history books

i was just wondering do your history books say anything about the trail of tears, bombing hiroshima and other usa crimes

 

the Trail of Tears I learned from a documentary, the bombing was in my history book and the civil war was covered. But you also have to ask the question "did you live in the north or the south, east or west, because some of the information is colored to reflect the region. Like when we did some battlefield tours (not as boring as it may sound) in Richmond VA. Their write ups were all from the southern side, like wise if you research the north. Now if you think that Paul Revere and Robert Newman are terriorts instead of patriots then thats a whole 'nother slant. So you see no matter where you learn your history you are at the mercy of the author.

 

most people get their history from the news/ cnn. over in australia we have news too - one of my favourites is the "channel nine no news network " cnnnn. you are right - history is written from the perspective of the author, which is why you have to be suspicious when they write about marvellous victories won at some massive loss. if you want to have a structured understanding of history you can't look at one event or just an event itself. understanding history is about putting events and people into context. you will probably never see this written in any book. firstly look at the event itself, then look at why this event occurred, what led up to this event? then look at what was the outcome of the event, i mean what did it mean one day, one week, one year, one decade, one thousand years after that event? follow this train of thought and the world becomes highly illuminating. of course not everyone will agree that the historian should have a comprehensive understanding of history and will prefer the twaddle served up by the media, so to each his poison! good luck with your study!

 

My history book talks about the Trail of Tears. I don't know what it says about Hiroshima yet because we haven't gotten there.

 

and dont forget the japanese-american internment camps during ww2.
i dont know if our books say anything, i would have to check. i know we have never talked in depth about any of that kind of stuff though.

 

Because my cousin lives in germany and he says that they never learned about holokaust and other german crimes... and i think that's not fair... they don't know their crimes and they could do it again(not only germany but USA, Croatia(lot's of hidden crimes) and other countries)

 

We never learned about the trail of tears, or Wounded Knee, or that scalping was started by the Europeans, not the Native Indians. We didn't learn that in Canada in 1960 the government officially proclaimed Native Indians to be 'persons', and allowed them to vote. We didn't learn what happened to the town of Africville, Nova Scotia. Or about the Japanese-Canadian concentration camps in BC, which they later retroactively renamed internment camps. Or the shipload of German Jews we turned away from our shores. Only now are schoolbooks starting to say that maybe the settlers weren't as nice as they could have been. It's a start anyway.
History is the lie agreed upon, said Henry Ford.

 

you know whats sad? im 17 and ive never even heard most of this stuff before. they're still not teaching it. and i have to ask, what DID happen to Africville?

 

"History is a tale of war told by the victor"--(?).


Or in other words it's propaganda after the fact.
Nice thing about the age we live in is that if someone's interested they can get the other side of the story if they look for it.