Were Public Domain History Books "Wrong" In Their Day?

[Hunter]

Did some Eskimos maybe spend the entire winter in igloos? Did some northern Indians maybe live in teepees in the woods?

 

Let's not get into racism in this thread. Please! At least not until I get the answer to my question. Then as usual, my threads can turn into ANYTHING as long as everyone is okay and happy.

 

What I really want to talk about is the accuracy of "facts" in older history and geography books. We are often told that they are "wrong" and full of errors. There is this idea that 21st century man knows more about the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, than the people then knew about themselves. Supposedly we have proof.

 

I'm not talking about new science developments, that people obviously had not discovered yet, like germs, vitamins,  and outer planets. I'm talking about people writing about their own times. People with boots on the ground, reporting what they say they saw. Really, can we, looking back, REALLY know that they are "wrong".

 

I grew up thinking eskimos spent all winter living in igloos. Then I was told that was not true, and I believed the new information, because…of course we are smarter now, and all new ideas supersede old ones, right? I grew up drawing teepees for some northern tribes as I saw them in books. Then I was told no northern tribes ever used teepees EVER. Never, never, never. I believed the new information. But, then I was told that wasn't true either. That of COURSE northern tribes used tents sometimes, especially in the summer.

 

This blanket idea that older history books were wrong so much more often than we are now, even though they were THERE with boots on the ground–does this make sense to you?

[mamaraby]

Depends upon how the information was gathered. Could the authors have used firsthand accounts? Yes. On the other hand, how were those accounts obtained? Were there any power dynamics at play that would have netted less than accurate details? Which is to say nothing of the fact that no one (first hand account or no) is capable of reporting about history without their own filter be that their religion, their philosophy, their own prejudices, etc.

 

History is just not as simple as x person was there so they know what they were talking about. Maybe less science, more art? Definitely somewhat subjective. I think it's also reasonable to expect that what's changed is not our superiority as a modern people, but instead the way in which we approach the collection and presentation of history.

 

Just imo, but I don't think you can separate racism as neatly from your question as you might wish.

[hornblower]

But they didn't have anthropologists or sociologists trying to gather info & get deep data.

& isn't the problem that people always assess everything through the prism of their own world? Few people in the 18th or 19th C would have been even attempting to look dispassionately and openly at other cultures. We try & might fail, but at least we're aware of the problem. Then it seems like everyone was just a wicked heathen savage that needed to be converted to the truth...., kwim?

So it's not that they were "wrong" in what they might have seen, it's that their perception was deeply colored by their own culture.

[Tanaqui]

They're history books. What they reported on was just as much in the past for the people writing them as they are for the people reading them today. If you want to know what people with their "boots on the ground" thought about the past as it was happening, read old periodicals.

[justasque]

As a child, I read many books in the Childhood of Famous Americans series, working through my school library's collection. I sometimes wondered how the author knew so many details about the subject's childhood. Their adult life would have been well-documented (as, of course, they were famous) but where did the details of their experiences as young children come from? Turns out, the books are a mixture of fact and fiction, although they did not make that clear to the reader. Back then, that was not uncommon.

 

If you want to do a bit of research, a good example is that of William Shakespeare. It's interesting to compare various children's books about him. There's actually not a whole lot of known material to work with. Modern books carefully weave the known information about his life with other info from the time period, to create a rich text based only on what we actually know from primary sources. Older books are not as precise in their language, filling in the gaps with fiction and blurring fact and fiction together.

 

A key factor is that authors today are much more able to access primary historical sources on the topics about which they are writing, which makes it easier to be accurate. This is especially true the farther you go back in history, or the farther the physical distance to the country you are writing about. As an example, if I wanted a description of a country on the other side of the globe from me, I could easily access newspapers, videos, old newsreels, and so on, via the internet, and in most cases I could even call on a fellow WTMers in the region to give me a "boots on the ground" perspective. None of this would have been possible without extensive (and expensive) travel fifty years ago.

 

I got a lot out of my childhood non-fiction reading, especially the CofFA series and the similar Landmark books. The mental history framework they helped me to build provided a mostly-good foundation for more formal history studies. But for some topics, now that I know more, I've had to completely re-think the early impressions I got from such books.

 

While the old books served a purpose, we are lucky to live in a time when more accurate books are available to us and our students.

[Serenade]

I think if there are multiple sources from way back in the day, written by people with boots on the ground, one can gather that  there is probably a tone of truth in what they are saying if they are all saying variations of the same thing.  As someone mentioned upthread, of course everyone's notion of truth is colored by their own bias, but I think one can get a general idea of how things were if multiple sources are in agreement. 

 

[SporkUK]

But if those multiple sources come from the same perspective, then the 'truth' they all agree on may come from that prism/bias. Most public domain books about American Indigenous Nations were written by White Anglo settlers with particularly type of education surrounded by the same constant messages about themselves and the peoples they were writing about. Just the concept that there are one nation of 'Eskimos' which is a common belief in many of those books is very false and a damaging belief that causes problems between the communication between those nations and the US and Canada even today. If the history books all come from the same type of source, they may all have the same misunderstandings, just as if we read the multiple Chinese sources on the Roman Empire we get a very different picture than when we read multiple sources from a group of Romans or a group of people conquered by the Romans. 

 

When it comes to facts as to whether a group did X or Y, the best source is obviously from the group themselves. There are many sources from the people of those nations in your example freely available now. If you want the 'facts' of group in a more over arching or philosophical way, it's probably best to get multiple perspectives from multiple sources that actively interacted with them (rather than just anthropologists/sociologists, even as a former one of the latter there are many of both who have the very wrong end of the stick because of personal bias, especially many of the older public domain books). 

[regentrude]

Many older historical accounts relied on second and third hand narratives. Somebody telling the author something he heard from somebody... yeah, that's not terribly accurate.

Some historical accounts are excellent because they have been written by eyewitnesses and scholars who critically examined the information and tried to be as objective as possible. Others are horrible, since the authors relied on third hand testimony and /or tried to further a particular agenda with their writing.

The same can be said about studies TODAY.

Also, the idea of what constitutes a historical analysis is not static, but evolving. The techniques of historians are changing. The attitudes towards preservation of evidence are changing (in the 19th century, they'd excavate everything and distribute the artifacts - now in some cases they are closing up digs to preserve them for future exploration with more sophisticated tools. Very different perspectives.)

 

ETA: And even for first hand eyewitness accounts: those are written with a specific audience in mind. When you are writing about your life, what's your motive? Do you write  a very personal diary, letters to your mother, a report to a government agency? Do you write with an eye on posterity? Not even a personal account form the period is unbiased and "truthful". The content of your personal diary may be very different from what you write to your mom or what you put on a resume.

[Hunter]

All of these things are true.

 

But, do you believe that modern history books are ALWAYS more accurate than 17th, 18th, and 19th century people that wrote about THEMSELVES? Do you believe that these people were so flawed that it was impossible for them to tell the "truth"? What if we are so flawed we cannot see or tell the truth, either? How would we know? Would only reading our own modern books make us more flawed, if we are flawed?

