You Won't Believe What We Found in These Old History Textbooks

[@iammrbeat]

The five events we focused will all be future videos on this channel, but which one should I make first? 1. The War of 1812 2. The main causes of the American Civil War 3. The presidency of Ulysses Grant (actually I'll probably look at his whole life) 4. The Philippine-American War 5. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident Also, don't forget if you're starting a website to visit squarespace.com/mrbeat to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code "mrbeat"

[@EagleGamer_]

Philippine American War

[@oofyblox4318]

E

[@oldteapot7534]

Philippine-American War, hands down.

[@iammrbeat]

@@oofyblox4318 You mean 5? lol

[@luisandrade2254]

Philippine

[@jeanhartely]

When I was a kid in the '60's, our history textbook talked about Andrew Jackson. It said that the Indians were "behaving badly," and that Jackson "punished the Indians." I read it to my father and he was furious.

[@Madronaxyz]

I was a kid in the 1960's also. Unfortunately I was in Texas. My high school government teacher only had one outside person come and talk to us. The speaker was a representative of the John Birch society. Unfortunately for the man from the John Birch society, my high school was in a suburb of Dallas and 70% of the students went on to college. About half of my class was from either California or the East Coast because their fathers had come to the Dallas area to work in computer companies. I was from a small town in Texas originally and also rather tongue tied so I did not participate in questioning the man from the john birth society. However my classmates tied him in knots with questions that made obvious propaganda that he was spewing. My AP government teacher was the wife of one of the football coaches. I guess that is how she got her job because she wasn't able to teach and didn't seem to know that much about government. For example on one essay exam, several students decided to just write as long as they as possibly could and see how the teacher braided the extra long essays. What she did was give one point for each sentence. Some students receive scores of over 200 because they wrote very long essays. I bet she hated us. On the other hand, my APUSH teacher was the head football coach. My high school had a really lousy football team and I don't remember it ever being winning. The history teacher wasn't able to make the team win either so he left after 2 years. This is one unfortunate because he was one of the best teachers ever had my entire educational career which extended into a doctoral degree. We studied American history by reading original documents and drawing conclusions from them and then comparing that to what the historians add written. That course really taught me how to think it came in very handy as I became a physician was often confronted with people with medical illnesses that required a lot of investigation to figure out what was wrong. I'm almost 70 and I unfortunately can't remember his name, but he had a positive impact on my life and the lives of my patients.

[@jeanhartely]

@@Madronaxyz Thank you for this very interesting story. What a shame that the football team was more important to the school than a critical review of history. You know what they say, those who fail to learn history are condemned to repeat it.

[@mike04574]

your father was different

[@jeanhartely]

@@mike04574 He sure was. I was lucky to have him!

[@Danielson1818]

Well, there you have it folks. The Indians were behaving badly, and had to be punished. I almost want to laugh, but this is the sh!t people were teaching. There is other people of your generation who soaked in that explanation.

[@snekula5353]

As a Filipino, I have always been surprised by how most Americans I meet online don't even know that the Philippines was an American territory for 48 years.

[@stevemccarty6384]

One can hardly underestimate how little Americans know about their/our history!

[@michaels4255]

US schools do a poor job of teaching history and geography. Many history teachers in public schools seem to be phys ed majors. They also shun controversial topics. Even when they record them, they still present whatever version of the story they select as the One True Narrative and never offer any hints of debates among historians.

[@franciscoalpizar8011]

I learned more about the Spanish-American war in Spanish 5 than in US history. I did not know about the Philippine-American war until today.

[@toddstroger9505]

Americans are not taught much of America's history.

[@travis7davidson]

Most Americans don't know that West Virginia is a state. They think it's just the west part of Virginia. Probably less than 10% know anything about the Philippines and couldn't locate it on a globe. Even less people would know the Philippines were ever part of the U.S.A.

[@misscuttlefish]

My mom helped my elementary school's librarian clean out old books and take them out of circulation. She kept one book cause it was published the year she was born (late 1950's), was about space, and had a sentence along the lines of "when we eventually have a man visit the moon..." This book was still in the library in the mid 1990's 😅

[@troodon1096]

Even Jules Verne mentioned reaching the moon as a possibility, but it seems it wasn't until the 50's when it was thought to be inevitable.

[@adityasanthanam1945]

I also have a book like that. It is a British history book from the 1950s. I got in 2018 from a library that was getting rid of its older books. It also discusses if man will reach the moon and also showed the Comet airplane as the latest innovation in aviation, with jet engines starting to appear in more planes.

[@Baelor-Breakspear]

Just because a book is old or outdated that doesn’t mean it should be removed from the library. I used to have old history books, with one being written the year of MLK’s March on Washington and it described the black people as “negros”. The point is those books are essential to figuring out the majority perspective at the time of the book. At least it’s good at what the author thought about issues they could editorialize on.

[@adityasanthanam1945]

@Robert Scannell I agree. Such books are fascinating to see and should be kept as reminders of how people viewed things during those times. The history books themselves have now become a part of history.

[@AnyahEMB]

@@Baelor-Breakspear School and public libraries have finite space to store books. Students need access to current and accurate information. Holding on to older, outdated books does not serve their mission. These books may be preserved in a research library or other facility for the historical perspective these books offer.

[@michaelgreaves2375]

I distinctly remember my honors history teacher emphatically stating that the Civil War was not about slavery but for State's Rights! I didn't have the knowledge or the resources to correct her. These days, students point out that the constitutions of the confederate states make no equivocation about it. Certain school boards don't like it! The kids these days have the internet. GOD, I wish we had that in the 70's and 80's.

[@They0ungTravler]

I mean…she’s not wrong…..it was for States rights…….to have slaves 😂

[@michaelgreaves2375]

@@They0ungTravler That was the very phrase that echoed in my mind at the time!

[@quiricomazarin476]

So all of the union states had abolished slavery by the Civil War?

[@They0ungTravler]

@@michaelgreaves2375 no, actually 4 states were still slave states. These are referred to as the Border States. Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri. This also means the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free the slaves in those 4 states since it clearly stated that it only took effect in rebelling states. Aka, the entire confederacy.

[@They0ungTravler]

Oops, I replied to someone else but I guess it went to you lol

[@PkmnMasterNeb]

As someone going into the history teaching profession, I really want to try looking at different textbooks, new and old with my students. Seems really educationally enriching for students.

[@diohyuga6737]

I'm going to be a social studies teacher with government teaching and I don't really rely on textbooks. I would find books that has up to date historians and gives students reasons to think about.

[@glenparker234]

I have long recommended using newspapers as teaching aids. A big city newspaper will cover a wide variety of subjects from current events to ancient history, social events, economics, science, marketing, etc. With very little effort, most teachers can find a wealth of information and topics is each issue. Language teachers can find typos and bad sentence structure to illustrate proper writing skills. The possibilities are endless, and the cost is minimal. Besides, it would help save the failing newspaper publishing business if all the schools started subscribing to multiple newspapers. Maybe it would force the newspapers to be more accurate and less propaganda. In the old days, many newspapers used to also publish fiction. That’s how Charles Dickens got his start, stories in serial form in the weekly newspaper. Today, too much emphasis is placed on that glowing screen which needs to be recharged, and people have a meltdown if the power goes off. Books and newspapers don’t suffer from that problem.

[@cricketmusic62]

The ones promoting the radical everythings a lie that youve been told except what were telling you because would never lie to you. Oh, by the way, old biological and previous scientific facts are presently being redefined by the mentally and criminally insane. Disregard any objective truths and embrace your truth.

[@globaladdict]

I hope you consider making curriculum around oversimplified for your classes :) if you've already seen it, my bad, but if I taught history, I'd show all of these to get kids initially interested kzbin.info

[@elizabethhh2460]

I did this with my history teacher. We read South Korean, North Korean, and an American textbooks' descriptions of the Korean War. It was fascinating!

[@DiamondKingStudios]

1825 textbook: "We got our independence, fought a war recently... not much else to say. Time to talk about English history for the next however long pages, since most of our target audience is probably British"

[@iammrbeat]

lol

[@lisacook8235]

The phrase "target audience" was around in 1825? Really? The fraudulence of "history" keeps getting more transparent. But I suppose that's the point.

