How is the American War for Independance taught in the UK?

[Chris^^]

With a lot of you guys from across the Pond I am very curious as to how the UK treats this part in your history.

It wasn't in our curriculum at all during primary or secondary school. However I did cover it for a week in my first semester at university, the main areas of focus were the tactical lessons that could be learnt and analysis of battlefield performance, it was totally objective. As with pretty much everything I at least have studied.

 

[Farson89]

On topic- I never learned about it, I did SOME American history, specifically the old west and the natives. But nothing about independence.

Less on topic- Now that this thread is winding down I have to say that the level of butthurt from Americans and non-Americans alike has been absolutely delicious, it's nice to see that so many Escapists are insecure twelve year olds who need to brag about the achievements of long dead people only slightly related to them.

The sum up without butthurt, the American Revolution isn't taught because the influence it had on British history wasn't all that significant. By the same token it was (despite foreign aid) an impressive achievement by the colonists and of course America did go on to have a large role in world history, just not necessarily British history.

 

[Flac00]

I think it's the Japanese lack of interest in the history of WW2 that's sorta creepy. The only war crime the poms committed was wearing red and walking in a straight line. BTW the red coats were because some paragon of the British officer class thought it'd stop the men freaking out over the wounded, as you'd hardly notice the bleeding and screaming over the loudness of their jackets

Trust me, with what much of the Japanese military did, they do not want to talk about it at all. And for good reason. Kind of like how we in the US don't like to talk about the whole massacring the Native Americans thing, we just ignore it, even though we do know it was a dark time in our history.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Actually, my last U.S. History class had a common theme "We are douchebags". We covered imperialism, our unrightful taking of Texas, the Japanese interment, basically everything that we did wrong or were jerks about.

"Taking" of Texas? Texas ASKED to be a state, by it's own admission. That is what we were taught in my Texas History class. They won their independence from Mexico, mucked about as a single state for a bit, then applied for Statehood.

It was Mexico's. Then immigrants flooded in and basically took it over. It has been 4 years, please excuse my gaps in knowledge. I do remember that we essentially stole Texas. Many jokes were made in class.

Actually, my last U.S. History class had a common theme "We are douchebags". We covered imperialism, our unrightful taking of Texas, the Japanese interment, basically everything that we did wrong or were jerks about.

"Taking" of Texas? Texas ASKED to be a state, by it's own admission. That is what we were taught in my Texas History class. They won their independence from Mexico, mucked about as a single state for a bit, then applied for Statehood.

Yh i think he was trying to make himself sound morally superior by saying he knows all the bad things his country did but failed

Aren't you a bottle of sunshine?

 

[monkey-skitz 91]

since this is a game site i'm gonna throw in a quote from a game:


"History is written by the victor. History is filled with liars. If he lives and we die, his truth becomes written... and ours is lost. 'Cause all you need to change the world is one good lie and a river of blood."

Captain John Price, Modern Warfare 2

 

[Treblaine]

With a lot of you guys from across the Pond I am very curious as to how the UK treats this part in your history.

It isn't.

We do not have a comprehensive history syllabus, partly because our almost 1000 year history would take far too long to cover.

A bit on our Civil war of the 17th century, and World War 2, but that was it for when I did GCSE (mandatory) History level.

 

[Findlebob]

Isnt

 

[wierdman51]

However, the sudden loss of a giant portion (Well over four times the size of their current country) of a country's land seems to be quite a major piece of history that needs be covered.

Wait, WHAT? You had thought this whole time that America has been this exact size since the 1700's, and to top it off, that England had control of it? You're missing quite a few details on how the US got its shape.

If i may elaborate on your point here, if im am not incorrect, the British stayed to the motly coastal states and didnt go out past the mountains that much. Because of that, the french held a territory west of the British past the mountains called Louisiana, which encompassed an extremely large amount of land. And then the Spanish also held Mexico, Texas (I think), and Florida.
the British held a paltry sum versus the others countries of the Americas.

 

[Spygon]

Well from what i have been taught British citizen here is. After spending a large amount of money fighting the French the Prime minster at the time decided the quickest way to recuperate the money fast was too raise taxes in the colonies. This was another bad mistake that was the final straw for the 13 colonies who then stopped unloading the shipments of british taxed tea leafs.But in boston they wouldnt even return them to the British.After a while they threw a large shipment of tea leafs into the sea (the boston tea party). As transporting tea was very expensive in them days this was a major insult to the British empire and a sign of defiance from the colonies.