 

Are the accounts of outsiders always less accurate than insiders? So an account by a great-great grandchild is always more accurate than a boots on the ground outsider account? I know that in MY family sometimes as outsider account is more accurate than what my family members have told me. Wouldn't that maybe be true for all history?

 

You are saying their greatest flaw was not being able to look past their culture's provincialism and elitism. Are we being even more provincial and elitist to actually think we can provide a more truthful view as historians than they could as first-hand accounts?

 

I don't know. I feel like maybe we have taken a further step in foolishness than the vintage authors.

 

Are we the first century to totally boycott previous centuries of books as ENTIRELY trash and automatically not to be trusted or even read? We know that certain countries for a short period of time boycotted certain bodies of literature, for reasons we have been taught were evil. But, mass boycotting of all books from all countries for centuries? Is this unprecedented?

 

Something feels very wrong to me here. Something maybe even unprecedentedly wrong.

 

For a long time I believed modern books were more accurate than older books. I don't believe that any more. Yes, we have made some new scientific discoveries, but sometimes we are so stupid we don't even know how to use those discoveries fairly and efficiently, and would be better off never having discovered them at all. I don't think those few discoveries make us smarter as a whole, and they certainly don't seem to have made us wiser as a whole. 

 

Do you believe we are smarter and/or wiser than our great grandparents? Kinder? Fairer? More loving? Less prejudiced as a whole against anyone we label as outsiders and others? Has any other century of people declared themselves as so superior to their great-grandparents? So superior as to throw out all they left behind. What do we now say about any group that did that?

 

I'm feeling very confused about all this. How is it possible that they could be so bad and we could be so right? Especially when they are the ones who raised us?

[8filltheheart]

You might enjoy reading about CS Lewis's view on chronological snobbery. (This is from wiki)

 

 

Chronological snobbery, is a term coined by friends C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, describing the erroneous argument (usually considered an outright fallacy) that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior to that of the present, simply by virtue of its temporal priority. As Barfield explains it, it is the belief that "intellectually, humanity languished for countless generations in the most childish errors on all sorts of crucial subjects, until it was redeemed by some simple scientific dictum of the last century."

[Hunter]

You might enjoy reading about CS Lewis's view on chronological snobbery. (This is from wiki)

 

 

Thank you for this lead on reading more about this topic. I just feel really out of sorts over this.

[Farrar]

Yes, they were wrong. I have no problem just saying that. Some historical accounts were just made up (thanks, Washington Irving for all that imaginary Columbus history), some relied on second and third hand information, and some were eyewitness accounts but by individuals so biased that they misinterpreted so many things that it's hard to find the kernel of truth.

 

I don't think books today are always more accurate. There are still people relying on bias, misinterpretation, and second and third hand accounts. I think the problem is that a hundred years ago it was difficult to find sources about non-Western history that wasn't in that category. I think sources about European history are often just as accurate, just through a different lens. I think all the history books tell you something about the time in which they were written, but if you're not studying that time, then you want a book that accurately reflects the time you are studying, at least to the best of its ability.

[Hunter]

I liked this article on chronological snobbery.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/philosophy/ph0017.htm

[Garga]

I don't know.  All this stuff irks me to no end.  I feel foolish that I never knew the horrors of Columbus until, what, 6 months ago?  I remember in school being taught what a great adventurer he was and how brave he was.

 

Then, in my 20's (I'm 41 now) I heard inklings that maybe he wasn't such a nice person, but there wasn't an internet so I didn't really know the details. I didn't bother trying to find out because I assumed the reports that he wasn't a nice person was probably sensational journalism (another thing that irks me.)

 

It wasn't until a thread a few months ago that I finally thought, "Hey, lemme look up about Columbus and find out about him once and for all," and found out what a horrid person he was. 

 

These old books make me feel betrayed.  

 

But, OP, I get your point as well.  Do we really know better?  Or do we just think we do?  Where are our blind spots?  

[Hunter]

I don't know.  All this stuff irks me to no end.  I feel foolish that I never knew the horrors of Columbus until, what, 6 months ago?  I remember in school being taught what a great adventurer he was and how brave he was.

 

Then, in my 20's I heard inklings that maybe he wasn't such a nice person, but there wasn't an internet so I didn't really know the details. I didn't bother trying to find out because I assumed the reports that he wasn't a nice person was probably sensational journalism (another thing that irks me.)

 

It wasn't until a thread a few months ago that I finally thought, "Hey, lemme look up about Columbus and find out about him once and for al," and found out what a horrid person he was. 

 

These old books make me feel betrayed.  

 

But, OP, I get your point as well.  Do we really know better?  Or do we just think we do?  Where are our blind spots?  

 

Garga, I remember feeling like what you are describing. I feel more betrayed now, than I did then.

[8filltheheart]

I liked this article on chronological snobbery.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/philosophy/ph0017.htm

 

I haven't had time to read this link, but I am a complete Kreeft fan!

[kiwik]

I don't know much about Columbus at all not being in the US. But was he considered horrid by his contempories and equals or is it you filter that makes that judgement? As far as I know he was the typical adventurer come pirate who considered he had a right to what and who he found and to hell with the natives.

[regentrude]

But, do you believe that modern history books are ALWAYS more accurate than 17th, 18th, and 19th century people that wrote about THEMSELVES? Do you believe that these people were so flawed that it was impossible for them to tell the "truth"? What if we are so flawed we cannot see or tell the truth, either? How would we know? Would only reading our own modern books make us more flawed, if we are flawed?

 

Distance creates perspective. People writing about themselves may truthfully record their own observations and perceptions, but they are not in possession of all information about the era they find themselves in. You need chronological, and possibly geographical, cultural, and emotional, distance to gain perspective.

Even a person who is doing the best to tell the truth about her life will see things colored by her limited perspective since she is a participant. It is through synthesizing many such accounts and putting them into a greater perspective that a historian can arrive at  a big picture and can see which facets were subjective, and which are general for the era.

 

 

 

 

Are the accounts of outsiders always less accurate than insiders? So an account by a great-great grandchild is always more accurate than a boots on the ground outsider account? I know that in MY family sometimes as outsider account is more accurate than what my family members have told me. Wouldn't that maybe be true for all history?

 

I think every insider's account is influenced by the personal views and experiences to a greater degree than an outsider's account. This does not make an outsider's account necessarily more accurate - because the outsider may have bias or an agenda.

 

 

 

Are we the first century to totally boycott previous centuries of books as ENTIRELY trash and automatically not to be trusted or even read? We know that certain countries for a short period of time boycotted certain bodies of literature, for reasons we have been taught were evil. But, mass boycotting of all books from all countries for centuries? Is this unprecedented?

 

I have not seen any evidence that our century boycotts centuries of books as trash. Historians use old sources all the time. I have never been taught that a book is "evil". I don't know where you get this idea of "mass boycotting".