[@jamesohearn2364]

@@lisacook8235 my dude it's a joke. How on earth did that fly over your head?

[@E4439Qv5]

@@jamesohearn2364 "my dude" "Lisa" ...Nice. 😙

[@jamesohearn2364]

@@E4439Qv5, I’m Californian, so “dude” is extremely gender neutral, but also people like this get absolutely NUTS about trans people and pronouns, so if I’m being honest I wouldn’t have cared either way XD

[@ahscott2001]

It’s interesting that the “don’t mention the last 10 - 15 years” rule seems to hold true for a long time. 1859: don’t talk about the civil war that hasn’t even started yet 1872: we aren’t going to pass judgement on Grant because he just got elected Modern textbooks: stop right after 9/11

[@iammrbeat]

And these days, many teachers don't get past 9/11 because there is simply not enough time to teach it all

[@gamerinc7410]

@@iammrbeat yah every teacher I have only get half way threw the civil war by the time the year ends. It gets to the point that the American Revolution feels very repetitive for me because I already learned it like 5 times already.

[@chosenonea2992]

​@@iammrbeat There are teachers that get to 9/11? I wish I had one of those. It's really weird how elementary school history went up to about the civil war, and then middle school history went slightly more in depth and a little further back... then up to about the civil war... and then high school history went slightly more in depth and up to about the civil war, and then undergrad history gave me the option to start at reconstruction and I leapt on it without a single regret.

[@spacingoutstudios382]

@@iammrbeat In my highschool our history book goes all the way up to the Trump presidency.

[@Dragonite43]

@@chosenonea2992 We got to 9/11 in College, but that's about it.

[@christophercheck1590]

I'm a Latin teacher who has to deal with a bevy of imperfect textbooks which are careless with history, so I feel this pain. Often I have my kids read incorrect data, and then show them sources which indicate how inaccurate our textbook is, as a sort of exercise in reminding them not to trust "authoritative" texts. In APUSH a decade and a half ago, I remember we used the previous edition of American Pageant. It was not great, and our teacher, thankfully, supplemented the hell out of it with other resources.

[@GuapoJhimi]

Yeah, I had a "world history" "professor" in college who didn't know Gen. Tojo from Adm. Togo. And another who was confused about "< and >", and called them wrong and when corrected by THE ENTIRE CLASS told us she "didn't care" and we were to use them the way SHE said. In effect: backwards. Makes math, prob & stats, organic chem just a little difficult. It ain't always the books.

[@dinkster1729]

@@GuapoJhimi I've had 2 Canadian history profs in Ontario tell me that they didn't know much about Newfoundland and Labrador history. They had no trouble admitting that. And they are educating the next generation of Canadian history students and teachers! Huge gap!

[@AnyahEMB]

By doing that, you are teaching your students to be critical thinkers . . . 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[@That_AMC_Guy]

This makes me laugh. As a high school student in the 90's in Western Canada.... we were using text books that had our parents' names in them and the books didn't know how the Vietnam War ended.

[@stevemccarty6384]

We lost...

[@ricovali9245]

It was never declared a "war."

[@billolsen4360]

LOL, when I first read that about your parents' names, it sounded as if many of them had been distinguished political or business leaders who rated a mention in the text!

[@dinkster1729]

@@billolsen4360 Canadian schools are very underfunded. Here, in Ontario, I don't think we use textbooks. We just xerox pages out of other textbooks, if that.

[@billolsen4360]

@@dinkster1729 Wow, that's sad. Thought things were all going great economically north of the border.

[@Mandark020]

As a Greek guy I gotta say, modern US textbooks seem to be a lot more nuanced than ours are. When it comes for example to the various wars we've had with Turkey in the last 200 years, it's always "us good, them bad", they are always the ones doing the atrocities and we are always the victims. I'd go as far as to say that your history textbooks are actually not too bad :)

[@E4439Qv5]

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

[@GasPipeJimmy]

Most countries textbooks are written that way. We have academics who were trained to hate our country, much like the author of this video

[@Mandark020]

@@GasPipeJimmy I don't think that that's fair. Saying that "x,y,z are wrong with the US" and hating the US are vastly different things.

[@collinbeal]

To be fair, Turkey has done some pretty fucking atrocious things in the last 200 years. *cough* thenotwidelyaknowkledgedgenocideofArmenians *cough*

[@GasPipeJimmy]

@@Mandark020 Always siding with “the other”, absolutely IS self-hatred. You can’t camouflage that as “nuance”, because it isn’t. The Philippines would have gained independence decades earlier had it not been for their extraordinary violent and mostly pointless revolts. They also failed to grasp the fact that had the US just unilaterally granted them independence, they would have been immediately re-colonized by the Japanese. That didn’t work out so well for them, did it?

[@deteon1418]

In Sweden I would estimate that around 75% of all history lessons are about the history of other parts of Europe. While this does make sense it is still somewhat weird since we most often only receive an overview of our history and certain times in Swedens history are barely covered.

[@iammrbeat]

That IS weird, especially considering Texas teaches A FULL YEAR of Texas history. 😏

[@SeasideDetective2]

Well, at least there's no - or little - danger of Swedish kids coming out of classrooms all Swedo-centric, thinking, "Sweden is the greatest and the best!"

[@Panda-ss3zh]

In Germany its kind of the same. Although a lot of history just overlaps with development inside of "Germany" so it kinda makes sense but its also a massive undertaking from ancient egypt up to modern day

[@sheleavitt06]

Fourth grade is pretty common in the US for your local state history as the subject of the year and is usually students first year learning any history. K-2 is spent learning to read and 3rd grade they start reading to learn. It’s a massive shift in kids education and why many students who found school easy up to that point because they learned to read quickly start slipping. 3rd graders typically start learning social studies stuff like “what is a mayor and social services like police and fire departments” but not really any history. I loved it when we finally started learning history in school and finally had a subject that I was good at.

[@huehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehu6687]

@@iammrbeat Georgia also teaches a full year of Georgia history in 8th grade

[@sofiadri2638]

As a latin american I always had the idea that Americans got kind of a simplified version of history with a washed out narrative of good vs evil. I'm glad to see there are teachers like you that take a careful and nuanced approach to teaching American history, especially considering how influential the US was (and is) in the world. Keep up the good work :)

[@Compucles]

It depends on the subject in question. There are a few subjects where most textbooks will be negative in the way the United States acted such as the way we treated Native Americans, how we interred Japanese-Americans during WWII, how blacks were treated in the South leading up to both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement a century later, and how unpopular the Vietnam War was in general. But yes, several other things have been whitewashed, another notable example being how we unilaterally conquered a foreign sovereign kingdom when we "annexed" Hawaii.

[@sofiadri2638]

@@Compucles thanks for the detailed answer! Maybe that image I had was from a different time. And I believe whitewashing and dumbing down concepts kinda happens everywhere. I'm from Uruguay, and we never learned about the war we had with Paraguay where we halfed their population, and we never talked about the military dictatorship that happened just four decades ago. It's just meant not to tarnish the national identity and whatnot. It's very sad

[@cwbb76]

Every town, in every state teaches history different. A history lesson in Massachusetts public school will be drastically different from a history lesson in an Alabama public school.

[@mongoose1628]

@@sofiadri2638 yeah that was definitely a problem in the twentieth century but not so much anymore. a bigger problem is boomers still sticking to what they learned in the 60s

[@blackcitroenlove]

@@cwbb76 the biggest problem is that we don't have one national curriculum. Aside from state history, it should all be the same. Then again, there wouldn't be the uneducated to fight wars for the wealthy...

[@bign828]

I am taking APUSH right now and am using the American pageant. My class only really uses it for standard notes assignments not really for anything significant. We do use the American YAWP which is an online primary source textbook which is very good.

[@iammrbeat]

Thanks for sharing that. YAWP is pretty solid.

[@stanbrown32]

I have a collection of American Pageant editions, from the 1st (1956) to the 11th. It's very intetesting to see how Bailey's 1956 text was gradually moderated, toned done, revised, then comprehensively rewritten by David Kennedy and later authors, while trying to keep the quirky authorial voice Bailey used.

