In all seriousness, the Iraq War 2.0 was different in that the war was openly started on a specific date by a belligerent state (the United States) in an effort to conquer a sovereign state (Iraq) and, in an unusual twist, everyone knew it was coming. So there was a period of some months in which Allied nations had to decide if they did or didn’t want to enter into a state of war with Iraq. For whatever reason, France was picked on as the alleged ringleader of those that weren’t “willing.”
Vietnam, by comparison, was a gradual escalation of conflict that went from mild interference to outright, full scale warfare between several different states. The escalation happened over a number of years. There was never any specific point where one side began a full scale effort to destroy the other, so that “Decision point” never happened.
If there’s one thing that studying war teaches you, it’s that most wars are entered into accidentally and/or stupidly and manage to be both evil and pointless. The details rarely make much of a difference, but there you go; that’s why they didn’t say Freedom Muffins.
I’ve had fascinating conversations in the past with cousins of similar age to me, educated on either side of the border, comparing their history education (why are some people restricting it to geography?) with what we got in England. Especially Cromwell - from the English version, you’d have little understanding of any dislike for him, from the Irish you’d think he was up there with Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler. And IIRC the norther Irish curriculum skirted the topic entirely.
I was thinking about this thread yesterday, and I guess I’m not convinced that, as some people have asserted, Americans are obsessed with their own history and not world history in general. I mean, people here in Bulgaria are obsessed with *their * history. You can’t get through the day without someone bemoaning the cruelty of the Turkish Yoke, pretty much, and half of the stuff in the country is named after the martyrs of the April Uprising. (Bulgaria has the best revolutionaries - a bunch of young romantic poets and writers who all got butchered hideously by the Turks.) Aren’t people in *most * countries interested in their own history?
Well he was an awful rotter.
My friend who had an English girlfriend one time was talking about how the Irish history we’re taught in school is nearly always in relation to Britain, as the single biggest external factor, whereas in British schools Irish history is but a minor part of the whole.
Well, lots of things to do with privacy, employee rights, consumer rights, credit checking, and so on and so forth. Depending on where you are, it can get really quite amusing - Germany is normally good for a few ruptured blood vessels as our Lords & Masters discover that their latest half-baked mandate needs to be OK’d by the workforce and the government before it can take effect, and neither is particularly interested. Or that e.g. employees can leave an 8pm mandatory-attendance conference call after only an hour if they so choose, and there’s chuff-all you are allowed to do about it.
Oh, it’s certainly not a US-only phenomenon, it’s just that it seems a little more pronounced there. I think every small ofshoot has problems with The Fools Back At Head Office. But as in most things, the US does it bigger and better .
Well, I hope so; knowing where we came from and the story of the people before us is really important, IMO. At the same time I must admit that my American history is pretty terrible, though my California and local history is pretty good.
I think history is one of the most important ‘subjects’ there is to study, both locally and worldly speaking. So I’m trying to teach a lot to my own kids (and we have a lot of maps on the walls). But then, I’m weird.
As others have already pointed out, the problem is not simply what we’re taught in school. It’s the fact that too many people stop learning as soon as they’ve got that diploma. Many people go on to get several diplomas after high school–but that knowledge is increasingly specialized.
It’s been many years, but I can remember geography classes–Texas, US & World. And history classes of the same scope. (I don’t regret the Texas stuff–it ties in with US & Mexican history & is still relevant.) By senior year, they’d decided that some of us could handle more detailed courses–a bit too late for me. So I got a fascinating semester of World Lit–and I know a bit about Li Po.
But during an earlier English Lit course, I’d read a bunch of Yeats. (While the teacher droned on about Great Expectations, I skipped to the back of the book.) So when they started selling paperbacks in the cafeteria, I picked up a little book about Yeats & his pals–the first book I’d ever bought on my own, although my mother had done her best to see we had books in the house. Plus a globe. Therefore, I knew about the Irish language before my college course in Medieval English Lit. (Of course, later English Lit would be much poorer if they left out the Irish writers–but at least most of those guys wrote in English! And later reading revealed why the Irish language is not called Gaelic in Ireland.)
Yes, I do go on–I could continue in this vein until the Guinness ran out. But–I found & find many subjects interesting. Many people don’t–especially outside the SDMB. So they learn enough to pass exams. Then forget most of it. And waste little time reading “non-essential” books. (They’re the ones who read a book a year, then corner people to regale them with every detail of the plot; recently The DaVinci Code was That Book.)
I think Bridget’s got it right. The OP asked a question about the quality of U.S. schools. I think the real problem is even worse than having bad schools, because the answer is not that “U.S. schools don’t teach about other countries.” It’s that “Most Amercians don’t care to remember anything about other countries.” They just don’t care. Period. And that attitude is reflected in our bumbling around the world.
If you take ‘US’ out of your post you would still be accurate. I know there is this meme that American’s are bad at knowing about geography, history, etc…and it’s true. It’s equally true that non-American’s, at least the one’s I’ve met, are equally bad at those things as well. Once you go beyond their home countries history and geography most folks start too flounder. What amuses me is how many folks from other countries THINK they know a lot about the US…but when you really start talking too them you rapidly find out that most of them know about as much regarding the US as the average US citizen knows about, say, Canada.
It’s not limited too that though. I remember when I was in Germany and talking too some of the folks I was working with on a project about France. I knew a hell of a lot more about not only French geography but even French history than these guys in Germany…and they invaded the country TWICE in the last century! How can they NOT know all there is too know about a country they occupied for nearly a decade??
Which is slightly amusing, considering the Bulgars started out as invading Turks ( though, admittedly, not Oghuz Turks like the Ottomans ).
Me, I owe my fascination to history with a seventh grade class in geography in an indifferent public junior high in Michigan, taught by the JH football coach. Even more specifically to a couple of essays I wrote about the Visigoths in said class ( I no longer recall what the fuck Visigoths had to do with a geography class, really ). But I was certainly an exception to the rule. And I could do all the countries of the world ( minus itsy island nations ), before I could do the states of the Union :D.
Yep. Themselves invaders of the East Roman Balkans, that were then co-opted by a branch of the Turkic Bulgars. Similarily as we all know the Rus started out as Scandinavians. Moreover it is quite probable that the Serbs and Croats started as Indo-Iranian tribes that established themselves as the ruling elite of Slavic populations ( the words “Serb” and “Croat” are apparently not Slavic in origin ). We can’t be certain in the last case, because if that was the process, it happened before the Serbs and Croats entered the Balkans. But there are enough tantalizing hints to suggest it is at least a reasonable hypothesis.
All of which has little enough to do with Bulgaria’s history as an Ottoman possesion, really. But it is slightly ironic ( not illegitimate necessarily, just ironic ) that modern Bulgarians lament their conquest and occupation by the Turkic Ottomans, when their own nation owed itself to Turkic invaders.
Hey, we did too! Of course, that’s because it (the Vietnam War) was actually going on at the time.
I’d love to launch a rant on the deplorable geography knowledge of US citizens, but I just can’t decide which stupid anecdote to lead with. Maybe later.
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( though, admittedly, not Oghuz Turks like the Ottomans ).