 

 

 

Do you believe we are smarter and/or wiser than our great grandparents? Kinder? Fairer? More loving? Less prejudiced as a whole against anyone we label as outsiders and others? Has any other century of people declared themselves as so superior to their great-grandparents? So superior as to throw out all they left behind. What do we now say about any group that did that?

 

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. Where is anybody declaring himself superior to the Grandparents?

Anybody who seriously studies history goes back to the sources from that period, not to modern accounts about that period. But going back to, and using, contemporary sources does not equal taking each individual source as objective truth. If that were the case, history as a discipline would be obsolete.

[regentrude]

  I feel foolish that I never knew the horrors of Columbus until, what, 6 months ago?  I remember in school being taught what a great adventurer he was and how brave he was.

Then, in my 20's (I'm 41 now) I heard inklings that maybe he wasn't such a nice person, but there wasn't an internet so I didn't really know the details. I didn't bother trying to find out because I assumed the reports that he wasn't a nice person was probably sensational journalism (another thing that irks me.)

It wasn't until a thread a few months ago that I finally thought, "Hey, lemme look up about Columbus and find out about him once and for all," and found out what a horrid person he was.

 

So how did you think he "convinced" the natives to part with their land and their treasures? By appealing to their good nature and giving them a friendly pat on the back?

Would it not be perfectly obvious that his conquest must have been violent, as every other conquest was?

 

[Garga]

So how did you think he "convinced" the natives to part with their land and their treasures? By appealing to their good nature and giving them a friendly pat on the back?

Would it not be perfectly obvious that his conquest must have been violent, as every other conquest was?

I didn't know it was Columbus that started the violent conquering. I thought he found the land and went back home. I wasn't taught what happened to him after 1492. I thought it was the people after Columbus who starring warring against the natives.

 

I had been taught that Columbus simply traded goods with the people in America and then...nothing.

 

Also, I have since learned that there were pockets in time and place where the colonial Americans and the native people did live in harmony and helped one another. It just didn't last long or in many places.

 

I had no clue that Columbus literally tortured the natives. Moving onto land and then engaging in battle to keep your stolen land when the natives attack is different from actively torturing people. Even leading people in attacks against the natives is different from torturing individuals.

 

Give me a break please, I was a public schooled kid. The above is why I homeschool! I don't always know what I don't know until we start studying it in our homeschool. The point of my post on this "were history books wrong in their day" thread was that I was specifically taught that Columbus was a noble, upright, brave adventurer. When I found out the truth, one my "heroes" died. I had especially liked Columbus. I felt awful and betrayed to learn the truth.

[Murphy101]

It depends. Same as what we are currently writing and reading and hearing about.

 

Some facts were more accurate than some of the stuff we spout today.

 

Some facts aren't really facts at all, both then and now.

 

Did northern tribes have tepees? Idk. I would suggest visiting a tribal reservation, if available in person or online, as asking them what THEIR history says on the topic.

 

I don't think the old books got it all wrong or all right.

I don't think the current ones do either.

[Farrar]

So how did you think he "convinced" the natives to part with their land and their treasures? By appealing to their good nature and giving them a friendly pat on the back?

Would it not be perfectly obvious that his conquest must have been violent, as every other conquest was?

 

 

I think this underestimates the extent to which Columbus is glorified in many texts, texts that specifically claim he was kind to the natives or that he didn't want to take over their land. These sorts of books are still read in many quarters here in the US. It would not be obvious to a child and if you're told by a factual book that it's otherwise, then until you're confronted with this issue as an adult, I think it's pretty common for people not to reflect on it.

[Farrar]

I think Columbus is an excellent example of why we have to be careful in trusting some older history books, especially those written for children. There was a value seen at the time in creating heroes to admire and facts were seen as secondary. 

[regentrude]

 It would not be obvious to a child and if you're told by a factual book that it's otherwise, then until you're confronted with this issue as an adult, I think it's pretty common for people not to reflect on it.

 

I guess I have the advantage of having grown up in a country where we knew that history books and "factual" accounts were written to support a very specific viewpoint and did not contain the truth. Of course there were people back then who believed the carp... but being raised by critical parents, we NEVER believed what they told us in school, because the accounts were biased to support the regime's ideology. I learned as a child to question everything presented as "fact". We did not believe newspapers or news on TV, unless corroborated by a source from the other side of the wall.

So, I guess, to me it is very normal to question what  am told or taught.

 

And that is a skill that is very useful even in a free country. Just look at newscasts and the wide disparity between reports. It always begs the question: who is reporting? What is their agenda? Who benefits from this specific choice of topic and the selection of "facts" to report? Without consulting reports from a wide variety of sources, it is not possible to construct an accurate account of what happens TODAY.... why would yesterday be different?

[Farrar]

I guess I have the advantage of having grown up in a country where we knew that history books and "factual" accounts were written to support a very specific viewpoint and did not contain the truth. Of course there were people back then who believed the carp... but being raised by critical parents, we NEVER believed what they told us in school, because the accounts were biased to support the regime's ideology. I learned as a child to question everything presented as "fact". We did not believe newspapers or news on TV, unless corroborated by a source from the other side of the wall.

So, I guess, to me it is very normal to question what  am told or taught.

 

And that is a skill that is very useful even in a free country. Just look at newscasts and the wide disparity between reports. It always begs the question: who is reporting? What is their agenda? Who benefits from this specific choice of topic and the selection of "facts" to report? Without consulting reports from a wide variety of sources, it is not possible to construct an accurate account of what happens TODAY.... why would yesterday be different?

 

ITA. But I think history is just taught in such a facile and simplistic way in most American schools and many people don't pursue it at all at the college level. Thus it doesn't surprise me that there are people who started out believing the carp and never got a chance to revisit it - even thinking people who question in other arenas of their lives. But yeah, wanting to help students be more critical of the news and current events was actually one of the reasons I started out in education and initially taught history.

[AMJ]

Okay, Hunter, I hear a lot of frustration, and that's entirely understandable.  We (U.S. society, and probably others) have been raised to believe our text books, believe what we were taught in school.  After all, these were AUTHORITIES, who can be believed without question, right?

 

But such was not the case, not then, and not now.  We as a society have been trained to listen to our "experts", anyone who speaks with authority (which might be real or might be assumed) on any subject, and take what they say as given.  No thought of what their own biases might be, or the limits to their own knowledge.

 

Ofttimes those with the most apparent authority have particular agendas, and they say what they do to further their own causes. 

 

So what's a person to do?  Whom should one believe on any point in history?

 

First-hand accounts are great, but:

1. they only tell part of the whole story, the part the person speaking can and WANTS to tell
2. they are often fragmentary and not recorded until quite some time after the fact, when memory might not serve so accurately
3. if the person speaking isn't the one actually writing or recording, or if it must be translated, there is now bias added from whomever is translating or assisting

Consider it like trying to piece together a murder mystery:  One must consider ALL accounts and sources one can gather, and proximity (in time) to the moment or event in question does carry some weight, but does not guarantee infallibility.

