It's the events that surround them that make them revered by history, not the man himself.

 

This makes me mad. Teddy Roosevelt was probably the most kick-[wagon] guy ever. Having him as the leader of early 20th century United States? He should have a whole damn chapter.

 

 

 

My AP U.S. book had plenty on Teddy Roosevelt. He is one of the Presidents that get a lot of coverage, for good reason.

 

 

 

For us Brits I can't really say what'd go down. The London Bombings, hosting the 2012 Olympics might get a mention. Other than that as far as I remember nothing of great consequence has happened here. A lot of the news we have is gone within weeks. Like the MP expenses scandal, it'll all be forgotten soon enough.

 

 

 

The Olympics get almost no mention in history books, so London hosting it will be largely ignored.

^Yeah.

 

 

 

It's the events that surround them that make them revered by history, not the man himself.

 

This makes me mad. Teddy Roosevelt was probably the most kick-[wagon] guy ever. Having him as the leader of early 20th century United States? He should have a whole damn chapter.

 

 

 

That's a pretty pessimistic view you have there Barihawk. What kind of textbooks are you basing it on? My AP US History textbook had I think two separate chapters focusing on Teddy Roosevelt's era, with one of them being almost entirely about him and Progressivism. The coal miners' strike, his issues with Taft, the whole deal.

My history class at school was almost entirely about source analysis. I thought it was a useful class.

^Yeah.

 

 

 

It's the events that surround them that make them revered by history, not the man himself.

 

This makes me mad. Teddy Roosevelt was probably the most kick-[wagon] guy ever. Having him as the leader of early 20th century United States? He should have a whole damn chapter.

 

 

 

That's a pretty pessimistic view you have there Barihawk. What kind of textbooks are you basing it on? My AP US History textbook had I think two separate chapters focusing on Teddy Roosevelt's era, with one of them being almost entirely about him and Progressivism. The coal miners' strike, his issues with Taft, the whole deal.

 

 

 

As I said, in the history classroom it all happened from ???BC-1945AD.

 

 

 

We idolize the far past, though. The farther you go back in time, the more larger-than-life the Presidents become. Is this because they truly were heroes? (Don't get me wrong, I think Teddy was the absolute best President of all time). Or is this simply a tool of national hegemony providing us with a common thread of tales about men long dead that have been immortalized in stone and ink? To be honest, I hold onto the latter. The success of a President, and their legacy, will always rely on the times surrounding them. Lincoln in any other time would have been considered a Tyrant. But the Civil War gave him legitimacy to his actions. Andrew Jackson by any account was an arrogant fool, but the events surrounding his Presidency immortalized him in the annals of history. George W. Bush many of you dislike, but history will always remember him as the President who rapidly charged the nation after 9/11 and sent a message to terrorists worldwide that their actions would no longer be tolerated. Bill Clinton accomplished many amazing things during his Presidency, but will always be known for the AARP healthcare reform movement that forced him to change things in that regard. George H. W. Bush? Mediocre President happened to be in office when the Wall fell. JFK was an absolutely TERRIBLE President and would have been another Jimmy Carter if he hadn't been shot. The list goes on. It's not pessimistic, it's an understanding of what history is and why and how it's used.

 

 

 

Also, AP history = entirely different animal. You guys get a taste of what history is actually about, the analysis. That being said, it still does narrow down too much and very little effort is put into the recent past, which to be honest is some of the most relevant things that kids need to be learning about. However, it is still also very limited. History for all intents and purposes is nothing more than fact recounting (even in AP) until you get to the graduate level. Then the gloves literally come off.

Yeah, I was going to say something about the emphasis on the more distant past but got tongue-tied (keyboard-tied?) I think hindsight becomes easier the further back it stretches. As history is about looking back and understanding what makes an age tick, it's difficult to do so with a period that is more recent and therefore still has ongoing consequences. Roosevelt helped shape our world, and we can say that because we have a clear picture of the world both before and after him.

 

 

 

Then, though historians still fight about stuff constantly, it's easier to lay down a general picture accepted by all that can go into a book of common knowledge. More recent events haven't been debated enough for a common ground to emerge.

 

 

 

I wouldn't say that pre-1945 is left out, though. The AP exam (different animal though it may be) goes up to Kennedy and the Cuban Missile crisis. There's quite a lot about that, and also Watergate. But after that, events are more summarily handled.

 

 

 

EDIT: Whoah big edit. Hopefully this is still relevant :P

I think the popularity of video games will be mentioned.'

 

 

 

Like in culture.

That's not to say that the USSR didn't also supply arms to the area, but it's pretty ignorant to think of the US in a "holier than thou" light.

 

While I never viewed the U.S as infallible you have convinced me that the U.S gives weapons to bad people, however I think with good reason, your first article states that they give them to dictators who oppose Islamic groups (I don't remember if it said radical but i hope they are radical) so, when your enemy is my enemy we are friends, for the time being they are "our bad guys" like Stalin.

 

All the stories are incredibly convoluted though, so we probably won't know the full truth until another decade or so.

 

You haven't convinced me that Saddam hated terrorists, just because Osama labeled him an infidel? I'd be pissed too because Saddam was killing perfectly good suicide bombers (this is if I was Osama) that I could use, and if what you say is true about him not being all into terrorism then there is another reason.

 

Except they had had a nuclear program, and that nukes are exactly what the inspectors went into Iraq looking for before the war. Everyone knew he had biological and chemical weapons, but western countries have had those since WW1, so the hooblah wasn't about those, it was about nuclear weapons.

 

You haven't convinced me they were looking for nukes either. No one took Iraq seriously as a nuclear power, even if his scientist say they were trying.