[@johnking6252]

I was lucky enough to have a history teacher who after I read everything in the classroom gave me a permanent hall pass to wander around the library learning whatever I wanted . Good teacher.

[@nachofilament294]

I went to school in a rural area in the Deep South (thus a very conservative area) at about the same time as Mr Beat, and we were taught the Civil War was about slavery and only slavery. I have no idea what was up with Kansas.

[@beckyschauer7650]

That's what we were taught at my school in Nebraska too.

[@stanleyshannon4408]

So, what were you taught about the cause of slavery?

[@charlescourtney4402]

That's what I was taught in South Carolina. We were told that the Civil War was about slavery.

[@stanleyshannon4408]

@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles And what caused slavery? Why did it exist?

[@jasonwhite2050]

I was taught the same in Kentucky.

[@ThunderHOWL16]

wow. i can tell there was an immense amount of effort put into this. thank you for the incredible content Mr. Beat!

[@iammrbeat]

It was my pleasure! I enjoyed every second of making it. :)

[@funsizedi88]

Yes, thank you! I am starting my daughter's homeschooling this summer. Yes she is only 3, but I'm doing research into what companies/brands are the best to use. I love history, so I figured this would be a good way to make a grading criteria for choosing the material.

[@insightfulhistorian1861]

@@iammrbeat Yeah, great video, well done.

[@Marylandbrony]

I think one of the main reasons why the gulf of Tonkin insistent is not widely discussed in both many U.S history courses and in most textbooks until the 2010s is because baby boomer parents are generally uncomfortable talking about the Vietnam war and many history classes if they try to cover all of U.S history in a single school years usually ends sometime near the Vietnam war. I recall in my high school history class that my honors course ended with the Watergate scandal and we never got into detail about the Vietnam war and in a preparation we had a team trivia contest and I helped win because I explained Reaganomics. This was in 2014 to give you a reference on how recent it was and I wonder how my generation is going to explain the war on terror and the coronavirus pandemic in history class.

[@russbear31]

You're basically right. I'm an older coot who was in elementary school during Vietnam. By the time I reached high school none of my teachers would touch Vietnam because it was still a recent event. I even had one teacher who told us flat out that Vietnam was off the table. Same thing happened when I went on to college. But my old professor for Amer. History II was fun. He was a WWII vet set to retire, so he spent the whole semester telling us his war stories about shooting Nazis. Little else was covered.

[@stevemccarty6384]

I am a Vietnam Era vet and a retired high school history teacher. I loved teaching. We were issued text books, several, and started thru them on day one and we'd just make it to the Vietnam War at the very end of the year. Students can only move thru the material ( history) at a measured pace and we had to pass over lots of material. As a teacher what one wants to do is to teach enthusiasm for the subject so that the student will go on a pursue the subject for themselves. That is what we who love history do and it brightens our lives.

[@dinkster1729]

@@stevemccarty6384 You probably love it more the older you get, right? You also find younger people treating you as an historical resource. My mother died on a WW2 veterans floor in Ottawa. Some of the men had really interesting tales to tell about the 2nd World War. They were all in their early 90s. It really made WW2 history live for me, a Boomer.

[@Tupelo927]

What a phenomenal video! For several years now, I've searched eBay for the textbook we used in my 4th grade Alabama history class. (1983-84 school year) I still remember 2 things: a poem about orange trees we memorized & the grotesque descriptions (& illustrations!) of "ignorant but grateful, happy slaves." Our teacher referred to the Civil War as "The War of Northern Aggression." Being the daughter of a Michigander, I cringed every time scalawags & carpetbaggers were discussed.

[@iammrbeat]

Wow, thanks for sharing that, and thanks for the kind words!

[@dino0228]

No wonder the Civil War never really ended.

[@GuapoJhimi]

Gosh. Way back THEN? Did they have parchment yet or was you still using stone tablets? Lazy.

[@Tupelo927]

@@GuapoJhimi I get that your childish snark is sarcastic but what's with the "lazy" comment, "Handsome?"

[@Donnie_M.]

Do you have any memory of the cover picture of the book or title, I collect textbooks from the 1980's and am very familiar with the various publishers and may be able to help you pin it down.

[@ValiantVicuna]

The casts' reaction to most of the historic textbooks really made me remember why I hated history in school, but I love history as a self-learning adult. "They are just plowing through the information" and "the students are just reciting facts, and once you are done with one subject you can just forget it and move on to the next"

[@HistoryandHeadlines]

What a neat topic to cover! I wonder what how we'll look back at our current textbooks?

[@theshenpartei]

Only time will tell

[@HistoryandHeadlines]

@@theshenpartei Did you like any of your textbooks?

[@iammrbeat]

I think they'll be like "why did they use textbooks?"

[@HistoryandHeadlines]

@@iammrbeat I am tempted to write my own "textbook" on my website.

[@gavinr.3170]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZPVYoBjiJmng7M

[@Drag0nfoxx]

40:17 This "We gave them everything but they rebelled" narrative is exactly the same as how I was taught Indonesian history in the Netherlands (which had colonised Indonesia). Nice that we are not the only ones whitewashing our history, I guess...

[@iammrbeat]

That imperialistic narrative!

[@joakimhalstensen9604]

I'm from Norway and we're like, yeah we pillaged, raped and murdered our way through Europe, kept and sold slaves and did blood sacrifice with animals to the gods. Good times 😅

[@steppedonmyglasses]

I'm Indonesian and that's i think that's somehow understandable. My textbook outright cencor anything that will make Indonesia looks bad. It either doesn't mention anything about the Chinese Genocide of 1965... or make some justification for it.

[@Chaotic_Pixie]

FAR FROM IT!!! Some of my favorite countryball cartoons show the US getting crapped on for atrocities against indigenous peoples -which we absolutely did and I'm not excusing- but in these cartoons places like Canada, Britain, Spain, Portugal, and others are just quietly whistling in the background hoping not to draw attention to themselves. Similar cartoons of say, Belgium getting crapped on because of Congo while the US, Britain, Spain, etc are whistling, trying to draw attention to themselves. If you haven't checked out countryball cartoons, you should. They're hilarious and a copyright free form of self expression.

[@warlordofbritannia]

It’s also got that old “White Man’s Burden” implication, that moralist justification for so much aggressive imperialism

[@dovescryspringseternal]

Hey Mr Beat, great video! I didn’t take APUSH in High school but rather I took the IB version of US History in 2014. I had a history teacher that was clearly very passionate about teaching history here in Northern California. We covered all these topics in some meetings detail. You remind me a lot of him! Shout out to Mr Peterson! I learned a lot more in that class than I did in my college history classes.

[@iammrbeat]

Mr. Peterson sounds amazing

[@countbinfaceglobalpresiden7926]

The good Mr. Peterson 😇

[@kathryncainmadsen5850]

I worked on the textbooks that have been coming out in the last 3 years. I was a writer. We did original research. I know they are based on national standards and state standards like Texas, California, and Florida so if you want better textbooks, change the way textbooks are PAID FOR and how standards are edited by those fearful of parents. Having said that. THERE ARE GREAT TEXTBOOKS OUT NOW if I do say so myself.

[@Bears2024]

When I took AP US History I used The American Pageant from 2011. Our teacher only used it for some homework assignments and he cherry picked what he wanted us to read and take from the textbook and made his own lectures for in class. He was one of my favorites and he tried to go a little faster to be able to touch on topics that aren't specifically in the curriculum or very basic (Asian American Internment Camps, Late/Post Cold War Wars, etc) and he told the same cheesy dad jokes every year which everyone loved (A blank slide where he asked what everyone saw, the answer was George Washington in a snow storm)

[@TheGeoScholar]

As much as I liked my geography textbook in high school, I learned even more from reading encyclopedias, National Geography, watching all kinds of travel documentaries, the History Channel, PBS. A large part of my learning when it comes to geography has taken place outside of classrooms. And this is coming from someone who learned alot in my high school geography class.

[@jeromemckenna7102]

They never taught the Philippine American war in schools in the 1960's, but our family had a history of the US produced by American Heritage magazine that had a good bit about the efforts to capture Emilio Aguinaldo. If you've read the 3 vol Mark Twain biography you find that Twain has a bit to say about the war.