 

Textbooks don't do this very well.  Textbooks (then and now) are written to teach specific subject matter at a certain pace and within a certain time frame, and do so in a manner that is easily quantified for testing and measures purposes.  Textbooks are written for specific markets, and if they don't match up to what their market wants then they don't sell and get distributed.

 

Does that make textbooks (of any age) useless?  Hardly.  But they are not infallible, and should never be taken and taught as THE truth.

 

You cannot get the types of answers you seem to be looking for by accepting as enough the nice, pat tidbits old (or current) history books give.  For one thing, all too many history books don't even cite their sources; they are written as if someone who knows ALL on the topic has kindly written it down for us.  This is hardly the case.

 

Instead if you really want to know the answers to whether any Eskimos ever lived all winter long in igloos or whether any Woodlands tribes used Plains-style abodes you are going to have to do your homework, and research each individually.  Whether you choose to do that is up to you, and you alone.

 

So now I will include yet another plug for my favorite history materials to date:  Stanford History Education Group's (SHEG) Reading Like a Historian.   http://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh   I use this and use some textbook-y books and history encyclopedias to teach my kids (and myself alongside them) not only about various time periods in history, but how to think CRITICALLY about the sources of our information and our sources' sources.  It's not enough to consider who our sources are and why they are saying what they do, but also where they got their information from and how reliable were their own sources.

 

So, were old history textbooks quite wrong in what they said?  Yeah, pretty much.  Are current textbooks so much better?  That's questionable.  I find that the textbooks (of whatever age) that cite their sources and provide reference lists and bibliographies to be better overall, not only because they were written with more care, but because they give you the information you need to verify the information they provide.

[Pen]

Did some Eskimos maybe spend the entire winter in igloos? Did some northern Indians maybe live in teepees in the woods?

 

Let's not get into racism in this thread. Please! At least not until I get the answer to my question. Then as usual, my threads can turn into ANYTHING as long as everyone is okay and happy.

 

What I really want to talk about is the accuracy of "facts" in older history and geography books. We are often told that they are "wrong" and full of errors. There is this idea that 21st century man knows more about the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, than the people then knew about themselves. Supposedly we have proof.

 

I'm not talking about new science developments, that people obviously had not discovered yet, like germs, vitamins,  and outer planets. I'm talking about people writing about their own times. People with boots on the ground, reporting what they say they saw. Really, can we, looking back, REALLY know that they are "wrong".

 

I grew up thinking eskimos spent all winter living in igloos. Then I was told that was not true, and I believed the new information, because…of course we are smarter now, and all new ideas supersede old ones, right? I grew up drawing teepees for some northern tribes as I saw them in books. Then I was told no northern tribes ever used teepees EVER. Never, never, never. I believed the new information. But, then I was told that wasn't true either. That of COURSE northern tribes used tents sometimes, especially in the summer.

 

This blanket idea that older history books were wrong so much more often than we are now, even though they were THERE with boots on the ground–does this make sense to you?

 

 

As I teach history I am trying to put some emphasis on the  discovery and analysis process of figuring out what happened--neither "facts" as believed some years ago, nor "facts" as believed now. I think history as "facts" is dull and apt to be wrong. History as "process"  as discovery and analysis is interesting, and inherently teaches the limitations of figuring out and knowing.

 

Did northern Native Americans live in tipis in the woods? I believe generally the answer is "no."

As it happens, ds has a tipi, so maybe someone years from now would find it and decide that people in 2014 lived in tipis in the woods in a relatively northern part of USA. Or maybe because it is something fun, it would be written about in a letter, that would be preserved, while the daily life of our house might not be mentioned. And if I were discussing the subject, I might bring this up as part of the discussion.

 

I would want to teach this sort of question neither by looking at a vintage textbook nor a modern one.  But instead asking, how could we figure out the answer to that question ourselves? What could be looked at to figure that out? What evidence would there be one way or the other from the past? What experiments might be done even in the present to decide if living in tipis is feasible in northern areas? To whom would one go to ask questions? Or to what physical clues might one turn to figure out the answer.

[Hunter]

 When I found out the truth, one my "heroes" died. I had especially liked Columbus. I felt awful and betrayed to learn the truth.

 

Garpa, you still might not know the truth, and maybe never will. :grouphug:

 

I think Columbus was a complex man, who people have personal reasons to glorify and disparage. All I know is that my favorite ice cream shop closes on Columbus Day, and I take a train down to the beach and have ice cream on that holiday. :) It's a special day, unclouded by sad memories that haunt so many other holidays. Columbus Day is an important day in my life and a joke among people that know me.

 

I remember my first years homeschooling and reading the books about the explorers. I'm glad we had one picture book that was meticulous about citing sources, and wrote both sides of the story, and left it up to the child to decide. Of course any child would be unprepared to decide for himself.

 

My son was angry and frustrated with the book. We never read another like it, because it was just too uncomfortable to read at that age. But, it did set the stage not to believe every negative thing modern scholars say.

 

But, I still developed what I guess is called chronological snobbery, during those early days of homeschooling.

 

We spent a lot of time down at the Plimoth Plantation, doing what everyone says we should, talking to the Wampanoag. I believed everything they told us. I have since learned that a lot of what they told us is NOT true. Especially a lot of what was told to us by a very angry older gentleman. I have learned that sometimes what outsiders have to say is more accurate than hearing it from the great-grandchildren. I was taught that the Wampanoag are THE source. I can tell you, that they are NOT.

 

I don't care so much about igloos and teepees, but they have been used as specific examples of why children should not be allowed to read both fiction and textbooks that contain accounts of children living in them.

 

I just wish I had heard about chronological snobbery earlier. It would have saved my brain some trouble of coming to this conclusion myself the hard way. My post written just before the link I posted is almost identical. I swear I did not read that article before hand. Whether it's a valid conclusion or not, I could have been saved some mental strain, by just hearing the term and idea behind it, instead of working myself to this conclusion the hard way. My brain gets tired sometimes.

[wintermom]

Okay, Hunter, I hear a lot of frustration, and that's entirely understandable.  We (U.S. society, and probably others) have been raised to believe our text books, believe what we were taught in school.  After all, these were AUTHORITIES, who can be believed without question, right?

 

But such was not the case, not then, and not now.  We as a society have been trained to listen to our "experts", anyone who speaks with authority (which might be real or might be assumed) on any subject, and take what they say as given.  No thought of what their own biases might be, or the limits to their own knowledge.

 

Ofttimes those with the most apparent authority have particular agendas, and they say what they do to further their own causes. 

 

So what's a person to do?  Whom should one believe on any point in history?

