History Bites is a Canadian show that asks what would daytime television look like if thay had it in Roman times? So you get snippits of Martha Stewart as a Roman matron, game shows, talk show hosts interviewing Ceasar and Brutus and telling barbarian jokes, sports reviews etc. Much more fun than textbooks.

The better question is what Rome would have looked like if there had been television.

> Rome would have looked like if there had been television.

wasn't there a Star trek episode similar to this?

Any episode with the Romuluns, I suppose. But my point was that history is boring because what is essential to it is extracted and kipped before the pulp is served up in schoolrooms for the delectation of closing minds.

is that it always seemed to me as if someone took 100 million hole-punch circles, dropped them in a tornado, and then the teacher takes the class around to visit a very few of those indivual circles and then takes us to a mountain top and says, "Now, see the pattern?"

"Woids kinnot exPRISS my disatisFECKshun."

Never once have I had a history class that was not accutely unpleasant.

OTOH, I can say the same thing about music. It's not clear to me whether the fault was with the teachers or the stubborn student or some combination. In any case, I'm at least aware now that history doesn't have to be such an miserable and uninformative experience. There are some writers who are at least able to go into the whirl of circles and trace out a few constellations of information and a few threads of knowledge in that mess.

There are some writers who are at least able to go into the whirl of circles and trace out a few constellations of information and a few threads of knowledge in that mess.

That's the beauty of it.

(And maybe it's holographic).

history is boring because what is essential to it is extracted and kipped before the pulp is served up in schoolrooms for the delectation of closing minds.
- Well, unusually harsh words from your side .
I suspect that history is only becoming interesting to people as they get on in years, observing the striking changes around them, and trying to explain. Youngsters, living mainly in the present, simply haven't developed the "organ" for it, yet. (our history teacher quite literally despaired of his task)

> Youngsters, living mainly in the present, simply haven't developed the "organ" for it, yet.

interest is wasted on the old?

(not calling you old, insel. <hug>)

I think that scool textbooks try to present history as a list rather than a story.

I think if they added depth to the characters, it would be more interesting. These were real people, they should make them three dimensional.

deleted: too emotional

i've always like history, and i remember the exact moment, it became wonderful.

i was still in my teens (just) already married, and a friend, (of my then husband, really) helped me pull my knowledge together..

he said pick a year, or 10 year period... i was slow, so he said--1860 to 1870--give or take..

what was happening in US? Easy--civil war, reconstruction.

in England? easy again, queen victoria on the throne, beginning of industrial revolution..

in Europe? well here, my knowledge was scetchier.. Ireland? the famine, german, some sort of political unheaval, Italy, more political stuff (and really this was US history --there was mass immigration from these countries into US, so it was sort of a back door knowledge)

in asia? china, japan? Boxer wars! (where did that come from.. Oh yeah, and gold was discovered in california, and there was chinese immigration (and railroad building going on in the west) Japan? Perry opened it (1859? so really slightly out of range, but... and again, this was american history to me, (not world history)

Arthur was impressed. and now he said --think about it..

gold in california--what did that mean to world goings on?
(westward expansion, as people went west to find gold, industrial revolution, meant more railroad building, (which meant coal mining (and developement of unions) and steel mills, and steam engines for ocean traffic (it was a long hard trip round the tip of south america.. which created a need for a faster route (and the start of the idea of a canal.. Wait..didn't the idea of canal come from what the french were doing in suez? looking for a faster way to orient? (again close in time, but out of range..)

and cities in US had rapidly changing populations.. mass immigration from several european countries, (and new conflicts.. poor, illiterate, irish (catholics!) and dark, southern italians..(more catholics!)--and the rise of anti catholic (and anti semitic) feelings.

and technology of different sorts coming out of china (china --the dishes) and technology going into Japan..

suddenly, all the seperate, endless facts of 12 years of schooling became a whole.. i saw the seperate peices, and how uprising, wars, famines in place A resulted in changes in place B, how technology that was just developing, (fancifull stuff!) suddenly became vital.

ships still had sails, but often they had steam engines too.
distances become measured in time.. (how long did it take to get from NY poverty to the gold fields of california?
take a train to Missouri, and overland by older technology from there.. ) and where did the miners get their laundry done? china! it was faster to ship it so far west it became the east!

i was strongest in US history, but.. there were so many things going on in US were influenced by world events.

and US stuff was influencing world stuff.-- the french supported the south in US civil war (they wanted cheap cotton for their mills) the english, the north, (they were already looking to india for cotton for their mills, and were quite happy france was having trouble getting cotton!)

Oh the wonder of it.. and its true for every year/decade.

Ok, the further back you go in time, it make more sense to look at 50 or 100 year periods of time.. but everywhere, at everytime, what A did, effected B, and what B did, effected A! i developed a world view.

(i always like to read history books with an atlas on hand, to be able to see on a map, the places, and routes. now, i went to another level entirely, and looked to see, if not a total world view, at least a broader veiw.. and its like juggling balls. its hard to keep track, and you can't look away for a moment. patterns change in an instant, and sometimes --disaster!

like James Burke - Connections

great minds...

from age to age...

But my point was that history is boring because what is essential to it is extracted and kipped before the pulp is served up in schoolrooms for the delectation of closing minds.

A few years ago, I was asked to teach a class in "The Anglican Reformation" at our diocesan school of theology. I am not a historian. I normally teach ethics and moral theology. But the historian left the faculty and there was an urgent need so I agreed. I wrote to several well known church historians, mostly on seminary faculties, and asked them how I ought to proceed. Some were very kind in sharing ideas and even syllabi. After considering an interesting variety of ways to approach the class, I struck upon my own -- the blame is all mine and not to be shared with my consultants.