 

 

 

So your calling my arguments opinionated [cabbage] isn't exactly fair. But then again your views of what is acceptable (i.e giving bad people weapons to help us accomplish goals) aren't the same as mine and I hadn't made them clear. So going on that we are arguing about dictators, we don't live in a perfect world, sometimes bad/questionable things have to be done to accomplish good things.

While I never viewed the U.S as infallible you have convinced me that the U.S gives weapons to bad people, however I think with good reason, your first article states that they give them to dictators who oppose Islamic groups (I don't remember if it said radical but i hope they are radical) so, when your enemy is my enemy we are friends, for the time being they are "our bad guys" like Stalin.

 

True enough, but those are only the stories that the news media finds out about. I'm sure that if I dug around in WikiLeaks for a while I could find more sinister arms trades going on, but I don't actually give a [cabbage].

 

 

You haven't convinced me that Saddam hated terrorists, just because Osama labeled him an infidel? I'd be pissed too because Saddam was killing perfectly good suicide bombers (this is if I was Osama) that I could use, and if what you say is true about him not being all into terrorism then there is another reason.

 

Meh. My reasoning was that if he had no links to terrorists (as the Pentagon discovered he didn't), then he must not have liked them, considering that utilizing them for his own means would've been incredibly easy.

 

 

You haven't convinced me they were looking for nukes either. No one took Iraq seriously as a nuclear power, even if his scientist say they were trying.

 

I don't really have to convince you of anything. This is the same stuff that it starting up with Iran now, though.

 

 

 

So your calling my arguments opinionated [cabbage] isn't exactly fair. But then again your views of what is acceptable (i.e giving bad people weapons to help us accomplish goals) aren't the same as mine and I hadn't made them clear. So going on that we are arguing about dictators, we don't live in a perfect world, sometimes bad/questionable things have to be done to accomplish good things.

 

True enough.

Then, though historians still fight about stuff constantly, it's easier to lay down a general picture accepted by all that can go into a book of common knowledge. More recent events haven't been debated enough for a common ground to emerge.

 

 

 

 

That's the thing, though. History is completely subjective. It's 100% interpretation. Having met several key historians, this only makes me worry.

 

 

 

"Common Knowledge" for the most part is made up by lawmakers in order to create hegemony. Who discovered America? Ask any high-school graduate in America and you are most likely to hear "Columbus." And it's even more unlikely that the student can tell you the benefits of West-American interaction as opposed to the "common historical" interpretation that white man brought nothing but death to Native Americans (who miraculously appeared on the continent after Columbus discovered it, no less).

 

 

 

The entire point of teaching analysis is to teach kids to shed off their own opinions, do research on a subject (historical or not) and make a logical conclusion based on what they find. That's a core life skill that millions of people never/will never learn. And why not? Likely because the government does not want them to. We present an educational culture where it's ok to criticize the distant and "safe" past but not one in which it's ok to question recent government actions (especially the current ones) because history "isn't ready yet." It's a trend that's been happening in Education for the last forty years. It's one of the reasons I don a tin-foil hat and claim conspiracy that history, government, and economics are being phased out of general education (leading to a "dumbing down" of America. It only makes me more nervous that people speaking out at these healthcare debates (in recent news) get called "un-American" by the same leaders who create education. To me it's like they are trying to stifle opposition from the people, which is kind of scary and I am sure some of you are gradually starting to picture me as Glenn Beck by reading this, but I assure you that's not my goal.

 

 

 

There are only a handful of teachers out there who can manage to find the time to work analysis (real analysis) into their classroom because the states expect so much of us to teach facts. You can blame the States' educational committees for absolutely failing to work out No Child Left Behind by further increasing the importance of standardized testing and hence "teaching from the legislature" that is ruining education today. The shifting importance of teaching math and science (core skills defined by the testing) is leading to an absolute abundance of teachers in this field while creating less demand on the fields that are not as tested (such as history, government, sociology, etc) which are now becoming the domain of coaches who spend more time worrying about their lineups than creating an engaging educational community.

 

 

 

People keep failing to realize that the people who create healthcare reform are doing so never going to use it. They impose education reform while their kids go to private academies. They don't pay taxes. They spend money like it doesn't belong to them (oh wait, it doesn't!). People need to realize that without an engaged political society to keep the government in line, it's going to be led by upper-class people with their own agendas. Even the Founding Fathers had the major motivation to sign the Declaration in order to absolve huge amounts of debt owed to King George. That, to me, is kind of silly when you think about it.

 

 

 

People, and I mean the general population who has no intent to go to college because they make up the absolutely vast majority of this nation, need to learn the skills necessary to analyze current events and put them into perspective. Otherwise we will slowly become sheep, which is happening to an extent.

 

 

 

Also, because magekllr will jump on this. Republicans suck as much as Democrats do. Please don't feel the need to remind me of it with a dozen posts about various ® people I don't care about. I didn't vote for most of them, I didn't even vote for John Cornyn.

 

Then, though historians still fight about stuff constantly, it's easier to lay down a general picture accepted by all that can go into a book of common knowledge. More recent events haven't been debated enough for a common ground to emerge.

 

 

In addition to what barihawk said, it's extremely hard to do that for events that happened a long time ago, and every historian is incredibly biased. You could read one that focuses a lot more on political history, and another that focuses on economic or social or intellectual history.

 

 

 

As to what the OP said, in future history textbooks, the US will be mentioned less and less. Just the same as Spain after the Age of Exploration, the Dutch after the 17th century, and Italy after the Renaissance.

9/11, Obama, the recesion, Iraq war, me :thumbup: :lol: :pray: