It’s true that in American high schools, there is very little attention given to the English civil war. In my World History class, it was ancient Greece and Rome, a rush through the medieval times, a rush to the Industrial Revolution, then to the World Wars and way too much time dedicated to Israel and the Cold War.
However, in college, this isn’t the case. My very first American History college class featured an entire lecture on Martin Luther and another lecture on Cromwell and the English civil war. I found his approach to teaching American history with a heavy dose of European history to be perfect.
One of my cats is named after him. The other is named after Prince Rupert and I’m guessing that he might come in at 100:1 ( Canadians would presumably do better ).
Just because you happen to disagree with someone’s politics doesn’t mean you should get rid of their statue.You cannot re-write history and things like statues contribute towards the rich tapestry of a country’s historical past. At the time, Cromwell had his followers so you have to try to take a balanced view on the pros and cons pertaining at the time. There was nothing particularly great about an absolute monarchy and if Cromwell’s regime had continued things could have worked out, I’m no expert so I don’t know.
Obviously, it wouldn’t be right to have a statue of Hitler on display since he was responsible for so much genocide, although having said that what about the Roman Emperors? I guess it’s more relevant in modern times so we have to look at each case on its merit.
As to Cromwell, his reign (and I think it was a reign, he was King in all but name - plus his idiot son inherited the Lord Protector title, IIRC) did substantially limit the powers of the monarchy - which is a really good thing - and changed the nature of British power. I don’t have an issue with him at Westminster - I would in front of Buckingham Palace.
But I’m American. I happen to like the British Constitutional Monarchy as it stands. The consistency a monarch give you to “advise” is something we sorely lack - and it Elizabeth you’ve had sixty years of someone who is pretty intelligent and aware. I’m sure you get your duds - and it seems many people are not looking forward to Charles’ (probably short) reign, but the PM smiling and nodding at Charles once a week for a few years seems a reasonable price to pay. And I know that the monarchy costs a lot of money - but so does our Presidency - especially currently - and we aren’t getting the tourist dollars off of mugs with Trump’s mug on them.
This surprises me, you would imagine that American kids probably don’t have all that much American history to learn, only a few hundred years or so - which is after all just last week - you’d think that US schools would import a little more
My daughter is a Senior in high school, my son just graduated. They had Global Human Geography, World History, American History - just in high school (the Senior year social studies coursework is Econ and PoliSci). She also had the dumbed down version of American History/Geography/World History in middle school and quite a bit of it in elementary school.
That said, there is a ton of History to cover. World History is “non-Westernized” - in other words, we don’t choose to learn Britian’s History - we learn Britain as well as France as well as China, as well as Africa, as well as Japan, as well as…well, you get the point. 4000 years of human history is a lot to cover, and Britain doesn’t get a ton of focus in high school.
A whole year of American History when we don’t even have 250 years to cover - well, they start with Native Pre-History. What was this country like before Europeans even got here. Then we get exploration, and colonization, and revolution - its November before we even have a United States to study. England 66 monarchs that cover 1550 years, the U.S. crams 45 Presidents into 20% of that time - and even William Henry Harrison needs his fifteen minutes (which is only slightly shorter than his presidency)
I know Cromwell gets covered in both the regular World History and AP World courses, but it might not get cemented in with the French Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, the colonization and independence of India, the Pinochet reign in South America, the Shogunate, the Mongol invasion, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and how the Polynesians migrated all the way to Hawaii.
Polynesians actually may have made it to the South American coast around the time the Vikings were colonizing Greenland. Although it is the subject of some controversy.
Sweet potatoes, which are a South American crop and don’t survive immersion in water well, were present among Polynesians around 1000 AD, and there are also arguments for trans-oceanic voyages made on the basis of coconuts, chickens and IIRC the bottle gourd.
It, of course, depends on what pace you teach the course at. In my high school, the history classes and literature classes were often tied together. You’re studying ancient Rome and reading Julius Caesar, The Scarlet Letter was read while we learned about colonial life in American History, To Kill A Mockingbird was tied in with the civil rights struggles.
Also, at my school, history classes were also used as convenient place to dump a lot of other miscellaneous topics. There were always a couple of weeks devoted to anti-drug propaganda. There were also interruptions for various lessons about college applications.
( Canadians would presumably do better ).