Curious on non-USian's answers

[godix]

What, if anything, were you taught about the US war of independence? 1812 war? US Civil War? I'm just curious how different non-american education viewpoints are on those topics compared to what US education system teaches.

[mirkosp]

We didn't get taught most of that stuff... in 5 years we had to start learning history from the very beginnings, so cramming everything together left us with just the time to talk about the important "whole world was involved kinda-sorta" stuff and things that touched us most directly like major european history.
Hedonistic US-only history wasn't really in the plans...

EDIT: ORG TAUGHT ME SOMETHING THOUGH!
CANADIANS BURNT THE LIGHTHOUSE!

YEEAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

[Kosmit]

Pretty much what Mirko said. We mostly concentrated on European and Polish history. There were maybe a couple of lessons about stuff that happened in North America and Kosciuszko's involvement in it, but that was nothing major. Too many things going on with Poland at that time (like the three partitions of Poland and multiple insurrections) to delve deep into american history.

[Niotex]

We obviously started with European history but I also had a basic amount of US history. I'm clearly lacking on the subject though. I'm more acquainted with stuff that happened in Asia mainly because of our European influences there in the VOC days. However from what I do remember and what I've learned over time on my own.. You guys were hypocrites <<

[mirkosp]

Well, to add something though, I did get taught about the war of independence and the civil war... 1812 was overlooked though, IIRC.

[Jnzk]

I had to check what happened in 1812 from Wikipedia. The independence and civil wars were given a few pages in history textbooks, if I remember right.

[Otohiko]

In Canada, obviously the US is kind of an interest area, even if not a primary one. Although I really had to wait till university to get into the details of US history other than US-history-as-relates-to-Canada.

In Russia, history in school is generally pretty Euro-centric. The US revolution is considered only in passing and, in some ways, only insofar as it is relevant to the French revolution (which is the big story of that period there). It's still seen as an antecedent to follow-on revolutionary action in Europe as well as the beginning of what would slowly become de-colonization. The revolutionary legacy to today's American political and legal system is something that is (unfortunately) not really mentioned. 1812 is likewise of very passing interest - the "War of 1812" in Russia means something entirely different, i.e. Napoleon's invasion of Russia (which arguably was far more significant and decisive anyway, and I'm rather irritated at North American history education largely ignoring it).

The Civil War is probably the biggest pre-WWII US story, although usually studied in broad sketches rather than detail. It's generally taught in a very pro-yankee, anti-slavery, good-guys-vs-bad-guys, national-unity-triumphs sort of fashion, but otherwise it's definitely seen as a major event on the world stage there.

Contrary to what one might think, at least up until the end of WWII, Russian historiography looks at the US in a fairly positive light and doesn't understate it too much, just doesn't really take a special interest in it. By and large, most focus is on European history and the US is very much on the margins of that until WWI if not WWII.

[godix]

Alrighty. Kinda what I figured. The reason I ask, I ran into some random site that mentioned various different perspectives on history. I wasn't surprised because you'd expect a nation to focus on it's own history and then history of the region it's in. But the website wasn't talking about that, it was going into how different nations have totally different viewpoints on the same events. Obviously an English person would have a really different view of the US Revolutionary War than an American would, but according to this site the differences were more than just that. This site claimed some countries view the War of 1812 as basically a continuation of the Revolutionary War rather than separate wars as Americans are taught. Other nations are said to view the War of 1812 as a part, although a really trivial side part, of the Napoleonic wars while Americans are taught we stayed out of the Napoleonic wars entirely.

Perhaps a better example would be a study I head about where a teacher asked his students to write down the first country they think of when they hear 'WWII'. Almost without exception, westerners wrote Germany while asians wrote Japan, even if the asians had been born and raised in a western nation.

Anyway, I was just curious on what sort of response I'd get with this question. I should have guessed 'barely heard of it' would be most common outside America.

1812 is likewise of very passing interest - the "War of 1812" in Russia means something entirely different, i.e. Napoleon's invasion of Russia (which arguably was far more significant and decisive anyway, and I'm rather irritated at North American history education largely ignoring it).

Actually, American education doesn't entirely ignore that. Napoleon is considered a big deal in US education. His invasion of Russia is usually covered, with the focus being on how huge of a defeat it was and how much the Russians suffered during it. I won't say most Americans know about Napoleon invading, because most people barely pass history, but it is covered a lot more than you would expect a nation that wasn't involved in the war to cover it.

Now WWII, you'd have a point there. US history classes barely mention that Russia was invaded, much less how influential that front was in the war.

[mirkosp]

US history classes barely mention that Russia was invaded, much less how influential that front was in the war.

And the Russian front was the first one to get to Berlin, too...

[BasharOfTheAges]

Maybe it's just me, but by the time we actually got to covering WWII in history classes in school in any detail, I was in an honors class in high school so we covered quite a bit of it in great detail from all the theaters. My 8th grade dose of US history was extremely broad... It Also happened when i was out for a week because of my grandmother's death... fucked if I remember anything we covered. The text book was so old it ended with a current events section that marked the start of the cold war.