So the British sent over a number of troops but had under estimated the seriousness of the situation thinking we were just putting down a rebellion not an organised and European supported revolution from all 13 colonies. By the time we had realised the mistake the 13 colonies had wiped out a lot of the British troops. So the British couldn?t send any more due to them turning up to late and would be wiped out by the waiting 13 colonies.

So the British were forced to give up their claim to the country which was shortly followed by the deceleration of independence of the newly formed united states of America.

I think it is kinda skimmed on in British history is our economy was suffering so trying to put money into securing the 13 colonies would have been disastrous for the empire and shortly after Britain started the Industrial revolution that is a huge landmark in British history. So they spend more time covering that than the American revolution as obviously its going to mean a lot more to the Americans than us.

 

[Raesvelg]

It's hardly surprising; most countries tend to gloss over wars they lost, and/or stupid things that their government did, and from the British perspective, the American Revolution qualifies as both.

The odd thing for me is how these things are taught in the US from middle school on. It varies from state to state, school district to school district, and over the years. In my case, our ancient history and US history was fairly comprehensive; particularly on the US history side. There's a gap, however, in what was taught about the rest of the world from oh, say, the fall of the Roman Empire in the west up until the Napoleonic Wars. Rough summaries, but no particular details.

 

[soren7550]

I've wondered this before. I also wonder how World War 2 and the Holocaust are covered in Germany.

Lat I checked, Germany skips over the time from when Hitler began gaining power & influence to the end of WWII. My older brother went to Germany and they gave him a book about teh history of the country, and that whole chunk was missing. I don't know if he still has it or if he gave it to my mother.

 

[Mute52]

From America but i would assume it's not covered much in European nations, maybe in Britain schools because it involved them.

I think each country likes to change history a little to cover up their flaws, I remember being taught justification for American imperialism in Central America and 'skipping' that part of Vietnam where we lose.

Also i find it funny how everyone here thinks the French withdraw from all the wars they're in but seem to forget that we would still be an English colony without their help.

 

[gphjr14]

Well I won't pretend I know more than your history professor, but if your European history professor didn't watch Braveheart, how did he know if it wasn't accurate?

His appearance alone is totally off. His iconic blue face paint was something an occupying Roman soldier would've seen, that and he would've worn actual mail armor not a kilt. When you know enough about a time period you can usually tell from commercials and posters alone, how accurate a film will be. Movies are often meant to entertain, books to educate.

 

[Pillypill]

We don't cover it, or any of the Empires wars becasue we're the bad guys in those(mostly), I was taught about the world wars and things like the korean, afghanistan and vietnam wars.

As i understand (and i understand very little) Britain was placing huge taxes on trade and goods in the US, locals got sick of it, drummed up support from the french and then fought many battles most of which ended in horrible losses for te Americans until support finally arrived in california where the british were defeated.
Then the Brits never came back becasue of... I would think skirmish's in Canada with the French.

If i'm wrong by all means correct me; i dont actually remember where i heard all of this.

 

[alex2212]

we're taught it as a smaller battle in our relentless war against the french

 

[Goldenkitten01]

Ignoring the topic since it's pretty much been answered in full at this point. I just get a kick out of all the super nationalist "my nation is so important" posters here. Someone asks a question and dozens of people jump on them for thinking America is so important outside its own boundaries, but in doing so are really just saying "silly twats, it's OUR nation that's the best! Harumph-a-dumph!"

People are fun.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Do they teach how the British empire invaded South Africa? How they wanted South Africans to kiss their ass and be a part of their empire? How they burned the crops, homes and sent women and children to concentration camps when South African farmers said "no"?

Well then.

You know, the Japanese don't teach much of their role in the second world war at school either, apparently.

 

[Hector Haddow]

its not as far as i know its more worlds war 1&2, ancient British history and medieval British history (and Scottish history if you are north of the border)

 

[Gustavo S. Buschle]

Typical American arrogance to assume it's taught at all.

We teach the Magna Carta, John Locke, the Bill of Rights.

America is the most important country in the world. It would be remiss not to touch on its founding, especially when that event had ramifications that utterly remade Europe and South America.

Watch that black kettle there.

America WAS the most important country. Not saying it's not important anymore, just that there are much more important countries than America.

Name them?

I remember a few years back when pretty much everything had a "made in usa" tag on it. Now days most is made in china and the resources are from multiple countries in Africa. The US isn't leading much in the spatial exploration thing any more either, Japan is making most technological advances. Now what I wanna know is, what does the US do?

 

[JackandTom]

I did History in high school and I'm doing it in college know but the American War for independence has never come up on the curriculum. I was wondering the same thing for the War in Vietnam. We were taught from Britain's neutral view, but how is it taught in America? Are you told that you won? Just wondering....