I’m sure I spend a lot less time in the USA than you do in London, but although it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve heard some negative comments you’ll have to take my word for it that it cuts both ways. Apart from times when we seem to be fighting in a war together there are plenty of negative comments made by Americans about the British. Perhaps that’s because of what American kids learn about us at school?
I think you’ve got the right idea about how to respond. I hope they were suitably embarassed.
Also, although you’re right about people getting a lot of their education from TV, Uncle Rupert doesn’t have much influence over the type of channels that show history programmes over here (much to my relief). The BBC and Channel 4 produce some excellent history documentaries, and I recall an award-winning US-made series about the Civil War.
jjimm
I remember that thread. Well worth a read in case anyone missed it.
As far as I can remember, when I was taught history it went :
Stone age and stuff.
Ancient Egypt.
Roman Empire, Boadicea
Hadrian and his wall
Vikings
Normans
Loads of Kings and Queens and random dates.
Esp. Henry IV-VIII, Liz I and Mary Queen of Scots
All sorts of battles with France and Spain.
Victoria
WW1 and WW2.
And that’s about it. We didn’t really get a mention of anywhere outside of Western Europe, except for the discovery of America and our battles with Spain over its riches, and our discovery of Australia and sending all of our convicts there, and the tea route to India.
When I studied the Revolution in 8th grade, my teacher agreed with another teacher who was teaching the Revolution to try a new concept out. Everyone in the other class would be taught about the Revolution as had alwasy been done; from an American point of view. In our class, though, our teacher taught us everything from a Loyalist/British point of view. At the end of the semester, we had to partner with students from the other class and discuss what we had learned and the differences in thoughts about the whole conflict.
It was an intriguing experience, and one I think should be done in every school. You learn a lot about rhetoric and propaganda when you study history from someone else’s point of view.
Sorry for this distraction, maybe it’ll also help explain why the emphasis is not on the US Revolution in the UK …
What I used to like as a short-trousered kid growing up within 50 miles of London (maybe others came from farther afield, also ?) was the day trip with the school !
Packed lunch (eaten on the journey up on the coach, of course!) a crowd-controlled session around the Tower of London with a beefy Beeefeater or the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs by the zillion !) … so, so many ….
And then we also had the similar day trips outside of London to Stone Aged stuff, oh ! … I also recall the Roman Villa at Fishbourne !! a reconstructed medieval village, somewhere in Kent, maybe …. Castles by the dozen …… Brilliant days out !!
London_Calling I grew up in Cornwall and the day trips we had there were amazing! Either travel up to, wow, London! or going to see the tall ships race or various castles and tudor estates.
History in Cornwall is taught a little differently to the rest of England since most of the invaders and conquerors never really made it down that far and we tended to be a little more interested in naval history.
But wasn’t the U.S. the first British Colony to gain independence, and the only one to do so through force?
And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the U.S. also the first colony to break away from any of the European powers?
Re: the people who said they learned in high school and college the Colonists might have been whiners: Keep in mind many ( in fact, almost a majority) of the colonists had left Great Britain/Europe to live in the New World. And once there, they enjoyed a freedom from governmental interference and control unknown anywhere else in Eurppean experience. From their point of view, any attempt by the British government to take that away, through taxes or any other means, would be cause for great alarm.
I was just discussing this with someone the other day. We definitely learned about the Revolutionary War in school, but I have to say it didn’t make much of an impact, because I grew up in California, and we were so far away from the stuff being mentioned. They can tell you this is the story of the founding of your country til kingdom come, but when you’re three thousand miles and 200+ years away from these events, they aren’t going to mean much, especially to a kid.
OTOH, Spanish colonial history was a lot more meaningful. You don’t have to spend too much time in California to understand how deeply the influence of Spanish and Mexican rule is still felt.
Ahhhh… but according to David Icke, the Queen still 0wnz you!
Seriously though, I think my history lessons went pretty much along the lines of what brainfizz said.
As Twisty pointed out, (I’m one of the people who asks him lots!) there was very little taught about the situation in Ireland either, and I had no idea we owned Hong Kong until we gave it back not so long ago.
There are still a couple of countries left with the Queen as their head of state, (eg Australia) but we have no real power over them anymore - nor would we try to exercise it! (Although it would be good for a laugh ;))
Scotland now has it’s own parliament again, Wales has it’s own assembly, and there is an unofficial parliament in Cornwall, but no-one really seems to be too overly interested in it, we’ve been lossing bits of the “empire” ever since we got 'em in the empire in the first place. As Lissa experienced, most peoples reaction seems to be “Colonies come, Colonies go”
I’m not that long out of secondary education here in Scotland and I’m pretty sure we never touched on the American Revolution. We did do something on the Easter rising though.
