– it’s okay to have interests that are specific to one area/culture, but don’t ignore the role nonwestern cultures have played.
– For the love of God don’t get historical information from video games, and be careful what you learn from YouTube.
– This connects to the “rarely reads actual history books” part. Pop history is very accessible and some can be good, but then you run the risk of things not being up to academic standards. We make fun of the History Channel yes but it’s warranted, I read am article they posted on one of my main historical interests and it was almost entirely wrong. Read some actual academic books ffs, not just the stuff you find at Barnes and Noble. And you also run the risk of picking up, say, Dan Jones.
– Who brings us to the warrior culture idolization. Our old friend Dan Jones* only likes the English kings that were warriors, like Edward III and Henry IV, and not kings like Richard II, ignoring the bad things the kings he like did and the good things the ones he doesn’t like did. And basic idolization ignores the reality of war and of the negative cultural factors that made those warriors, like in Sparta.
– Military history is important and can be fascinating, I’m especially interested in the Hundred Years’ War, the Burgundian-Armagnac Civil War, and the Vietnam War. But without taking into account all the other fields of history you only get part of the story.
– Yes history involves facts, obviously, but it’s not just a case of knowing those. You have to put them together and understand why something happened and be able to explain it, and see its significance.
Also does no one remember the starter pack meme the whole point is a collection of usually simplified examples that are associated with a particular thing, and this indeed describes a lot of people, who have a limited experience of studying history and view it from a narrow perspective that may be informed wrong and then cry when they’re told they need to study more to get a decently well-rounded understanding of the topic.
*Who is also ableist and homophobic to boot but I doubt the people this is aimed at would care.
Idk, this reeks of snobbery and gatekeeping. And I’m very pissed they throw in Dan Carlin’s excellent series as something to look down on.
God forbid anyone ever have casual interests
It’s not about casual interest it’s about interest with a narrow mindset of “only this part of history is important” (which is repeatedly seen in the notes of this it’s hilarious really). You don’t have to read a ton of scholarly books but at least 1) check your sources, places like YouTube are accessible to any schmuck with a camcorder and if I caught that an article on History Channel’s website got everything wrong on something I knew, what does it say for things I don’t know about and 2) don’t complain when you want to sound like you know a lot about history as compared to just saying you have a casual interest and someone suggests you consider more than the one part you like.
I am absolutely a Shakespeare snob. The difference is, Shakespeare is one man who wrote nearly 40 plays. History can be broadly defined as every thing that has ever happened anywhere before today. It’s too vast to be snooty about what people like.
I’ll agree that people who parade around acting like they’re an expert, when they barely know the wiki bullet points of a subject, are obnoxious. But who are you, or anyone for that matter, to castigate someone for delving into what interests them at a level not up to ‘Academic Standards?’ Even if they’re wrong and obnoxious, it’s not anyone’s job to police what someone “should” be learning about. Gently (or not gently) educating the general public about the finer details of things like art, history, science, writing, etc. has always been a pain for those who actually know what they’re talking about. It just is what it is. Frankly, I’m thankful there are people who have an interest in history in the first place.
Returning to Shakespeare, while I do get uppity about the reading and interpretation of the plays, I’ve never shamed people who only know the popular ones. I’ve never, for instance, said “Ugh, Hamlet is overrated. People should like X obscure play, cause it’s better!” That’s gatekeeping. I’ve never created a “Starter Pack for people who think they know Shakespeare,” and then just posted a bunch of pics of Midsummer photo edits, Romeo & Juliet quotes, and David Tennant as Hamlet. Cause that’s shitty.
You’re not listening to what I’m saying. I’m not saying you can’t be interested in one particular historical topic or period or event. I’m interested in military history– medieval, American Civil War, Vietnam– I’m talking about people who are so narrow-minded they think their topic is the ONLY one that matters, so I say the only thing that matters are the battles fought in the Vietnam War and I don’t think the sociopolitical issues in Indochina and then the two parts of Vietnam matter, because it’s not strictly military history it’s not worth studying. I’m talking about the mindset of people like this:
Buddy I teach history and you’re not going to learn everything from military history, especially about women, because in my experience unless you talk specifically about women, their role in warfare has been greatly marginalized. Art history is for people who are interested in art. Gender history exists because people exist, it’s just a part of social history. You’re not going to learn everything from just one perspective, don’t act like you can. Tell me, from your knowledge of the Hundred Years’ War, the political significance of the bilingual poetry of Charles d’Orléans. Oh wait that’s for sissies isn’t it. These are the people castigating others for what they want to learn, not me.
History is NOT just a series of wars and massacres and invention for more slaughter even though it seems that way (and I get very depressed thinking of it). If you say you know a lot about history, you’ll know it’s more than that even if you study just wars.
And the reason I’m so obnoxious is this is actually my job. I teach history. It’s like if it was math someone was interested in and said they knew a lot about, but they only know one part of it and they get things wrong. History doesn’t have set answers, that’s just an example of the same behavior. I said you don’t have to read big academic books on a topic. In fact those are usually not readily available to amateurs, you should see how much the book of Charles’s poetry I got for my birthday cost, it wasn’t pretty. But just be careful your source is good. That’s also part of my job, how to use good sources. An adult should know how to evaluate what’s a good source even if they’re not writing papers. Evaluate bias: because he only likes masculine warrior kings, Dan Jones is harsh on kings he doesn’t like, which gets gross with his evaluation of Edward II’s death and his ableism toward Henry VI that gives an inaccurate portrayal of the War of the Roses.
I’m teasing you about being a snob, it’s funny that you’d use that term to describe someone’s behavior and your own. It’s like me saying someone is pedantic, as that’s what I am. (Kinda funny you’d use hamlet as an example too lol). It’s a joke.
There are people like this out there? I hang out with some pretty cool history people. We all have our specialties. Some of us majored in history some work in history some just know things. Some people are broader than others, some know a lot about a few things, some know a little about a lot of things
But who
Thinks
Military
History
Is
Only history
And I say that as someone who learned basic tactics because Alexander the Great would have wanted her to. Our history is way bloody: wars lead to more wars. But I think the biggest flaw in how history is taught is making it a string of battles and kings and generals. History is about people.
Yeah, there are, they just usually don’t become serious historians (meaning anyone called a historian of some kind, not meaning necessarily a good one) except ones like Dan Jones, David Starkey, that kind. You’re exactly right, it’s a major flaw in the presentation of history that it’s just battles and stuff, not the stories of actual people.
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