How do British text/history books treat the American Revolution?

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why? Are we painted in a bad light in US schools? I wouldn't be surprised. I heard they teach that America won the second world war pretty much by itself.

The English government of the period is painted in a bad light, yes.

And no, our schools do NOT teach that the US won WWII on it's own. On the contrary, the Brits are painted as tough as nails heroes who withstood the Battle of Britain and won North Africa.

Churchill is painted as a hero as well. Though Mongomery is rather scorned, his efforts are not.

D-Day history focuses mainly on the US because of the horrible time we had at Omaha Beach.

Well that's reassuring. I mentioned it because I've talked to Americans about this before - ask them who provided the troops for D-day they'll say America, whereas really it was about 50-50.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
there you go, they ignore the whole thing :laugh:

As Atheus said, there's not much to ignore 😉

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
So basically, they skip the whole ugly hundreds of years of British colonial imperialism and intrusion and jump from ancient rome to WWII. No wonder Brits are so damn snooty.....THEY'RE PERFECT!!!

Yes. Yes we are.


/snoot

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Kanalua
Lived in Northern Ireland for a while, all of the Unionist/Protestants refered to the United States of America as "The Colonies."

We mostly all say "The Yanks" or "The Colonies" if we're being sarcastic.


PS: We're just waiting for america to finally throw a huge tantrum and we'll revoke your independence, send you all to your rooms without dessert and slap the Union Jack all over your important buildings again. You'll spell "color" and "flavor" with Us again and you will learn how to drive with a "stick shift". Also 3:30-4PM each day will be nominated as obligatory "teatime" when everyone stops work for tea and crumpets. I say!

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: Amused
D-Day history focuses mainly on the US because of the horrible time we had at Omaha Beach.

I figure that's okay. You Yanks really did get the worst of the five beaches that day.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
So basically, they skip the whole ugly hundreds of years of British colonial imperialism and intrusion and jump from ancient rome to WWII. No wonder Brits are so damn snooty.....THEY'RE PERFECT!!!

Much more perfecter than what you is.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: Accipiter22

Originally posted by: Platypus
Probably as one-sided as American text books on the subject.. interesting though, maybe some UK AT'ers can reply about their school experience.

We don't portray the war as one-sided....It was a horrible hard-ship on both sides of the war, and each side nearly lost at least a half dozen times apiece before the Americans triumphed. I've never heard any book describe it any other way.

Where did I say the war was one-sided? I'm saying the information in the text books will be more one sided towards Americans... just like every other topic in American history books, mostly glazed over or the real truth is obfuscated.

Just like I learned how great Columbus was when I was in primary school and how we had a big party to celebrate his acheivements.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
So basically, they skip the whole ugly hundreds of years of British colonial imperialism and intrusion and jump from ancient rome to WWII. No wonder Brits are so damn snooty.....THEY'RE PERFECT!!!

Of course they mention colonialism, but the USA was only one of many many colonies, each of which has since gained it's independence. Should they cover all of them in school? Or just the Americas?

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: DVK916
You don't even learn about the War of 1812?

Sorry dude, no, I had to look that one up...

Remember that Britain has been around a long time, and has much much more history then the USA, so small wars don't really get covered. Even the American war of independence, a huge event for Americans, would have been considered a mere annoyance to an country which literally owned 1/4 of the earth's surface at the time.

http://www.regiments.org/img/maps/bemap.gif

The War of 1812 was really just an offshoot of the Napoleonic Wars, which I'm sure you cover.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why? Are we painted in a bad light in US schools? I wouldn't be surprised. I heard they teach that America won the second world war pretty much by itself.

The English government of the period is painted in a bad light, yes.

And no, our schools do NOT teach that the US won WWII on it's own. On the contrary, the Brits are painted as tough as nails heroes who withstood the Battle of Britain and won North Africa.

Churchill is painted as a hero as well. Though Montgomery is rather scorned, his efforts are not.

D-Day history focuses mainly on the US because of the horrible time we had at Omaha Beach.

http://qdb.us/28824

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why? Are we painted in a bad light in US schools? I wouldn't be surprised. I heard they teach that America won the second world war pretty much by itself.