[@iammrbeat]

Thanks for sharing that, and you bet your britches that Twain did. Have you ever read The War Prayer?

[@jeromemckenna7102]

@@iammrbeat Yes.

[@erynlasgalen1949]

You mentioned Twain before I could. All I learned about the Phillippine American War came from Twain. There was nothing about it in my primary and secondary education, 1955 through 1967.

[@anniesue4456]

I love Mark Twain!

[@voxveritas333]

@@erynlasgalen1949 same here, as far as history classes go.

[@ItsJustMe0585]

I've learned far more about history in the last few years from KZbin than I ever learned in school. I'm still horrible with dates, but I think learning more about culture and events (and how they are intertwined) in every era is more important than names of politicians, generals and exact dates. Edit: I really wish that we would learn more about Asian history, and even some African history, instead of only focusing on Europe and the US.

[@glennduke5853]

I agree, but then what do I know? Very few dates and not many names of small nations especially the many that no longer exist. Not much from the Old Testament Bible, which is pretty much useless in my opinion.

[@michaels4255]

Try to visualize a time line and fit major events onto it in your head. That will help you with the dates. The approximate period in which something happened is more important than the exact year in most cases.

[@michaels4255]

@@glennduke5853 The OT is often the only source we have for the history of the Jews prior to the Roman conquest.

[@dinkster1729]

I think you mostly focus on the U.S., don't you?

[@Necrotoxin44]

This sort of prevalent deficiency in textbooks is what has lead to my current interest in history. Firstly, as you mentioned, you learn so much more when you explore history yourself! But also, there are so many things that you either don't learn about, or are de-emphasized.

[@stevemccarty6384]

Nothing is more interesting to me than history. I adore all kinds of history and there is lots to know from ancient to medieval to modern, all fascinating. History is the story of what went on before. That's a lot of stuff! Can I transport to Ancient Rome? Please...

[@realteamwall]

most history teachers dont go out of their way to learn more about history and to share that knowledge like you do

[@luisandrade2254]

I love Victorian era historiography they had such a different perspective on everything

[@iammrbeat]

Ya got that right

[@richardwills-woodward]

They built the modern world from a small island over the Atlantic. We should be very grateful tot he British Empire AND they abolished the slave trade - but you wouldn't think so according the ignorant Millennial media.

[@spencerhardy8667]

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" written in mid nineteenth century is one of the best. If you've read that, the extraordinary popular delusions and post modern insanity of today just become another example of the craziness of Empires about to collapse. The similarities are chilling.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

@@spencerhardy8667 one can only hope that America is on the brink of collapse. really though thats just fucking nonsense lol.

[@okiguess3795]

This reminds me of when I did my A-Level Modern History, and our Depth Study was Russia from 1855 to 1964. Initially, we were given the textbook that the exam board recommended for us, however our teachers realised that the information there lacked enough depth (not to mention that it was divided into four themes and would go back and forth across the timeline), so we were then given another textbook that they believed was much more in depth (and it was), and it was actually arranged in chronological order. However, we were then given *another* textbook that, whilst being more condensed, had useful information that the other two left out. Moreover, my friend bought a study guide online which we both used to prepare for exams and even that had facts and figures that the three textbooks we were given before left out. So in the end, we ended up using *three* textbooks and a study guide to learn about a period of 109 years, and even then I still had to use the internet to learn about some facts that turned out to actually be useful for one of my essays I had to write in my final exam. So yeah, textbooks definitely aren't the best way to learn history across the board and hopefully this changes for the better one day

[@Nudnik1]

Talk to Russians about their history... Not like versions we are told. My Russian grand father would burn western texts .

[@deuce-infinitum2001]

That's why they taught us to use multiple sources when writing a paper. Ding dong. This makes me sad.

[@stacialavergne]

P

[@PeachWookiee]

I love that you mention that history is about people, Mr. Beat! It’s what drew me to history in the first place.

[@jacobharstad5696]

"Lies My Teacher Told Me", James Loewen. Easy to find and a great read on this same vein.

[@gold_green2001]

Yeah, it was an insightful read. I read it in a college US history course I took fall semester of last year. I talked about it enough that my mom bought a copy. 😂 Anyways, just a heads-up for anyone who wants to read it, the author’s name is actually James W. Loewen, not Robert.

[@jacobharstad5696]

@@gold_green2001 Whoops!

[@gold_green2001]

@@jacobharstad5696 it’s all good, mistakes happen!

[@thebestofallworlds187]

"Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging The Myths Of Progressivism" is a great book.

[@jacobharstad5696]

@@thebestofallworlds187 I sincerely and deeply doubt that.

[@kencollins1186]

My grandfather was born in 1891. My grandmother was older than Utah. I heard of the Spanish American War, but but I never knew there was a Philippine American War until this video. The Vietnam War was an ominous cloud of nationalism that hung over my high-school years and through college. I had to get permission from the government to study abroad in my junior year in college. Yet I never knew that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was faked until now. This is a very informative video.

[@BladeEdge86]

This has the be one of the best videos you have made in quite a while, it truly is fascinating to see how these old history textbooks compare to the ones published in more recent years.

[@grantgoodman8415]

I firmly believe that history/social studies teachers are among the most important people in shaping students’ knowledge and perspectives on the world around them, and by proxy, shaping the future of our country. Thank you Mr. Beat for always being honest and informative. It is people like you who will ensure we survive and prosper for years to come.

[@jjburgess53]

you're absolutely right KZbin is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to history on these History Channels. I really enjoyed this video Mr. Beat thank you for making it

[@toob1979]

I was in school from the late 70s through the early 90s. If I took a modern history test, I'd probably fail it based on my knowledge from school. History is such a tricky subject, because you're always going to have a bit of a "reliable narrator" problem and you have to pick and choose which bits get attention and which get glossed over because the average person's memory and attention span is limited.

[@michaels4255]

I have always thought that for earlier (not recent) periods of history, it would be better is we took one good history book from the past, nothing too contemporary, and amended it from time to time only by means of same page footnotes rather than revising the text itself. The politics would still be there, but they would be transparent because students could see the original text and the changing perspectives. Even better if every footnote had to include the date it was added or altered.

[@BA-ji1zh]

I am eternally grateful that you've made a KZbin channel so you can share your passion for teaching with the world. Ashamed to admit it, but I always found history boring when I was in school. You've made it interesting and it's not hard to hang onto your every word. Not only that, but your passion drives further reading on one's own.

[@stevemccarty6384]

If you consider history boring it is your teacher's fault. History should be taught as a story. It is the story of what happened before and what can be more exciting than that? My students would cut all of their classes but mine! As a teacher of history I was excited by the subject and passed that interest onto my students and they learned to love it too! I would ask them, "what would you do if such and such happened? Then I would tell them, or we would decide what people actually did when confronted by trying situations. That makes history interesting and the student becomes an historical individual. We had a lot of fun in my classroom we'd laugh. I took their questions seriously and I'd llisten to them and respond honestly. The students were charming and I loved teaching them history and English, subjects that I adore.

[@irkhanbasc]

I’m actually a math teacher, with some experience teaching science and computers, but I have an interest in history on the side. I have always wondered how history teachers do their job, given that they have so much content to work with when they teach their students. In math and science, at least for me, it’s somewhat more straightforward, though not without its challenges and some changes over time. Usually, when we find a good textbook, we generally tend to stick to it and rely on it significantly, especially for student self-study. For example, for Grade 12 calculus, we use a textbook by Larson and sometimes another one by Stewart (which is very popular in first-year university courses). But what do you do with history? How do you find a textbook that you are comfortable with and that is suitable for your students? Especially when there are SO many other resources online and in libraries? As well, history is one of those subjects that can become so easily politicized. I’ve never heard parents loudly complain about how their kids are being taught Pythagorean Theorem or quadratic equations.

[@guychocensky3585]

YOU completely get the problem of teaching history, IMran. What's more you also described why writing any history is bound to a subjective process where one must decide what is important enough to include in the narrative. EVery event that occuss is history. Not all of them are significant to the subject under study. The historian must decide what is important and no history can ever be complete.

