Some years ago I asked some very bright high-school students from one of America's better high schools just a few questions about American history. According to them, the American Civil War occurred in the 1920s, "Didn't it?" Other answers I do not remember, but of a kind. This a gross failure of their education. They also had unassailable high self-esteem; this too a product of their education, but this latter an intended product....

But history matters; clearly it should be taught better. But what is it? What is history? Lacking an answer to that, teaching it is the blind leading the eyeless. That is, what is it? What is its purpose and goal as history? How is it done? And to what end?

I thought Karp's essay was very good. What he does not say explicitly but is implicit is that the work of historians is guided by a philosophy of history. The relationship between the past and the future is often not given enough consideration. He rejects the idea that the past determines the future.

The central figure here is Frederick Douglass and his "Fourth of July Speech": https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/

Douglass found hope in a young America but one hundred and seventy years later America is no longer young. Have our ways become so entrenched that no real change is possible? I am hopeful enough to think that progress toward freedom, liberty, and equality is still possible but not confident enough to think it is likely.

What is history? Lacking an answer to that, teaching it is the blind leading the eyeless. That is, what is it? What is its purpose and goal as history? How is it done? And to what end? — tim wood

I think that history is one of the ways society recognizes and understands itself. It is a kind of social construction. If the politics of the past had become shaped by a predominant metanarrative, it would mean a dramatic societal transformation.

What is behind the new role of history in the US? — Number2018

The need to contextualize the current situation in the US. That is, Americans need to know why the world is the way it is right now. This applies to the rest of the world too. History shouldn't just be about remembering some facts about what happened before, it should help us understand our own world too.

I don't get it. Why can't both be taught? Patriotic slaves. Hmmmmm :chin:

People like to use high school curriculums as battlegrounds, which is kind of annoying.

All we can do is shovel facts and encourage them to think for themselves.

Certainly a balanced account of history is desirable. But is that possible these days in the USA?

Certainly a balanced account of history is desirable. But is that possible these days in the USA? — jgill

There's no way to force people to be neutral.

Some years ago I asked some very bright high-school students from one of America's better high schools just a few questions about American history. According to them, the American Civil War occurred in the 1920s, "Didn't it?" — tim wood

I used to worry about otherwise advantaged students not knowing when major events happened, like the Civil War, or not knowing big events happened at all -- like the holocaust. History matters to people who study or teach history, and to a few others. I think history is important, but it obviously isn't critical knowledge in a lot of fields. How much history does a dentist or an accountant need to know?

Does know the sequences of dates make people better citizens? Maybe. It's probably more important that people understand the difference between the messy truth and the official national narrative. It isn't just the USA. Every country has a messy history overlaid by a cleaned up national narrative. The truth is exclusive neither to the chaos of history nor to the museum-grade national narrative.

1776 or 1619? Either, neither, both.

Speaking of the end, in the end everything will be OK. If things aren't OK, it must not be the end

1776 or 1619? Either, neither, both. — Bitter Crank

All history is myth, designed to reveal ideals and enforce ideology. It is a political tool. Objective history is a video tape of events, no events prioritized, no events nterpreted, and no commentary provided. We embue with new meaning when we interpret.

All history is myth, designed to reveal ideals and enforce ideology. It is a political tool. Objective history is a video tape of events, no events prioritized, no events nterpreted, and no commentary provided. We embue with new meaning when we interpret. — Hanover

Henry Ford thought that history was bunk. You are right. History is designed to convict those who did not live up to the stated ideals as directed by current ideology, Yesterday Thomas Jefferson was a national hero and all-around renaissance man; today he's a white supremacist, slaver and a rapist. He still wrote the D of I, but that's now part o the prosecution's case. Political tool, absolutely.

Frederick Wiseman has made a series of films like those you describe: His camera observes people going about their day in various institutions--mental hospital, emergency room, welfare office, high school and numerous other places. There's no narration, no comment, no interpretation provided. The films are a history, not the history.

History books are of necessity more "A HISTORY" than "THE HISTORY". One book won't reveal the past fully, so one has to compare and contrast versions. No guarantees, of course, that one will form a coherent picture of the past, or an 'approved' picture of the past.

My personal favorite answer on an exam from a student:

Q: how was Julius Caesar killed?
A: He was shot.

Just awesome.

Today's "best practice" is tomorrow's nightmare. Welcome to progress eh.

Frederick Wiseman has made a series of films like those you describe: His camera observes people going about their day in various institutions--mental hospital, emergency room, welfare office, high school and numerous other places. There's no narration, no comment, no interpretation provided. The films are a history, not the history. — Bitter Crank

I've thought about this as well, and, even when there's just a recitation of the facts, there is still the decision as to what to report. If I named a film "America" and filmed a working class family, a poor inner city family, an affluent suburban family, a newly married couple, a single mother, or a returning marine, etc., each would tell a very different account of America. And of course, what they showed throughout these people's days would affect one's opinion of what American was about. What the film maker chooses to show is an editorial decision.

