4 ms·

Understandable, but also somewhat proportional? There's 250 years of US history vs thousands of years for many European countries. Of course you need more time

by Radim 8y ago

Understandable, but also somewhat proportional? There's 250 years of US history vs thousands of years for many European countries. Of course you need more time to cover that. On topic: Iran is an absolutely stunning country. Second to none with respect to its nature, people and history. What happened there with the Arab conquests (and especially since the Islamic Golden Age), their sad and unsuccessful struggles for independence, is a crying shame. But still one of the proudest, most beautiful regions of the world.

joshvm 8y ago
Aside from the fact that Columbus sailed over in 1492... This only serves to highlight the problem even more - 250 years represents what you might call "modern" America, i.e. the post-Columbian era. Native American history is tens of thousands of years old and we learn very little at school (in Europe) aside from the stereotypes that the film industry and other cariacatures afford. I think we learned a bit about Columbus in the UK (I assume Spain does a better job)? We never learned about South America at all, save that it was something to do with why we kept looting Spanish ships. Neither did we learn about the Middle East which seems bizarre, given its role in early civilisation. Europeans are (largely) either descendants of one of the ancient empires or were significantly affected by them through conquest. The native Americans (in both hemispheres) were on the receiving end of European conquest and had their culture decimated or plundered. There's also a lot of very visible (and impressive) Roman, Egyptian and Greek culture lying around to visit, not to mention extensive written histories of all three. While there are similar sites in the Americas, there are fewer and they're often less visible or are quite inaccessible.
- e12e 8y ago
  While there's certainly a gap in the teaching of other cultures in most (all?) modern education, do note that (here from Wikipedia): "History (...) is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events." To the best of my knowledge, there's a limited written record from the North America prior to the invasion (" discovery") - apart from in Norse sagas chronicling the viking arrival around 1000 AD (and while the sagas are an important source, they're hardly known for their reliability, in part because of the often long gap between events and when the sagas were first written down). Both south and north American indigenous civilizations were AFAIK largely without a written record.
  - AlotOfReading 8y ago
    That is a controversial definition that many academics criticize because of the ridiculous questions it raises. Most Archaeologists and anthropologists use broader definitions of history that encompass a whole host of non-literary sources precisely because it's stupid to discuss whether Americans became historic the second someone happened to write about them in 1492 or if linear-a tablets need to be translated before Minoans are considered historical.

by Radim 8y ago

joshvm 8y ago

Aside from the fact that Columbus sailed over in 1492... This only serves to highlight the problem even more - 250 years represents what you might call "modern" America, i.e. the post-Columbian era. Native American history is tens of thousands of years old and we learn very little at school (in Europe) aside from the stereotypes that the film industry and other cariacatures afford. I think we learned a bit about Columbus in the UK (I assume Spain does a better job)? We never learned about South America at all, save that it was something to do with why we kept looting Spanish ships. Neither did we learn about the Middle East which seems bizarre, given its role in early civilisation. Europeans are (largely) either descendants of one of the ancient empires or were significantly affected by them through conquest. The native Americans (in both hemispheres) were on the receiving end of European conquest and had their culture decimated or plundered. There's also a lot of very visible (and impressive) Roman, Egyptian and Greek culture lying around to visit, not to mention extensive written histories of all three. While there are similar sites in the Americas, there are fewer and they're often less visible or are quite inaccessible.

e12e 8y ago
While there's certainly a gap in the teaching of other cultures in most (all?) modern education, do note that (here from Wikipedia): "History (...) is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events." To the best of my knowledge, there's a limited written record from the North America prior to the invasion (" discovery") - apart from in Norse sagas chronicling the viking arrival around 1000 AD (and while the sagas are an important source, they're hardly known for their reliability, in part because of the often long gap between events and when the sagas were first written down). Both south and north American indigenous civilizations were AFAIK largely without a written record.
- AlotOfReading 8y ago
  That is a controversial definition that many academics criticize because of the ridiculous questions it raises. Most Archaeologists and anthropologists use broader definitions of history that encompass a whole host of non-literary sources precisely because it's stupid to discuss whether Americans became historic the second someone happened to write about them in 1492 or if linear-a tablets need to be translated before Minoans are considered historical.