[@Silverhawk100]

From what I can tell, there are two major teaching philosophies when it comes to American History today. 1. You teach the trends and ideologies, where you spend more time teaching the causes and lead-up to a major moment and the effect that moment had on the future decisions than the actual moment. This gives students a firm grasp on why things happened, but not so much on how it happened. For example, more emphasis is paid to the KKK than to the Election of 1876 for the failure of Reconstruction. 2. You teach the people. It's a bit more memorization, but you teach the impact significant people or groups had on history and the decisions they made that shaped events. This might give students a stronger interest in history later down the line because it creates more compelling narratives, but it is more vulnerable to selection bias. For example, you can only pick 2, who do you focus on to embody the Abolitionist movement? Fredrick Douglass? Harriett Beecher Stowe? John Brown? William Garrison? Etc.

[@N1ghtH4wk86]

Unless you're in Florida

[@stevemccarty6384]

Teaching history is not only about material, but attitude as well. You are given a text book. All of the students have the same book. You start at the beginning of the book and go from chapter to chapter, but you are not limited to just teaching from the book. What you must do is to bring into the classroom experiences and knowledge that you, as the teacher have. After all by the time you get into the history classroom the teacher has already had many classes and experiences in and about history. I had lived in all of the regions in the US and had traveled and lived all over Europe and Asia. I had participated in the Vietnam War. I taught my students, for instance, how to land a fighter plane on an aircraft carrier. Not too many teachers can do that. I had visited the death camps in Germany and had been to Gettysburg. I had climbed to the top of the Tower of Pisa and had been to the Louve. Yet when I interviewed for the job as a history teacher, this after I had finished by teaching credentials they hired a 22 year old girl who was married to the daughter-in-law of the Superindent of schools. She lasted a year and a half and they hired me as a substitute.

[@michaels4255]

@@Silverhawk100 But no. 2 confronts another question: is history made by individuals, a "triumph of the will" as one famous film from the 1930s described it, or is history usually the result, as Hegel and Marx thought, of broad, impersonal forces and if different figures had occupied the historical stage would have turned out much the same any way?

[@gregm766]

I first heard about the Philippine-American war in Marine Corps boot camp in 1984 and that was mostly what involvement the Marine Corps had in it.

[@iammrbeat]

Fascinating. I'm sure it didn't make the Marine Corps look bad did it? 😏

[@gregm766]

@@iammrbeat No, definitely not. Just another conflict in which we kicked a$$

[@thunderbird1921]

How many know about the Commodore Perry expedition to Japan in the 1850s I wonder (the one where our Navy forced them to open up)? Stuff like that isn't talked about much because of the American people being preoccupied with the slavery issue and other matters at that time, but MAN did it open a pandora's box for us. Combine that with the Philippines and the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, and we paid DEARLY for the reckless 19th Century Pacific actions from World War II onward. It's like our government did everything possible to infuriate the Japanese and related powers.

[@GasPipeJimmy]

@@iammrbeat Did you ever teach anything that would make the Moros look bad?

[@0816M3RC]

@@gregm766 Read up on what the Marine Corps did in Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

[@americanhistorygeek1926]

This is a really awesome video, I really enjoy when you dive into unique content that hasn't been covered by other KZbinrs. Keep up the great work Mr. Beat and congrats to all of the guest channels as well!

[@ghintz2156]

I'm ashamed that as a teenager one of my independent American History research projects I covered was why the Civil War was about states rights instead of slavery. My dad was a bad and constant influence on me politically. He's deep into conspiracies currently...no big shock that it's where he ended up.

[@NegaRenGenX2gay2lift]

my dad is somewhat like this too

[@michaels4255]

Young people tend to be more trusting of authorities. As you get older, you tend to become more cynical as you realize how much stuff happens in the world as a result of behind the scene machinations. Take for example the Gulf of Tonkin incident: a conspiracy that even school textbooks now acknowledge however delicately. I assure you it is not the only one! Indeed, even the decision to keep certain events out of public school textbooks is, by definition, a conspiracy of silence - a conspiracy being a decision made by a small number of persons in secret for some purpose that many others would not approve of it they knew. There are people who make these decisions, and we are not even told their names.

[@jacobitewiseman3696]

How do you know he ain't correct.

[@ghintz2156]

@@jacobitewiseman3696 Bescause I’ve earned two degrees that taught me what real research is. My dad believes randos making Tik Toks know the real Epstein flight list. Pretty sure he’s not correct on much of anything these days.

[@lovesupreme1]

Your dad is smarter then you think

[@leahunverferth8247]

This makes me feel so much better about my homeschool - we read lots of books (many from the library) and watch KZbin videos including some of your videos and the Daily Bellringer! This was really driven by needing a cheap, interesting, and accurate teaching method for history.

[@StoicHistorian]

History is the interpretation of the past, this interpretation is present and should always be changing. Great video as always

[@DownToTruck]

I used American Pageant back when I took APUSH in 2010! That was one of my favorite classes I took in high school. I remember being super surprised when I got a 5 on the AP Exam - I remember mostly "studying" by watching American history youtube videos.

[@MomentsInTrading]

I went to middle and high school in the very early 1980s. Back then, what we learned was kind of censored a bit. It was taught in such a cleaned up version, it made people from history seem different than modern people, and unable for me to relate to. I found history in those days very uninteresting.

[@iammrbeat]

Well a sanitized version of history often does that. Glad you like history now though!

[@MomentsInTrading]

Sanitized… That is a good term for it.

[@johnblossom8447]

I was lucky. I graduated in 1983 and had three really good history teachers in high school. The teacher who taught American History was my best friend’s dad. He was a fun and interesting teacher who taught us a lot of things that weren’t in text books.

[@jennifersilves4195]

They make history uninteresting on purpose.

[@Mysticmoon62]

The cool thing about today's history class atleast where I am from in the US is really legit and not censored.

[@henryhayth3303]

Thanks!

[@ironic_iron8770]

As a Gen Z (born 2000), I can't remember learning much at all about Grant's presidency, and I can't remember learning anything at all about the Philippine-American war or the Tonkin Gulf incident (throughout high school and college). Maybe I was not paying attention for some parts of my classes, but I can't remember ever being tested or reading about them. Edit: In college I took two history classes: one on ancient civilizations up to 1500 I think, and US history up until 1865. So that is why I didn't learn them in college.

[@Mysticmoon62]

I will agree I never learned about both of those things

[@thunderbird1921]

I bet you NEVER learned about the Korean War then. My schools barely covered it (other than it's very basic premise), so beginning in 2019 I started studying it myself. Today, now knowing what I know, I am FLOORED it is not talked about, you literally HAVE to study it to truly grasp the whole Cold War and the "Red Scare" (which was partially in response to the war, and at least in some ways similar to Japanese or German saboteur fears during World War II). Plus, it wasn't just us and the two Koreas involved, China was backing the Norks while the British Commonwealth and France among others supported our side. It's honestly not just America's history, it's humanity's story similar to the two World Wars. It's so important that I now tell folks our schools should teach it even more than Vietnam or perhaps even a handful of other US conflicts. It should NOT be a "forgotten war".

[@ironic_iron8770]

@@thunderbird1921 yep, the at this point in my life the Korean war is a war that I know happened but I can't remember learning much if anything about it during high school. Definitely one of those things that I know I should learn more about

[@Mysticmoon62]

@@thunderbird1921 I know what it is but they hardly covered it

[@Mysticmoon62]

@@thunderbird1921 but I am going into 11th grade

[@patsyleeoswald9912]

"History is a set of lies agreed upon." - Napoleon Bonaparte

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

That's also religious dogma

[@tomcherry7029]

Napoleon Bonaparte what a great person right and yes that was sarcasm

[@drew25music]

Just because Napoleon said it doesn't mean it's true.

[@patsyleeoswald9912]

Just because Napoleon said it doesn't mean it's not true. Suzy Jones could have said it, and it would still be true.

[@henriquepacheco7473]

@@patsyleeoswald9912 It isn't really true. It's a narrative agreed upon (or many such narratives, but let's not get too caught up on details). At any one moment, there is both some degree of truth and some degree of lying in the construction of a historical narrative. Said "lies" are not always intentional, some can be genuine mistakes. One would hope that all the lies are honest mistakes, but individual historians are still human and thus, not entirely trustworthy. Generalizing it as a set of lies gives ample breeding grounds to historical denialism, esp. of atrocities such as the Holocaust and many other genocides, which is a bad thing.