The English government of the period is painted in a bad light, yes.

And no, our schools do NOT teach that the US won WWII on it's own. On the contrary, the Brits are painted as tough as nails heroes who withstood the Battle of Britain and won North Africa.

Churchill is painted as a hero as well. Though Mongomery is rather scorned, his efforts are not.

D-Day history focuses mainly on the US because of the horrible time we had at Omaha Beach.

Well that's reassuring. I mentioned it because I've talked to Americans about this before - ask them who provided the troops for D-day they'll say America, whereas really it was about 50-50.

Yeah, D-Day is kind of a special case since Omaha Beach was such a blood bath and Sword, Gold and Juno Beaches had relative cake walks.

 

[iamwiz82]

I recall spending quite a bit of time on British history. Hell, I remember weeks of Henry VIII.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
So basically, they skip the whole ugly hundreds of years of British colonial imperialism and intrusion and jump from ancient rome to WWII. No wonder Brits are so damn snooty.....THEY'RE PERFECT!!!

Yes. Yes we are.


/snoot

Let's be fair, if we're talking about history, I know of two pubs in Belfast that are literally older than the "Declaration of Independence".

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
http://qdb.us/28824

LOL, that was different.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Roguestar

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why? Are we painted in a bad light in US schools? I wouldn't be surprised. I heard they teach that America won the second world war pretty much by itself.

The English government of the period is painted in a bad light, yes.

And no, our schools do NOT teach that the US won WWII on it's own. On the contrary, the Brits are painted as tough as nails heroes who withstood the Battle of Britain and won North Africa.

Churchill is painted as a hero as well. Though Montgomery is rather scorned, his efforts are not.

D-Day history focuses mainly on the US because of the horrible time we had at Omaha Beach.

http://qdb.us/28824

:laugh:

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
I recall spending quite a bit of time on British history. Hell, I remember weeks of Henry VIII.

Wow, sorry about that.

 

[DVK916]

So you don't learn about the great pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed more people than WW1. Over 300,000 people in the UK died from it. Isn't that important to talk about.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: Amused
D-Day history focuses mainly on the US because of the horrible time we had at Omaha Beach.

I figure that's okay. You Yanks really did get the worst of the five beaches that day.

Yeah, but remember, all five beaches and who had which are taught to us in history classes.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: DVK916
So you don't learn about the great pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed more people than WW1. Over 300,000 people in the UK died from it. Isn't that important to talk about.

Who said they don't cover that 😕

 

[DVK916]

Most people in the U.S don't learn that Russia was preparing for a million+ troops to invade Japan.

 

[DVK916]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: DVK916
So you don't learn about the great pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed more people than WW1. Over 300,000 people in the UK died from it. Isn't that important to talk about.

Who said they don't cover that 😕

Well the other person said it goes from ancient history, to WW1 then to WW2.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: Platypus
Probably as one-sided as American text books on the subject.. interesting though, maybe some UK AT'ers can reply about their school experience.

my school books were not one-sided. we were taught and understood what the war was about and why we were fighting the brits, and why the brits were fighting us.

Interesting.. everything up to and including high school was ridiculous.. although once I was in high school history, my teachers taught the real history of things and even made fun of the texts if I recall.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Atheus
I don't think it gets much of a mention in schools to be honest - there's just too much British history to cover, so many colonies and wars and conflicts, so many important people...

In the history books they just try to tell the truth I guess. Why? Are we painted in a bad light in US schools? I wouldn't be surprised. I heard they teach that America won the second world war pretty much by itself.

Isn't there a saying that goes "History is written by the victor"?

 

[DVK916]

Not everywhere in the U.S is one sided. In my H.S and college we use Howards Zinn book which is very critical of the U.S, hell my H.S teacher even did this thing on the evils of american history. All of the evil things the U.S did, like massacare over 500,000 women and children in the filipines. How we nuked Japan for no good reason. Stuff you don't get in alot of other class rooms.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: DVK916
Well the other person said it goes from ancient history, to WW1 then to WW2.

I think most of the UK regulars are a decade away from their school days.

a) we won't remember every single thing we covered
b) we all studied to different levels under differing syllabuses