I set forth as my premise that Queen Elizabeth I left purposefully unresolved all of the most vexing and contentious issues which now plague the Church of England, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. I teach the course by looking at the situation she inherited. That is sort of the backstory. Then I look at how she managed to hold England together, in light of what was going on in the Continental Reformation and in Rome. Finally I look at the church which resulted and the people who shaped it into its more enduring form. All of this is arranged around themes of tensions and issues which are hot today in the church.

And nobody dozes off.

All of this is arranged around themes of tensions and issues which are hot today . Clearly this is a successful approach, especially at a (higher) level, where students have already selected their field of interest. But at a more elementary level, the problem here is to keep a "balanced" view of the picture, so that the teacher avoids reproach of partiality - from the parents. Will everybody agree that it is a primordial goal to hold England together ? (cf. Russia today..) I suppose this is why we dwelled with Ancient Greece for such a long time .

FS: Great approach.

WS: Yes, the dumbing down of history isn't conspiratorial, it is unfortunately the result of pluralism.

bel, what you said: present history as a list rather than a story is perfect--that is exactly what was wrong with the history textbooks I had. Ho hum, another battle, yeah yeah...

Helen, I was quite interested in reading about your learning style! Once you saw the whole, all the parts fell into place for you. I never had much trouble seeing the whole, but--it was full of gaps, because I could remember so little about the parts.

Instead of "In 1350, King X's troops defeated Y", why can't someone write a textbook that reads more like, "King X, who came to the throne at the tender age of 14, was married to a woman who he never came to love: it had been a marriage arranged long ago, and it was a marriage for politics, not love. Though he was quite wealthy by the standards of the day, he often found himself thirsty: the summer of 1350 had been one long draught. The draught had made the peasants who worked for the king very uncomfortable--and worried. They worried about how they would pay their taxes, and it wasn't long until some of them were saying that the taxes were unfair anyway. The king's chief adviser was a troublemaker named Y--he knew that if something happened to the boy king, his cousin would become king, and then Y would have real control, because his cousin was a trusting simpleton. So he insisted to the king that the peasants would calm down after they saw that the tax hadn't bankrupted them..." Here you have: something personal to make this particular king more memorable; a painless way of establishing (and remembering!) what year it was, as well as a hint about what caused the Peasant Rebellion of 1350. Plus a way to continue into the future. (FTR, this was not meant to be an example of good writing, and certainly not for all grade levels; it was just to try and make a point.)

for me, it was easy to learn the parts--(i had borderline photographic memory (its no were near so good now))

i can't see the words (so i can't spell them) but i could see the text, the ideas behind the words, and once they went in my head, they lodged there..

recently, a friend was reading a knitting history book and i commented about it. (No Idle Hands, a history of knitting in America, anne McDonald) i pointed out a minor deficientcy with the book, on page 66 she refers to the american traditional leaf design counterpane --with out giving a pattern--at the time she wrote the book (the 1960's) many would have immediately know the pattern, but today, there are major fracture lines in the knitting tradition, and many are unaware of what pattern she is talking about..

the woman looked at me like i had 2 head.. but she opened the book, and glances at it, and yes, oh, yeah as i was reading this, i was wondering about the pattern..

the passage stuck in my head (i read the book in the 1980's (late 1980's but definately before i was divorced, so i can date it) it was one of the few faults i found in with the book, and lodge there, it remain, waiting for ...what ever.

(same thing happened with binary and octal numbering systems. i learned them.. umm early/mid 1960's--(post JKF assination, but before 1965) knowledge of them remained lodge in my head, until in 1982 i got a computer.. and suddenly, working in hex, (with cross references to the binary code) binary re-appeared--and learnign hex was a snap! (i still know octal pretty well too..)

i was quite good in subjects the simple required read and remember the facts.. but often bored. Arther made history wonderful he help me understand the facts had meaning.

lots of fact still lodged in my head --many haven't found the connections that make them wonderful, but i have a store house of facts, one day i might use them all!

AUGH--I thought there was something wrong with that! I shouldn't have been so lazy.

--
YES! I have been itching to mention "connections". A great concept, well executed on the page and on the screen.
--

I was thinking the exact thing while reading The Discoverers. It's like "Connections" taken to the extreme.

Is The Discoverers that book about the sea-going explorers of circa 1500-1600? I loved Connections so... sounds like I'd love that book.

this one: The Discoverers?

looks good, and only 85¢!!

The internet: world's greatest used book store.

> The internet: world's greatest used book store.

yeahbut the dating's not (always) so good...

BOOK BINDING

"Looking for love in all the wrong places," wrote songwriter Waylon Jennings for "Urban Cowboy". But some people are looking for and finding love in all the right places - like book shops. According to a survey conducted by BizRate Research for comparison shopping site Shopzilla, bricks-and-mortar bookstores are good venues for meeting blind dates.

After restaurants, they are the most popular locations to meet potential partners for both women and men (61 percent versus 52 percent). "You can find out a lot about a guy in a bookstore," Rebecca Opp, a production manager from Los Angeles told BizRate. "I especially look for single men in the cookbook, business, and pet sections". Yet when it comes to buying books, 78 percent of respondents say they are regular shoppers at online booksellers like Amazon.

Come here, sirrah, and I will "thaught" you! [/wink]