[@iconpoet]

This is very interesting. To me, these history books are written like this because I don't think everybody knew everything about those events. We have the luxury of having decades to find various perspectives and new information about these events...theoretically

[@B1GPUDD1NG]

Man you’re always coming up with good video ideas!

[@iammrbeat]

Well thank you Harry

[@morganmcallister2001]

Historiography is just as interesting as history sometimes. Nice work.

[@Raveler1]

"Explore history, don't be spoon fed it" - that's exactly what we did in school. Granted, I was in an IB program, but we spent two years studying the cold war, looking at causes, incidents, and exploring texts available to us - in the late 90s, so not too long after the fall of the USSR. It was great training for how history is actually studied, and I appreciate that the only history textbooks we used were those in the library, at our discretion!

[@XOguitargurlOX]

Now I'm curious if kids still pass notes in school!! Haven't thought about those in years, especially after texting became easier!

[@iammrbeat]

They rarely do these days 😏

[@Skel1001]

No we don’t, we usually just talk to each other

[@TheSlipperyNUwUdle]

Smartphones were a thing when I was in high school and kids still passed notes. Not very often tho. I think maybe they texted more. I never did either cause I always got caught texting. Lol

[@Mysticmoon62]

I am in hs rn and I have never seen anyone pass notes lmao

[@michaels4255]

@@Skel1001 Talking is allowed during class now? Aren't all those kids talking at once distracting?

[@Tadfafty]

I have a textbook from the late 1940s that goes out of its way to mention some boxing match in the 1920s that I never heard of before and mostly forgot about since.

[@advisorywarning]

😂😂

[@latinhero1818]

If I were teaching history, I’d have 4 years of US history all throughout HS. One for the colonial period up to the end of the French and Indian war, one for the buildup of the revolution to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, one for reconstruction up to the end of the Second World War, and the last round would cover everything from Potsdam to the 2016 election.

[@xhorxheetxeberria-td1hu]

I agree, except it should start with America's history before 1492. Over 30,000 years of the original American history from the Artic to the Antarctic. The correct history of colonization from 1492 until 1609. Emphasizing how the rest of America was very integrated racially from the beginning especially Saint Augustine in Florida, which had 3 generations of Americans, Europeans, and Africans living together and mixing peacefully before the first Anglo European arrived in Jamestown and Plymouth rock. The differences with Spanish European colonization and British European colonization. And how that affected the racial integration in the rest of America to this day and the lack of racial integration and apartheid of Anglo American colonization, of which we are still paying for to this day. Those would be key to understanding others in America and ourselves.

[@latinhero1818]

@@xhorxheetxeberria-td1hu I should clarify that. 1492 would be the starting point for American history. There’s only so much I can cover in 4 years. Particularly that first year when we start it all. We could talk about the theories of how the native tribes first came to the Americas. The ice age, and a brief demographic survey of the North American tribes as well as the Inca, Maya, Aztec and Mississippi mound builders. There is also a problem with the lack of written information from the natives at the time. Only the maya developed a written language. If I were to go that route, I don’t know that I could spend more than 10 weeks of comprehensive study on that whole section. Although at the end of each year, I’d make sure to give students a reading sheet pointing them to primary sources and books for further interest and study.

[@stefanhoimes]

I do very distinctly remember a high school history teacher telling us that the district was requiring him to tell us that states' rights was a major factor in the Civil War, but really emphasizing the over what "rights" part as a caution to not telling half-truths... especially when it comes to fellow human lives. This was in eastern PA in the late-1990s/early aughts, which tends to sway more liberal. Looking back, I'm proud of having had educators who got creative with how to teach facts within an increasingly limiting set of rules as to what they were allowed to teach. That teacher has since passed away, but I'll never forget his casual resistance to being forced to teach lies.

[@CrazyDancer-me8od]

I’m coming from the Daily Bellringer video that was just posted and as one of Jared’s past students, I want to say that he is an amazing teach and I’m so excited to see the success he as achieved

[@trewqwert1869]

6:04 My experience, like a lot of other Gen Z/Millennials, was similar. I think that Grant is so often grouped in with underwhelming or outright terrible Reconstruction-era presidents (Arthur, Garfield, Hayes, Harrison, Cleveland), which was what justified teachers to not go beyond a few paragraphs’ worth of information for each (ex. Cleveland’s wedlock baby scandal). If I remember correctly, the teaching of the presidents from around this time started with Abraham Lincoln and maybe a reference to Andrew Johnson’s presidency, glanced over most of the Reconstruction presidents (like Grant), and came back at maybe William McKinley but definitely Teddy Roosevelt.

[@austinreed7343]

Remember the “Mediocre Presidents” song?

[@DrForrester87]

I don't know if it's fair to consider Garfield a terrible president since he got shot so quickly after getting into office.

[@Line...]

@@night6724 *Some people Grant chose to trust, particulary in his administration, were pretty corrupt. He was guilty of being naive and overly trusting, but not of corruption himself

[@Enochkers]

Grant and Johnson were the only "Reconstruction Presidents", a period of roughly 12 years. Reconstruction ended when Grant left because in the 1876 election, the southern Democrat Tilden won the popular vote (he had 3% more votes than Hayes), but lost the electoral vote. So the Republicans "compromised" by ending Reconstruction when their guy Hayes took office. Hayes had 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184, a 1 electoral vote margin.

[@Mysticmoon62]

What grade do you learn those presidents in

[@shaifan1987]

We did not use a single textbook in our APUSH class this year. After the AP test most of the students seemed confident as well, and personally, I think I got a 5

[@catherinecrawford2289]

I found a similar disconnect when I borrowed an American History text for my homeschooled kids that I only found out later was an Abeka published book, or maybe it was Bob Jones. The early colonies were described with the major church leaders of their communities. My kids stared at me and finally my eldest asked, "Why are they telling us about ministers instead of history?" My answer was, "I'll get a better book tomorrow."

[@monso7871]

Because the puritans came for religious freedom

[@brianedgar3413]

Oh what? I'm supposed to "LIKE" this video just because of all the hard work and time you spent on IT!?!?!? And you also managed to post it one week before I decide to look up "Old History Books" on KZbin!!!! Is that coincidence supposed to impress me!?!?!?!? Get a job Mr. Beat and keep up the good work Mafk!!!

[@sleekoduck]

A good teacher and taking good notes makes a huge difference. When I took APUSH in high school, I left both of my textbooks in my locker for just about the entire school year. I still managed to score a 5 on the AP exam.

[@DwayneIsK1NG]

I love history and would have absolutely loved going through those old history books

[@gunterke]

Another very interesting video Mr. Beat! I'm not from the US so I can't say much about US history, which I largely picked up from books and mostly YT videos over the years. But I also thought about why we learned a lot about topic x and not topic y. In general, we got a pretty overview of the history of what now is our nation, but there are significant gaps and I now would've asked a lot of questions about that. I'm not a history teacher, but I work for a historical museum on the Holocaust in my country.

[@user-yc3fw6vq5n]

Which country?

[@Kairi98503]

I went to high-school between 2010 and 2014 and I remember clear as day having an argument with a history teacher about if the civil war was really about states rights or not. And I went to school in the PNW, which is considered more liberal & progressive.

[@senoreljoynes6442]

The idea of studying history textbooks from different eras is something I wish someone had when I went through history class in high school. Seeing the way academics of different times thought of the same historical events can help to further contextualize the cultural sensibilities of their respective eras. It would be interesting to analyze the way those books were written, what they focused on, what got censored, what didn't get censored, and even, if possible, how students of the time reacted to learning what they were taught. Knowing what was important for people to learn in the past is a great way to recontextualize what we consider important to learn today and how perceptions of the past can change despite the past itself never having changed. This video made me think a lot and I believe it's certainly worth a few rewatches just to be able to consider all of the perspectives that were shown throughout history.