And the interesting thing is that regardless of what the film maker shows, all of it will be factual, but the myth that is advanced would be purposeful and subject to the intention of the historian. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do disagree with those who claim that really Thomas Jefferson was not all he's been said to be. Those people aren't correcting history and myth busting. They're just replacing the old myth with their new one. If they are able to do that, that signals only a shift in politics, not an evolution toward more accurate truth.

The other interesting thing is that if the myth is the focus as opposed to the facts, we need not focus on the black and white facts as much as what the story intends to tell. By example, we needn't worry if there were actually a tortoise and a hare, but we need to concern ourselves with what the message that the story is trying to convey. This mindset might also allow us to reconsider other ancient myths we jettisoned as nonsense and outdated due their literal inaccuracies, the Bible being an example. If the objection to a historical account is that the content is fiction and that objection is considered irrelevant under this analysis, that changes the landscape of the debate into one of "what happened?" to "what is important?"

Thomas Jefferson is a fraught topic from any angle. Take his reputation as a splendid architect. I read a thorough history of Jefferson's work on Monticello several decades ago -- sorry, can't remember the author. One might picture Thomas the architect Jefferson carefully planning the house, executing the construction, then living in it happily ever after. Not so! The house was never done. Jefferson would periodically rip out finished parts and redo them. His family had to put up with construction for much of the time. If divorce had been easier back then, he probably would have lived by himself.

On the one hand, he fashioned a hidden door-closing device (nice feature) but installed narrow steep stairways that were not at all charming. The smallish square windows in some of the second floor bedrooms are at floor level, and while the big dome room is interesting, it probably wasn't very usable -- very narrow stairway access, extremely hot in the summer, inconvenient window height, etc. The exterior has a splendid appearance; none of the rooms inside the house were the same shape--lots of odd angles and sizes. Still, it was a pleasant place to live, one would think.

Jefferson apparently had more ideas in his head than he knew what to do with.

And the interesting thing is that regardless of what the film maker shows, all of it will be factual, but the myth that is advanced would be purposeful and subject to the intention of the historian. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do disagree with those who claim that really Thomas Jefferson was not all he's been said to be. Those people aren't correcting history and myth busting. They're just replacing the old myth with their new one. If they are able to do that, that signals only a shift in politics, not an evolution toward more accurate truth. — Hanover

In our situation, ‘an evolution toward more accurate truth’ is left just for professional historians who can stay protected by relatively stable rules of their academic game. For non-historians, there is the choice between the two incompatible versions of history. Both are ideologically and politically motivated constructions.

Jefferson apparently had more ideas in his head than he knew what to do with. — Bitter Crank

It seems your beef with our late founding father was his lack of sense of style and impractical design features. I say maybe you judge him too harshly on those side ventures, and you look more closely at his areas of expertise, like politics and philosophy.

Yet, he asserts that “Leaving behind the End of History, we have arrived at something like History as End.” — Number2018

I wonder what that's supposed to mean. Must I read the damn essay to understand?

If he means that history is an exercise in rhetoric, meant to serve a particular end by persuasion and, if necessary to the end, by simple and superficial contrivance, then it no doubt has been that, and is that where the 1619 Project is concerned. Claiming an a single incident which took place when a privateer snatched 20 enslaved Africans off a Portuguese ship and brought them to what is now Virginia in 1619 "started it all" isn't credible.

I think it's more likely other factors played a part, and that it's as certain as it can be American institutional slavery would have come into being even if instead of the 20 enslaved persons, Jesus Christ himself, his mother, the apostles and all the saints had been brought to the shores of British colonial America in 1619. The Spanish and the Portuguese had been vigorously pursuing slavery just next door (relatively speaking) for years. It was legal in Great Britain until 1833 (abolished effectively in 1834), and enslaved Africans would have been transported to British North America regardless of this incident. There's no question that slavery greatly impacted the U.S. and still does, but it's not necessary that it result from a single cause or event nor is it reasonably to claim it does.

I was judging him harshly? It is a good thing to have more Ideas than you know what to do with. Had his mind been a quiet shallow pool, the D of I and more would not have been written.

Jefferson was a man of many parts -- a "renaissance man" -- with 360º of interests. Nobody (save me and thee, and even thee...) can be consistently superior in all aspects.

Yet, he asserts that “Leaving behind the End of History, we have arrived at something like History as End.”
— Number2018

I wonder what that's supposed to mean. Must I read the damn essay to understand? — Ciceronianus the White

No, you do not need to read the essay. Matthew Karp means that we deal now with a new, extremely politicized function of history.

I think it's more likely other factors played a part, and that it's as certain as it can be American institutional slavery would have come into being even if instead of the 20 enslaved persons, Jesus Christ himself, his mother, the apostles and all the saints had been brought to the shores of British colonial America in 1619. — Ciceronianus the White

You are right, the event of 1619 has no importance. Karp, a historian, knows it well. However, his essay is not historical; it is about the politics of the past. It is a protest against the newest role of history.