that makes any difference. The closest thing I had was a “20th Century” class (apart from our “Canada” class) in which America played a big part simply because it was one of two superpowers after the Second World War.
They were all bad, even the good ones. At least compared to modern day monarchs. He wasn’t just one bad apple in an otherwise glowing pantheon of regents. So English people aren’t shocked to learn that they had a loon for a king, they’d be more surprised if they discovered one of the rulers was a nice kind soul who wouldn’t say boo to a goose (I don’t think there were any of them?)
It’s not comparable to the Presidents who mostly tried to do the right thing in the circumstances (even if they made mistakes). The monarchs were all trying to invade other countries, consolidate power, kill the catholics (or the protestants), get rich etc. George III was actually one of the nicer ones, luckily for you because…
Had Britain and George wanted to, they could have sent more troops there and taken full control of the place and may well still control it now (or at least granted independence the same time as everyone else got independence a few decades ago). They just weren’t that interested. Seemed like a lot of work for little gain and, as others have mentioned, there was other more important stuff going on elsewhere.
With hindsight, that was a mistake. We should have retaken America, resolved the taxation issues fairly (to shut everyone up) and exploited the resources for a few hundred years before granting independence - like we did everywhere else. The Indians would have probably got a fairer deal if we’d been in charge.
Aside from mentioning that I, too, was never taught the US Revolution and that there is so much history to cover that a lot gets left out, I would point out two other things:
The British education system specializes so much sooner than the American one that most kids are taught less history. Most schoolchildren at my school did not do any history after the age of 14. I voluntarily did history for two more years - I did History ‘O’ Level in which we covered European history 1789 - 1914. While this did include the history of European nations’ exploits across the world, I don’t recall the War of 1812 ever being mentioned. In fact, I’d never heard of it until I came to live in America.
And the War of 1812 reminder brings us to the second major point. There are two things to remember about English history:
- When we were at war with France, nothing else mattered.
- We were always at war with France.
Certainly not true for me. As a student in Ontario back in the 1970s, I had more than enough Canadian history at school, but never any American history. That’s not to say we didn’t study American history when the need arose in the context of a Canadian history course–as, for example, in interactions between the US and British North America/Canada such as the War of 1812–but in my experience in Ontario schools, US History as its own course was not offered at all.
Great Britain had more regiments in India and the West Indies during the “time that tried mens souls”. At the time of Yorktown they still had large swathes of the 13 colonies under control.
They looked at it and said “forget it”.
But despite the total hundreds of years of war, nothing much ever seemed to change… I don’t know much about the conflicts between England and France at all, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think France ever conquered a significant part of England (apart from William the Conqueror), and I haven’t heard of a time when England conquered all of France? We both seemed to sit there fighting each other for about 400 years without anything actually happening… 
I remember reading an English history book. The Revolutionary War was covered as follows:
“In 1775, the American colonies revolted. The revolt was successful.”
Kinda puts it in neat perspective. 
I believe I did hear about the American Revolution in my history classes, probably in large part because the Americans invaded Canada in the early stages of the war. But we don’t hear much more than that; I couldn’t name any important battle of the American Revolutionary War other than the Canadian campaign, and while my teacher may have told us that Benedict Arnold was a commander of the American troops in this campaign, I’m certain he didn’t tell us about his later betrayal.
America? War? What??
I know this is a little off the topic, but even as late as WW2, America played a very small role in (WW2) battle - at least in my education in both Poland and Australia. So I don’t see why a such a small battle such as the American Revolution (small compared to WW2) would be important to any country except for the US. Up to year 4 in (communist) Poland, we were taught that Russians and Poles (Poland listed after Russia on purpose) won the war. While in Australian schools… well Australia played a HUGE part in the war… Hey, even New Zealand (part of ANZAC) plays a minor role in our most famous battle.
Anyway - point is, each counry will focus on their OWN grlory rather than another country’s glory.
Marty
My 10 cents.
Would any British reader with a copy to hand care to tell us what 1066 and All That has to say about the matter?
I’m clearly in a minority, back in the 70s I gave history up after 3rd year (grade 9) but we did at least a term on the American War for Independence. The details are a bit hazy after all this time but I do remember the Boston Tea Party being explained (now that must be in 1066 and All That). I think we also covered what us Brits did wrong – wrong as in losing I mean, not as in being particularly wrong in the first place. George III’s madness was played down rather, both in itself and as a cause of losing the colony as Parliament rather than the King was in charge.
On British history teaching in general I’m of the opinion that never particularly good (see earlier comments on how early it may be given up) it was abysmal for the generation following mine. I know someone who never even covered the *Engish * Civil War and was astonished to find out it had actually happened. I on the other hand was at least taught that the Roundheads were a bad thing as they were Puritans and banned Christmas pudding and dancing round the maypole – the dastards!
I went to private schools, and I left when I was 14 (in 1996), but my memory matches SanVito’s except:
The only bits of American history I can remember covering were the New Deal (no idea why - IIRC, the welfare state stuff had already been done in Europe), and the age of exploration and the Spanish Main and all that (particularly the conquistadors).
I wouldn’t worry about it. We spent 10 minutes on Australian history when I was about 9, eight of which were used up covering Captain Cook’s voyages, and we didn’t cover India, Israel, Canada, New Zealand or any of the other colonies at all.
ETA:
I distinctly remember the look on people’s faces on the first day of (US college) American History when the professor informed the class that the Pilgrims came to America not in search of religious freedom, but in search of a place where they could be intolerant too.
Their wars were more about influence over mainland Europe — invasion and direct domination were of secondary importance at best.
Interesting! I wonder if the US would have ended up closer to India and Africa on the spectrum, or Australia, Canada, or New Zealand. (Probably the latter, but still…)
I was educated in Ireland, not Britain. The American revolution was studied mainly as a precursor to the French revolution, which was altogether more important and more interesting. In fact, somewhat bizarrely, the first chapter in my textbook on “Modern European History” was the American revolution.