[@Kenny-ty6ts]

I just saw this video a year after posting I have to take the time to thank Mr. Grimm at Northeast high school in Pasadena Md. 1973 He was a great history teacher We rarely used the text book. He would teach The Who what when but also why and what it means for us now. He was the only teacher that you would find kids in his class after school asking questions and talking about the subject Again thanks to Mr. Grimm the only teacher that ever caught my attention and kept it To this day I still love history and read books about it

[@sorenchemamanapalmito8334]

Fantastic video ! If you're ever interested in doing a similar video about how the rest of the world learns about US history (I personnaly think I would love seeing such a video with your perspective on it), I would be very happy to help you research it by sending you and translating what our textbooks say about US history, or whatever else you might find interesting, I am sure that a lot of international viewers of your channel would be able to provide great material as well. I could also try to contact some of my old history teachers who I know for a fact speak english, since I'm not a history teacher myself, just a random college student haha. Anyway thanks a lot for this video and looking forward to see your future ones !

[@iammrbeat]

That's a terrific idea, and thanks for offering to help!

[@BladeEdge86]

Yes, I would to see a video like that.

[@sorenchemamanapalmito8334]

@@iammrbeat well thank you haha, if you ever attempt to do such a video (which I have to admit must represent a LOT of work) and ask your audience for help or contacts, I would happily participate and I'm sure a lot of subscribers around the world also would !

[@albudrow5436]

@@iammrbeat looking at history from the other side was always a question in my mind . "history is always written by the victors" may be true but never a satisfactory trope. i will subscribe to your channel in the hopes that i will see such content. a series would be great.

[@dropoutst0ner]

the states rights thing with slavery and it being blamed on economics is very common in the southeastern US. i grew up in east tennessee and i only heard states right in school until high school where i heard the economics thing. it’s about the states rights to make slavery legal or not and about the economics value of having free slave labor. i think most everyone can agree slavery is one of the most disgusting and deplorable things the US and the rest of the world has ever participated in but it’s insane that all the ignorant people who only get info from facebook and the stuff they remember from high school and earlier will never truly understand this

[@ellasmommy9278]

Back in the 60s, my mother had a set of encyclopedias that ended in the year 1936. Was actually pretty cool to read.

[@shrimpflea]

When I was a kid (early 80s) me and my friend found a full encyclopedia set from the 1950s in a dumpster. It was cool to read.

[@mikemccomas9268]

Best of your offerings I have seen yet. Much appreciated.

[@davidfisher7978]

I was born in 63 in Pasadena California, and did most of my school career through the Southern California school system, and you brought up the history book that I absolutely recognize from my youth…. The textbook is called my country… I absolutely remember holding this book in my hand in Elementary and Junior high

[@TPChatter]

Mr Beat, off topic, but I think you know why you made your video about ranked choice voting a few days ago: Andrew Yang and the #YangGang has been actively promoting it on Twitter, maybe other platforms but I mostly just see it on Twitter. And now because of you and Andrew, I’m behind the idea!

[@t3chox103]

In school we never use textbooks... but I would really love to have a physical textbook with all the history in it

[@Terry-hh3sx]

I learned so much more about history after I was out of the indoctrination of public schools. I learned the Constitution and from there you can judge our history better. Every country has shameful parts of their history, humans are not perfect. The unfollowing of the Constitution has been our most shameful history that continues to today.

[@advisorywarning]

I disagree there were good parts of the constitution (free speech) but also bad parts (women couldn’t vote, black people were 3/5 human, or anyone else who wasn’t a landowning mostly “white” aka Anglo Saxon). I think that most of this “indoctrination” has mostly come from American dogmatic almost religious patriotism and white washing parts of our history. Now we can learn much more easily than they could because we all have access to the internet and discover primary sources for ourselves instead of trusting “authoritative” sources

[@georgeince4136]

A great video. I minored in history in college and my knowledge of U.S. involvement it Philippines consisted of two sentences on the Philippine insurrection. Then at age 71 I met and fell in love with a Filipina which caused me to research about the Philippines. I was astounded to head about the Philippine - American War. Thanks to videos by you and others I have returned to viewing videos and reading about U.S. history. Keep up the great work.

[@edwardbickford4666]

1st time viewer here. I have always enjoyed history and open to learning new things. Being older with the ability to listen to both sides I find it interesting how views can differ greatly. What is the true history? We will never know, for our own opinions and interpretations are swayed by our own experience. You definitely fuel the fire to keep researching and learning. Keep it up.

[@MrSkeltal268]

Mr Beat! You know what topic I’d love to hear your thoughts on? The brief time before 1776 when other colonies of Britain considered but ultimately ended up not joining the war for independence, and the population differences (French vs English) and military presence of Britain in what would be known as Canada pretty much stamping out support for independence there.

[@iammrbeat]

Great idea!

[@michaels4255]

And don't forget the French and Indian War. Many Americans don't understand that it was basically just a sideshow of the Seven Years War.

[@SeasideDetective2]

I think it's important to remember that history textbooks have been written by individuals (sometimes individuals who became historical figures themselves: Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill) or by small groups of people. Their views do not necessarily reflect what all people of their time believed. I point this out because in modern historiography there appears to be a tendency to stereotype past generations of historians.

[@insightfulhistorian1861]

That's because compartmentalizing different eras of historians greatly assists in simplifying the massive subject of historiography. I agree this results in pigeon-holing, but you cannot talk about every single historian relative to the common views of the time within the time constraints of a college semester.

[@SeasideDetective2]

@@insightfulhistorian1861 No doubt. But I wish we could see at least lip service paid to contemporary historiographical diversity in the mainstream media. Even publications aimed at adults seem to dumb down their articles more often than not. (For that matter, they often dumb down the language as well. I once cringed when I read an article in a serious adult magazine that used the slang word "diss" - unironically and without quotation marks. I lost a lot of respect for the writer of that article.)

[@insightfulhistorian1861]

@@SeasideDetective2 I hate to say it, but the average person has little or no conception of historiography when they read a history article or book. They read it as if it's an objective, factual source. When it comes to politics, people are much more aware of the dangers of bias and propaganda. But as for history, people seem to naively assume that an author with credentials is completely trustworthy. You know, the appeal to authority fallacy.

[@michaels4255]

@@insightfulhistorian1861 And even when the author is entirely well meaning, he will inevitably introduce his own perspective in some ways. It is inevitable. That is why I advocate adopting one good book, not necessarily a "text" book per se, for any one recent major period of history, and from time to time it can be amended with footnotes when the text falls out of fashion. Readers will get insight into the past (the original writer's time, not just the events he recounts), and through the footnotes, into the present, raising their awareness of historiography and reducing the pervasiveness of the One True Narrative style of telling history. In this way, students would understand that they were dealing with sources, not revelators.

[@insightfulhistorian1861]

@@michaels4255 That's a great idea, I like that a lot. Students will gain a lot of contextual knowledge and better comprehend the evolution of thought on the historical events they are learning about from reading these footnotes. And yes, injecting bias/personal interpretations into history books is inevitable, which is why historiography is essential to truly understand history.

[@elijahpaden4151]

Have you heard of the textbook The American Yawp? Its a "collaboratively built" textbook that's free online and my apush class used it. I have a pretty high opinion of it and I think I remember distinct stuff about all five events.

[@amesstarline5482]

I remember my APUSH class using the American Pageant- While I admittedly didn't read much directly, the omission of some key details is startling, while also helping explain why Grant felt under-explored in that course.

[@jackiepollard3843]

Omg, you remind me of shades of my dad!! History teacher, obviously passionate about history and what and how things are covered...my dad, rip, was a high school history teacher in 🇨🇦. Subbed just for that.

[@keithwolschleger2411]

Good video Mr beat once again!!!

[@iammrbeat]

Thank you Keith

[@angusb99]

Hey Mr. Beat in my APUSH class we used Out of Many (6th edition, Faragher, Buhle, Citzrom, Armitage). Haven't read it since high school but it got me a 5 on the APUSH test back then. Seek out a copy!

[@iammrbeat]

Right on!

[@alanlight7740]

44:58 - here's an interesting example about how framing can influence what we think about a subject. Just previously to this it is mentioned that local districts make changes without consulting the authors, and then an example is given in which "in Texas, students read ..." rather than "in California, the text is censored so that students will not learn...." It is highly doubtful that the Texas schools added the phrase, it seems far more likely that the California schools insisted on removing a phrase which might imply that the Harlem Renaissance was sub-par. By starting with the statement that students in both districts will learn one thing, but in Texas they will also read (note, _not_ learn, just "read") an additional fact, a bias is introduced to suggest that the Texas schools added a bigoted idea - when in fact it is almost certain that it was the California schools who removed a passage that they did not like, even though it better reflected the views of the original text. Otherwise, some interesting stuff, though too much emphasis is given to contemporary and false views about the origins of Mr Lincoln's war. I find it interesting that there is commentary about how kids need to learn about U.S. soldiers abusing Filipinos, but nothing is said about U.S. soldiers torturing civilians in the South - including frequent torture of slaves, as mentioned in many of the accounts given in the "Slave Narratives" from the 1930s era Federal Writers Project which interviewed former slaves and is available online from the Library of Congress. Likewise, commentary is given about LBJ's misleading Congress to get the U.S. involved in Vietnam, and his manipulations to get authority to conduct military operations as a way to get around the need for a declaration of war, yet nothing is said about Mr Lincoln's deliberately starting his war while Congress was not even in session, and raising an army for that war, without even attempting to inform Congress much less get their consent - which they would certainly not have given at that time. There seems to be a double standard here. It might also be worth a look at how the narrative of the Waxhaw Massacre has changed over time. It was considered a major event during the American Revolution, turning a largely neutral population in the southern states against the British and leading directly to the overmountain men raising an army to defeat Ferguson's command at Kings Mountain, South Carolina. Somewhere I have a history book from the early 1900s which mentions it as a major event - but it seems to have vanished from history books after the U.S. allied itself with Britain in the First World War. Even among modern historians who write about this event, it is now explained as merely the unfortunate result of a mismatch between infantry and cavalry - despite the fact that contemporary accounts from survivors emphasized how the "British" soldiers (almost all were loyalists from New York and New Jersey) _deliberately_ bayoneted wounded men lying on the ground, doing so multiple times. One of the few survivors - who later became a judge in North Carolina - received 27 wounds; and for further context as to how this event relates to American history, future president Andrew Jackson was among those who tended to the survivors - and after Jackson had been orphaned by the war (his entire family died as a result of the war) this judge took him in and helped him become a lawyer, launching his political career. I am also reminded that somewhere I have a South Carolina textbook from 1875 that gives lots of accounts I have seen nowhere else - such as the Indian wars along the frontiers in the western part of the state in the early 1700s. The general narrative was that a band of Indians would kill a large number of settlers, including women and children, and then a small army - including armed slaves - would be raised to go and destroy that band of Indians. I recall in particular that the leaders of a couple of the campaigns were a Colonel Chicken and a Colonel Coward, which I found a little amusing. Despite their names they seem to have been successful. However, the general narrative, that we should be aware of how history books are used to shape public perceptions of the past, is a good one. It is something that we should be aware of - but we should also be aware that it cuts several ways, and that our contemporary history books may be even more biased than the old ones.

[@warnegoodman]

Fantastic video, thank you. When I took APUSH in 2006 our class actually used Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States as our primary textbook.

[@maryfeitz4295]

I found a U.S. history book from the 1850s in a used bookstore several years ago. It was SO FASCINATING. From the perspective of the present, there's clearly so much that hasn't happened yet, so it's interesting to see what they considered important. The answer: It was basically all about the Revolution, Founding Fathers, etc etc. Lots of moralizing digressions, as typical of the time. It was a northern textbook (from Massachusetts iirc) so relatively critical of slavery. A bit about the geography of the new territories that had just been established, and what potential they have to be exploited for resources (yay?). And that's about all I remember. Very typically Victorian in prose and tone, of course. I don't know how effective it was at teaching history at the time but today it's a valuable insight into the mindset of the day.

[@michaels4255]

1850s were when North and South were very divided over slavery. Abolitionists had growing influence in the North, and in the South all public ambivalence re: slavery had vanished. Also, newspapers in both regions were inflaming the passions of one region against the other. The newspapers may well have been responsible for the outbreak of war. A textbook written in that period would likely reflect the popular passions of that time, just like today they all represent "diversity" and "inclusion," and very uncritically.

[@jeffreyault7771]

Mr. Beat this is such an incredible idea, way to go! I just recently discovered your channel a few weeks ago and have become a huge fan. You briefly referenced Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, what are your thoughts on that book?

[@iammrbeat]

Thank you! Zinn's book was a reaction to previous history books and it had a clear agenda, but I still recommend everyone read it.

[@thunderbird1921]

I've read some of his materials myself, Zinn has some good points, but as Mr. Beat said in his response before me, be warned that it too is a biased view with an agenda. I really don't like how Zinn leaves out some important details and sort of twists other ones to fit his narrative. The best way to learn history is to research thoroughly yourself whenever you can.

[@pleaseenteraname1103]

Second,Mr.Beat you should do a video on the radical Republicans, and the Federalist Party, I know you briefly talked about in your Alexander Hamilton video and in your presidential election videos but I would like to see a entire video dedicated to it, overall keep up the good work, I think your channel will undoubtedly get bigger as the years go on, maybe by 2024 you’ll hit 1 million subscribers.

[@abrahamlincoln937]

I predict that Mr. Beat will reach 500,000 subscribers by the end of March 2022.

[@iammrbeat]

Those are all wonderful suggestions, and thank you for the encouraging words!

[@pleaseenteraname1103]

@@abrahamlincoln937 wouldn’t doubt it.

[@abrahamlincoln937]

@@pleaseenteraname1103 Agreed because he is already at 489,000 subscribers.

[@pleaseenteraname1103]

@@abrahamlincoln937 by 2023 he’ll probably hit 600,000.

[@abrahamlincoln937]

Mr. Beat, do a video on the 12 major wars in American history, the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, American Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.

[@iammrbeat]

I can dig it

[@abrahamlincoln937]

@@iammrbeat Good

[@haackermann13]

Douglassian here. Neat to see you're basically my neighbor!! Glad you're doing good work ☺️

[@St4rryN1ght760]

One day (early 90’s) Coach Lopez walked passed our classroom. Mr Saveski asked Coach to come in. He then asked Coach what he thought about General Santa Ana. He went on to tell the class about what a great and honorable man he was. This was in complete opposition to the Disney’fied History we were fed at that school. It was the first time we were ever shown that there were multiple sides to every story. It’s the moment I fell in love with history.

[@johngalt97]

I perused some kind of 'condensed, accumulated knowledge' book from pre-1900 and was amazed at how limited science was, then. Mankind seemed to be relying mostly on ancient wisdom and clever individuals.

[@cicibrown5979]

I was born and raised in Wichita! I actually went through high-school in the 90's too and I remember roughly the same amount of these historical topics as you. To be honest I don't feel my textbooks covering near as much of some of the topics as yours.

[@londonrhodes2429]

"Lies my teacher told me" was great book that breaks down some history textbooks.

[@bettygorman4545]

My first four years and three weeks of elementary education was in California where my father was stationed in the Air Force. We retired to Texas. I graduated from high school in 1971. Half the things you mentioned were never in textbooks. I got my undergraduate degree in the late 90s. My masters degree in business required no history courses. We all know about the censoring of textbooks occurring presently. After viewing your video, this one, I believe they’ve always been censored. And that’s a shame. I do hope today’s students do go to online history sources, such as yours, and others, to get more and better information. What you presented here confirmed my suspicions about education throughout the years. It’s always been slanted. Thank you very much.

[@thinkfact]

If you're interested in getting your hands and other books that APUSH students used, look up "United States History Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination" by John J. Newman and Josh and Schmalbach. I had the 2010 revision copy and used it over the course of 2 years.

[@thinkfact]

Oh, for the record I took this class in the state of Maine

[@causeimmortal]

that’s amsco right? or at least that’s what it called on mine, it’s a 2016 edition. i’m an APUSH student right now and i do find it very helpful! especially because it included practice questions that would be part of the exam like the mcq, saq, dbq, and leq. i’d definitely say it helped me on the exam