Certainly I find it difficult to get worked about.
Also with a few exceptions I don’t think the loss of Empire is a very big deal these days. Possibly it’s more of a thing in England.
I am an American, but I work with a large number of Canadians. We have the “what did you learn about in school” conversation all the time.
With regards to the Revolutionary War, one of the interesting aspects breifly mentioned earlier in this tread was that the nascent USA invaded Canada during the war, ostensibly because Quebec was allowed to maintain it’s Catholic religion (among other reasons). I’ve recently run accross a few different mentions of how big an issue Catholicism was to most colonists at the time. Remember that the revolutionary war was before the big wave of Catholic Irish immigration. Most of the immigrants at that time had fled Catholic countires. Of course, I didn’t learn any of this in school. Canada was a threat because “If the English don’t invade us from there, the Catholics will.”
Another interesting side note is that the USA (in various forms) has tried to invade Canada at least three times: as part of the revolutionary war, as part of the war of 1812, and then the Sein Fien took a stab at it just after the US Civil War. I hadn’t heard about this one until very recently, although some of my co-workers remember studying it in their history classes. It didn’t go very well for the Fenians, much in the same way that the US was never very successful. Canada is just too cold!
Sein Fien- Invade a neighboring country, eh? I’ve got a good idea… Something to do with Canada…
ghost of Hitler- Invading an arctic country. This is a bad idea, trust me.
SF- No, it’ll work, trust me…
later
SF- Sure was chilly up there, eh?
*****************************
On a side note, Kyla is absolutely correct. Here in California, we learn much more about Spanish/Mexican influences… but I have since learned that even then, what we learn is just as much dogma and rhetoric as the Rev. War stuff is over on the East Coast.
Wow, this really took off. I tried to reply a few days ago and lost it. I’ll try again.
I had never expected the American Revolution to be a small part of English history, though it makes sense now after reading posts by British Dopers. I thought the loss of such prominant colonies would play a larger role in history.
I never really expected the present feeling to be resentment or spite. It would be stupid to suggest something like that, especially because of the trading I presume happened during the 19th century and the world wars.
"Twas not while England’s sword unsheathed
Put half a world to flight,
Nor while their new-built cities breathed
Secure behind her might;
Not while she poured from Pole to Line
Treasure and ships and men—
These worshippers at Freedom’s shrine
They did not quit her then!
Not till their foes were driven forth
By England o’er the main—
Not till the Frenchman from the North
Had gone with shattered Spain;
Not till the clean-swept oceans showed
No hostile flag unrolled,
Did they remember that they owed
To Freedom — and were bold!"
My thoughts? shrug A bunch of colonial politicos thought they could make out a casus belli, they held some strong views over who ought to be running the country, i.e. them, and once the dust had settled, the winners wrote the history books - at least the ones that were going to be read in their country.
Had the colonies remained British, they’d probably have ended up much like Canada or Australia, and I really don’t see how that would have been so terrible. But the whole topic, as the other Brits on the thread have stated, doesn’t occupy our thoughts all that much.
As some others have said, it only really irritates me when unusually silly films paint us evil British rather blacker than we deserve. The rest of the time… well, I’d say I’ve been, on the whole, pro-American all my life.
Malacandra: Very good points. It’s unfortunate that so many basic ideas about history come from the movies, and that most movies exaggerate things (or falsify them completely) for the sake of drama. I understand there was this English guy named William something who did the same thing a few centuries ago in theatrical presentations.
That’s good, but if we were like Canada and Australia we wouldn’t play nearly as big a role in the world, no offense to Canadians and Australians. I say not as big a role because the revolutionary spirit led Americans to build the nation non-stop. I know it sounds romantic, but it did. Had the revolution died out and the colonies made independent peacefully and mutually, there would have been no urgency to build.
But this isn’t about us. It’s about how Brits feel, like I asked in my OP, which I strayed from.
The general consensus over there seems to be the final transition was sometime around 1900 and the events in China, if not World War I. Many of the posters have pointed out “not friends” episodes ranging from the war of 1812 up through the civil war and after, although the US and Britian were officially allies against the Barbary pirates in the mid 1800’s.
Oops, I meant General Question, not Great Debate. Although, if you skim the thread, you might agree with me that it’s borderline which way these kinds of questions go.