 

First-hand accounts are great, but:

1. they only tell part of the whole story, the part the person speaking can and WANTS to tell
2. they are often fragmentary and not recorded until quite some time after the fact, when memory might not serve so accurately
3. if the person speaking isn't the one actually writing or recording, or if it must be translated, there is now bias added from whomever is translating or assisting

Consider it like trying to piece together a murder mystery:  One must consider ALL accounts and sources one can gather, and proximity (in time) to the moment or event in question does carry some weight, but does not guarantee infallibility.

 

Textbooks don't do this very well.  Textbooks (then and now) are written to teach specific subject matter at a certain pace and within a certain time frame, and do so in a manner that is easily quantified for testing and measures purposes.  Textbooks are written for specific markets, and if they don't match up to what their market wants then they don't sell and get distributed.

 

Does that make textbooks (of any age) useless?  Hardly.  But they are not infallible, and should never be taken and taught as THE truth.

 

You cannot get the types of answers you seem to be looking for by accepting as enough the nice, pat tidbits old (or current) history books give.  For one thing, all too many history books don't even cite their sources; they are written as if someone who knows ALL on the topic has kindly written it down for us.  This is hardly the case.

 

Instead if you really want to know the answers to whether any Eskimos ever lived all winter long in igloos or whether any Woodlands tribes used Plains-style abodes you are going to have to do your homework, and research each individually.  Whether you choose to do that is up to you, and you alone.

 

So now I will include yet another plug for my favorite history materials to date:  Stanford History Education Group's (SHEG) Reading Like a Historian.   http://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh   I use this and use some textbook-y books and history encyclopedias to teach my kids (and myself alongside them) not only about various time periods in history, but how to think CRITICALLY about the sources of our information and our sources' sources.  It's not enough to consider who our sources are and why they are saying what they do, but also where they got their information from and how reliable were their own sources.

 

So, were old history textbooks quite wrong in what they said?  Yeah, pretty much.  Are current textbooks so much better?  That's questionable.  I find that the textbooks (of whatever age) that cite their sources and provide reference lists and bibliographies to be better overall, not only because they were written with more care, but because they give you the information you need to verify the information they provide.

 

Great post!  Perhaps instead of being frustrated, we can feel a sense of power that we have the opportunity to do this kind of critical thinking and "checking history" with our children while they are young, as we learn along with them. I find it fascinating to discover that certain things that were taken for granted in school when I grew up can be looked at with new information and point of view. It does take time and effort, though, which building schools may not decide to do. Also, the age and sensitivity of the students can often determine just how deep we want to dig into what actually happened in some situations. It can be very distressing to learn how poorly some people treated others in the past (intentionally and unintentionally). 

 

I love picking out the glaring flaws we read in some books (e.g., Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas). It's great to point out how we know they are incorrect by looking at the publishing date and knowing when the viking settlements were discovered, for example. It's all part of learning history: why historical account was written, who was writing, what information they used to tell it, what they had available, what they didn't use, etc. 

[Hunter]

I don't know who pointed out to me the ludicrousness of believing that northern peoples NEVER used tents. The Wampanoag harped on the idea that northern peoples didn't use tents. Really? PEOPLE use tents, for all sorts of reasons,  ALL around the WORLD, in ALL times of history. Using tents is like wearing shoes. I'm kind of annoyed I swallowed that.

 

A picture of a teepee in a deciduous forest was supposed to make me discard a book as trash. I'm ashamed to say I did that. If I was flipping through books at the library, I immediately put back on the shelf anything with a tent in a forest, just like I'd been taught to do. I was such a good and righteous homeschool mom; I knew to not bring trash like that home to MY children. Ugh!

 

Tents are tents. It's this kind of stuff that makes me feel more betrayed, than the type of stuff Garga is going, through. I feel like I have been taught to hate and discard good things that were there for me to enjoy. Having PTSD and going through the recovery process, I have been taught how abusers not only isolate victims, but train them to isolate themselves. I'm deeply sorry for the injustices the Wampanoag faced, but that doesn't make it right what some of them have done in Massachusetts in their reeducation process that has been extensive and unquestioned. I feel like they have trained me to isolate myself from some good books and to label authors as wrong and evil who were not. All over pictures of tents.

 

I'm a bit angry, as a lower-income person, that I was taught and shamed into isolating myself from such a wealth of readily available literature. I'm thankful, that as a child, the reeducation process had not started yet. I just read and read and read, whatever I found, anything and everything. And then I was "educated" to be more discriminating about what I read. My world shrank and I was exposed to fewer and more filtered content. I was assured that it was "better" content though. And I believed that.

 

I don't believe new books are better than old ones. Not anymore. There are so many things I have come full circle with, and can go back to being freer without all the shame. Allowing myself a wider pool of books feels as freeing as when I stopped wearing a headcovering, and thinking I needed to cover my elbows and knees as all times. I'm still a little squeamish about my knees. I think the word "squaw" will always make me squeamish no matter how much I have been told that word does NOT mean what the Wampanoag told me that it means.

 

It's time for me to embrace a wider pool of books. Neither the books or uncovered knees are evil.

[Farrar]

But if a book is showing a teepee style tent in a forest as a representative example of life, then that's extremely misleading at best. I would think that unless the book had some great literary value that it would be something I wouldn't bring into my home for my kids. I guess... I don't understand why that's so difficult to tease out. I feel frustrated by vintage books sometimes, but I feel like there's more to what you're trying to say, Hunter.

[Tanaqui]

I think the word "squaw" will always make me squeamish no matter how much I have been told that word does NOT mean what the Wampanoag told me that it means.

 

An offensive term for Native American women? I mean, really, let's not fall into the etymological fallacy here. The n-word "really means" black, but it's still not a nice word.

 

[Matryoshka]

 

Tents are tents. It's this kind of stuff that makes me feel more betrayed, than the type of stuff Garga is going, through. I feel like I have been taught to hate and discard good things that were there for me to enjoy. Having PTSD and going through the recovery process, I have been taught how abusers not only isolate victims, but train them to isolate themselves. I'm deeply sorry for the injustices the Wampanoag faced, but that doesn't make it right what some of them have done in Massachusetts in their reeducation process that has been extensive and unquestioned. I feel like they have trained me to isolate myself from some good books and to label authors as wrong and evil who were not. All over pictures of tents.

 

No, a tent is not a tent.  Would it be okay to show pictures of plains Indians using military-issue Civil War tents, because y'know, a tent is a tent.  Or maybe a yurt?   Hey, a yurt is almost like a Northeastern wetu/wigwam - it's a wooden frame covered by skins.  What's the difference? Or maybe we should show the Berber nomads living in American-style teepees, because, y'know a tent is a tent, so what's the difference?  The Berbers do use tents on a regular basis.  So what's the difference? 

 

[SporkUK]

There are many Wampanoag who will have differing opinions and even they are but one of over 500 American Indigenous nations. No one of them could educate on them all and one of the major problems on books old and young is that many treat all of those nations as homogeneous. This is true for many books on Africa, Asia, the Australian Aboriginals where hundreds of groups are shoved into one box. The Plains nations used tipis, it would be wrong to portray any of the others using them (there are many other types of tents and housing structures) just as it would be wrong to have every person from a European nation in similar houses. That word should make people uncomfortable as should any slur not because of the original meaning in the languages it can be sourced from but what it was used for and represented throughout much of genocides against American Indigenous nations and the current treatment towards American Indigenous women. The N word can be traced from the word for black, but 600 years of history used to enslave and kill that still continues to present day gives words far different meanings than etymology. This is true of non-slurs as well, awful no longer means full of awe.

 

I have a very different experience from the chronological snobbery discussed maybe because I tend to be around academics a lot, but I far more often come across those who think the older the book the better and more enriching it is and disparage anything modern, especially with history. I've had long round and round discussions about similar readings recently - it was on the reading of an ancient Hindu text and whose interpretation of two very different ones to listen to, Oxford elites from early colonial India who had age and tradition on their side and modern Hindu people who I thought made an excellent point that the Oxford elites were trying to make the text palatable and in line with colonial era beliefs under the guise of objectivity whereas the modern Hindu academics were open about that they wanted to challenge the 'hero' because he gets where he does through the active harm of those of lower castes and how holding him up as a hero caused harm and showing that as their hero to the world would only continue said harm. As I don't think history, or education at all, can be without agenda, I was more than happy that they were upfront about it but others felt that age, tradition and acting objective even when things obviously aren't was better. It's a debate that will continue with many texts, especially as many try to bring in more books onto reading lists. 

 

I don't know anyone boycotting books due to age, it seems to me people are more eager than ever to read ancient books in as close to original form as possible. But I do see people using said texts to call out things like Columbus, like the American founding fathers, like the many other people who held up as heroes that many books are still written on in rose coloured glasses and say look, we have his journals, we have this contemporary source, and they are not the kind of people all the stories say they are and they are not the kind of people who should be considered heroes. I think we're still feeling our way into who was just horrid and who was complex and modern writing on that will affect that just as the writings through time affect how we see Ancient Greeks and Romans (like how most modern visual media portray them as really White when writings of that time described themselves as bronze and disliked pale skin due to their wars with the Visigoths and Celts) or the Medieval peoples (we literally have paintings that were painted over centuries after they were originally made because they found the original person too ugly and in some cases because the painted subjects weren't White, we're only recently through technology able to see through that). Media affects our perceptions, reading more perceptions can give us a wider world - though with public domain books it can be tricky to get a wider perspective in languages we can read without quite a bit of digging (and would our gaze of texts so far out of our own culture really be true?). There are plenty of cheap and free books available otherwise that come from wider range of perspectives outside of the public domain. 

 

Personally, I like modern books because I want to hear about how that history affects those people today. As much as I love primary sources and old books and the nuts and bolts of history, I think the goal of teaching history isn't just about understanding the world then, it's about understanding about how that made the world now and the best source for that asking those people today and through the wonders we have now, we can have lots of those questions answered as people around the world become able to openly discuss it. I think that's brilliant. I don't need to be smarter or better than my grandparents but I do have a need for my children to know the world now even as we read other's views from the past. 

[Matryoshka]

I don't know much about Columbus at all not being in the US. But was he considered horrid by his contempories and equals or is it you filter that makes that judgement? As far as I know he was the typical adventurer come pirate who considered he had a right to what and who he found and to hell with the natives.

 

Yes, he was considered horrid by some of his contemporaries and equals   At least the ones with a conscience -though of course others happily did much of the same things, especially those who could gain fortune this way. But it's not just us looking back that find the things he did horrific.

 

Bartolome de las Casas wrote an entire book condemning the Spanish treatment of the natives in the harshest terms, and tried (in vain) to change things. He was a contemporary of Columbus. You can read a bit here.  Here's a very brief excerpt: And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during tla! past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.

[Hunter]

But if a book is showing a teepee style tent in a forest as a representative example of life, then that's extremely misleading at best. I would think that unless the book had some great literary value that it would be something I wouldn't bring into my home for my kids. I guess... I don't understand why that's so difficult to tease out. I feel frustrated by vintage books sometimes, but I feel like there's more to what you're trying to say, Hunter.

 

There are books where people were traveling or hunting and used a tent in a forest. I agree a teepee in a deciduous forest is PROBABLY not representative of the way northern people lived on a daily basis, but it's been taken too far by some reeducation "experts". All tents in forests are absolutely taboo.

 

I feel like these taboos are worse blanket statements, than the blanket statements that all native americans lived in teepees.

 

I feel like we have vastly overcorrected, and that some angry people with agendas have been elevated to unquestioned "experts" with a great deal of power. We are told we are supposed to swallow everything they say, without question. 

 

When I was younger, I just swallowed almost anything that was attached to shaming. When that angry older gentleman told me I should be ashamed, I was. Other people I trusted told me I should ALWAYS believe what the Wampanoags said over a book. ALWAYS.

 

I didn't think for myself. When I was working in the public schools, there were older teachers who refused to stop teaching some things and they were tolerated, but mocked by the younger teachers. I used to be so sensitive to mocking. I fell right into line with the younger teachers. I was ashamed and wanted to do the "right" thing.

 

I lost the ability to think for myself. I discarded blanket statements for even more foolish blanket statements. And sometimes I even engaged in some righteous feeling thoughts about how educated and enlightened I was, when really I was being pretty stupid.

 

But worse off, I allowed myself to be isolated in yet another areas. I allowed people to shame me into denying myself good things.

 

When an angry man told me I was bad and offered me a way to be good, I jumped at it. The number one thing he wanted me to do was isolate myself from some books, and I was more than willing to do that if it meant being "good".

 

I think because of my abuse background, I was more easily led astray, and less able to think for myself. I don't think I'm isolated in this reaction, though. I just think teaching people to isolate themselves from books, at any extreme level, is a crime.

[AMJ]

No, a tent is not a tent.  Would it be okay to show pictures of plains Indians using military-issue Civil War tents, because y'know, a tent is a tent.  Or maybe a yurt?   Hey, a yurt is almost like a Northeastern wetu/wigwam - it's a wooden frame covered by skins.  What's the difference? Or maybe we should show the Berber nomads living in American-style teepees, because, y'know a tent is a tent, so what's the difference?  The Berbers do use tents on a regular basis.  So what's the difference? 

 

 

Here is one example of what WILL get my goat every time:

http://store.playmobilusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-US-Site/en_US/Product-Show?pid=5247&src=MS2012Western

 

They were selling these things back in the 1990's when I was doing a paper on how archaeology and anthropology were presented to kids over the years/decades.  I winced then, but I'm REALLY chagrined now.  This is a company that actively courts schools, for Pete's sake!  Can't they get a few details right?

 

And in case anyone can't tell what's wrong with this playset:

• That is a NORTHWEST COAST totem pole
• those are PLAINS tipis
• the cacti and rock formations are from the DESERT SOUTHWEST (and there's even a cactus on the base of the totem pole!)
• and just for good measure, I doubt ANYONE went around using a spear to topple a massively heavy boulder onto a wolf.

However, the reason this type of playset STILL persists is that this is the image Hollywood and less-than-detailed history books have portrayed for decades, not only in the U.S. but around the world, and many people can't be bothered to find out whether they are even accurate.

 

 

One of my favorite history subjects now is Genghis Khan.  I find him quite impressive and worthy of study, especially now we have new-to-us sources that have finally been translated.  I love it when old ideas of things that stood for too long on too little evidence get turned topsy-turvy!

[Pen]

I don't know who pointed out to me the ludicrousness of believing that northern peoples NEVER used tents. The Wampanoag harped on the idea that northern peoples didn't use tents. Really? PEOPLE use tents, for all sorts of reasons,  ALL around the WORLD, in ALL times of history. Using tents is like wearing shoes. I'm kind of annoyed I swallowed that.

 

A picture of a teepee in a deciduous forest was supposed to make me discard a book as trash. I'm ashamed to say I did that. If I was flipping through books at the library, I immediately put back on the shelf anything with a tent in a forest, just like I'd been taught to do. I was such a good and righteous homeschool mom; I knew to not bring trash like that home to MY children. Ugh!

 

Tents are tents. It's this kind of stuff that makes me feel more betrayed, than the type of stuff Garga is going, through. I feel like I have been taught to hate and discard good things that were there for me to enjoy. Having PTSD and going through the recovery process, I have been taught how abusers not only isolate victims, but train them to isolate themselves. I'm deeply sorry for the injustices the Wampanoag faced, but that doesn't make it right what some of them have done in Massachusetts in their reeducation process that has been extensive and unquestioned. I feel like they have trained me to isolate myself from some good books and to label authors as wrong and evil who were not. All over pictures of tents.

 

I'm a bit angry, as a lower-income person, that I was taught and shamed into isolating myself from such a wealth of readily available literature. I'm thankful, that as a child, the reeducation process had not started yet. I just read and read and read, whatever I found, anything and everything. And then I was "educated" to be more discriminating about what I read. My world shrank and I was exposed to fewer and more filtered content. I was assured that it was "better" content though. And I believed that.

 

I don't believe new books are better than old ones. Not anymore. There are so many things I have come full circle with, and can go back to being freer without all the shame. Allowing myself a wider pool of books feels as freeing as when I stopped wearing a headcovering, and thinking I needed to cover my elbows and knees as all times. I'm still a little squeamish about my knees. I think the word "squaw" will always make me squeamish no matter how much I have been told that word does NOT mean what the Wampanoag told me that it means.

 

It's time for me to embrace a wider pool of books. Neither the books or uncovered knees are evil.

 

 

 I am very confused by this.  I think you are thinking in an emotional state, not logical one. 

 

That my son has a tipi and that we live in a northern area, does not mean that people nowadays in our part of the world tend to live in tents. And a picture in a textbook that showed that would be very misleading. Someone who told you "Never" could be wrong about the never, but that does not make the opposite generally true.  And as to "Never" for a tipi, that could be true--in an area that did not have buffalo hides to cover it, it would be exceedingly unlikely that there would be a tipi, even 1 single tipi, ever.

 

We are reading a book for history right now that keeps referring to "men" and I keep changing that to "people" or other such words--which makes my ds laugh, esp. when I struggle to make the rest of the sentence make sense. I don't like that reference to all humans as "men," and I also stopped at the point of the idea that all men (err, people) crossed to the Americas on a land or ice bridge, and we stopped to think through, well, maybe not, maybe it was by water etc.  On the whole I think it is a good book and well written. I am not tossing it out due to these aspects, but I am also not ignoring them.

 

 

The native Americans in my area used longhouses as their primary shelter, not tipis, not tents of any sort. It was not only a matter of shelter it was also relevant to their culture and way of life. And I think they would rightfully feel demeaned by suggesting that they lived in tents. And unless it had tremendous redeeming value in some other aspect, and we could just talk about the tents/tipi issue for additional learning, I would not use a history book that had pictures of tipis (or other sorts of tents) to depict the way people lived where they were not the main shelter actually used.

 

If you are talking about illustrated "literature" then I am not sure what you are talking about exactly. Maybe an artist has a picture in a book that really does not fit the book. That happens. If it were truly high quality literature, I would not throw it out on that basis, but I would question it. I would tend to go into my consideration of its merits doubting its value due to the picture, sort of a presumption of lack of value until proven otherwise. 

 

Same with shoes. If I saw a picture of shoes that did not fit the people and place they were shown on, it would make me doubt the book's merits.

 

There are books that might have a word in them that I consider pejorative and demeaning--like Huckleberry Finn, say, that I would like my ds to read. It depends on the way such words are used, and on the over all value of the book. But, again, yes, I would tend to look askance at a book that has pejorative and demeaning terms.

 

So, umm, by all means work to get past the PTSD, but do look with a sense of logical skepticism at this new view of yours.

[Pen]

PS on words--they may mean different things to different people and in different places. Just as is the case nowadays with people. A word may be acceptable or disrespectful, depending.

 

Possibly of interest:

 

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/squaw.html

[AMJ]

There are books where people were traveling or hunting and used a tent in a forest. I agree a teepee in a deciduous forest is PROBABLY not representative of the way northern people lived on a daily basis, but it's been taken too far by some reeducation "experts". All tents in forests are absolutely taboo.

 

I feel like these taboos are worse blanket statements, than the blanket statements that all native americans lived in teepees.

 

I feel like we have vastly overcorrected, and that some angry people with agendas have been elevated to unquestioned "experts" with a great deal of power. We are told we are supposed to swallow everything they say, without question. 

 

When I was younger, I just swallowed almost anything that was attached to shaming. When that angry older gentleman told me I should be ashamed, I was. Other people I trusted told me I should ALWAYS believe what the Wampanoags said over a book. ALWAYS.

 

I didn't think for myself. When I was working in the public schools, there were older teachers who refused to stop teaching some things and they were tolerated, but mocked by the younger teachers. I used to be so sensitive to mocking. I fell right into line with the younger teachers. I was ashamed and wanted to do the "right" thing.

 

I lost the ability to think for myself. I discarded blanket statements for even more foolish blanket statements. And sometimes I even engaged in some righteous feeling thoughts about how educated and enlightened I was, when really I was being pretty stupid.

 

But worse off, I allowed myself to be isolated in yet another areas. I allowed people to shame me into denying myself good things.

 

When an angry man told me I was bad and offered me a way to be good, I jumped at it. The number one thing he wanted me to do was isolate myself from some books, and I was more than willing to do that if it meant being "good".

 

I think because of my abuse background, I was more easily led astray, and less able to think for myself. I don't think I'm isolated in this reaction, though. I just think teaching people to isolate themselves from books, at any extreme level, is a crime.

 

Can you point us to some books or websites showing these blanket statements, please?  Because even in (or especially in) this day and age such gross generalities are unwarranted and suspect.  Part of teaching my kids how to think critically about sources will be to expose them to drivel and tripe at some point and see how they do.

 

And you have hit the nail on the head, here, I think.  It matters not who is speaking, when they are speaking, what they are speaking about -- if they are claiming to have THE ENTIRE story about some historical event or time then they are full of bunk.

 

Just don't let fighting against the current times' bunk cause you to swing right back to accepting previous times' bunk.  Dance around in the middle, and listen to all of the sides you can find, while keeping in mind you might never have the full picture.

 

 

[regentrude]

Here is one example of what WILL get my goat every time:

http://store.playmobilusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-US-Site/en_US/Product-Show?pid=5247&src=MS2012Western

 

They were selling these things back in the 1990's when I was doing a paper on how archaeology and anthropology were presented to kids over the years/decades.  I winced then, but I'm REALLY chagrined now.  This is a company that actively courts schools, for Pete's sake!  Can't they get a few details right?

 

And in case anyone can't tell what's wrong with this playset:

• That is a NORTHWEST COAST totem pole
• those are PLAINS tipis
• the cacti and rock formations are from the DESERT SOUTHWEST (and there's even a cactus on the base of the totem pole!)
• and just for good measure, I doubt ANYONE went around using a spear to topple a massively heavy boulder onto a wolf.

However, the reason this type of playset STILL persists is that this is the image Hollywood and less-than-detailed history books have portrayed for decades, not only in the U.S. but around the world, and many people can't be bothered to find out whether they are even accurate.

 

The same company makes castles and pirate ships and Egyptian pyramids and a Roman circus that are not historically accurate either - but fabulous fun to play with. I think requiring toys for creative play to be historically accurate is taking things a bit too far.

 

 

 

[Pen]

There are books where people were traveling or hunting and used a tent in a forest. I agree a teepee in a deciduous forest is PROBABLY not representative of the way northern people lived on a daily basis, but it's been taken too far by some reeducation "experts". All tents in forests are absolutely taboo.

 

 

I've not run into this -- either the sort of book you mean, nor the taboo against it. Could you give actual examples?

 

I feel like these taboos are worse blanket statements, than the blanket statements that all native americans lived in teepees.

 

It seems to me that you are zigzagging between extremes, still not thinking for yourself on the issue.

 

I feel like we have vastly overcorrected, and that some angry people with agendas have been elevated to unquestioned "experts" with a great deal of power. We are told we are supposed to swallow everything they say, without question. 

 

I haven't felt like that. 

 

When I was younger, I just swallowed almost anything that was attached to shaming. When that angry older gentleman told me I should be ashamed, I was. Other people I trusted told me I should ALWAYS believe what the Wampanoags said over a book. ALWAYS.

 

I tend to be immediately suspicious of anything that has "always" or "never" attached. Sometimes always or never is true, but it immediately raises my sense of likely to be wrong warning red flags.

 

I didn't think for myself. When I was working in the public schools, there were older teachers who refused to stop teaching some things and they were tolerated, but mocked by the younger teachers. I used to be so sensitive to mocking. I fell right into line with the younger teachers. I was ashamed and wanted to do the "right" thing.

 

I lost the ability to think for myself. I discarded blanket statements for even more foolish blanket statements. And sometimes I even engaged in some righteous feeling thoughts about how educated and enlightened I was, when really I was being pretty stupid.

 

 

 OK, so work on thinking for yourself now, and not either deciding that vintage books are evil, nor the opposite. Evaluate each one that interests you for itself.

 

But worse off, I allowed myself to be isolated in yet another areas. I allowed people to shame me into denying myself good things.

 

When an angry man told me I was bad and offered me a way to be good, I jumped at it. The number one thing he wanted me to do was isolate myself from some books, and I was more than willing to do that if it meant being "good".

 

I think because of my abuse background, I was more easily led astray, and less able to think for myself. I don't think I'm isolated in this reaction, though. I just think teaching people to isolate themselves from books, at any extreme level, is a crime.

 

 

Possibly, due to abuse background, you would be more likely to either isolate yourself from books, or alternatively to reach out to them, still without really thinking for yourself. 

 

People can make mistakes of isolating too much. They can also make mistakes in falling in with abusive people or a group of friends that might not be a positive group for them. It is, or anyway can be, hard to find a healthy normal sometimes with people.

 

And maybe it is also hard to find a healthy normal sometimes with books!

[AMJ]

The same company makes castles and pirate ships and Egyptian pyramids and a Roman circus that are not historically accurate either - but fabulous fun to play with. I think requiring toys for creative play to be historically accurate is taking things a bit too far.

 

 

 

Regarding what I bolded:  not when they are advertised as accurate, as this one was back in the 1990's.

[mommymilkies]

Yes, they were wrong. I have no problem just saying that. Some historical accounts were just made up (thanks, Washington Irving for all that imaginary Columbus history), some relied on second and third hand information, and some were eyewitness accounts but by individuals so biased that they misinterpreted so many things that it's hard to find the kernel of truth.

 

I don't think books today are always more accurate. There are still people relying on bias, misinterpretation, and second and third hand accounts. I think the problem is that a hundred years ago it was difficult to find sources about non-Western history that wasn't in that category. I think sources about European history are often just as accurate, just through a different lens. I think all the history books tell you something about the time in which they were written, but if you're not studying that time, then you want a book that accurately reflects the time you are studying, at least to the best of its ability.

 

:iagree:  Many older books I have read lacked objective sources, so myth and rumor were more commonly found as fact.  With the wider accessibility to information, we are able to find more true accuracy about past events than the biased and somewhat uneducated opinions put forth in the past.  And some people take things as non-fiction when they are historical fiction or mostly fiction.  Like Laura Ingalls Wilder's writings which some people see as containing a lot of fact.  Um, not so much.  We see this nowadays, too.  I mean, how many people think The Onion is real news?  Hopefully a hundred years from now they won't find a stash of printed off Onion articles and assume they were real. ;)

Distance creates perspective. People writing about themselves may truthfully record their own observations and perceptions, but they are not in possession of all information about the era they find themselves in. You need chronological, and possibly geographical, cultural, and emotional, distance to gain perspective.

Even a person who is doing the best to tell the truth about her life will see things colored by her limited perspective since she is a participant. It is through synthesizing many such accounts and putting them into a greater perspective that a historian can arrive at  a big picture and can see which facets were subjective, and which are general for the era.

 

I think every insider's account is influenced by the personal views and experiences to a greater degree than an outsider's account. This does not make an outsider's account necessarily more accurate - because the outsider may have bias or an agenda.

 

I have not seen any evidence that our century boycotts centuries of books as trash. Historians use old sources all the time. I have never been taught that a book is "evil". I don't know where you get this idea of "mass boycotting".

 

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. Where is anybody declaring himself superior to the Grandparents?

Anybody who seriously studies history goes back to the sources from that period, not to modern accounts about that period. But going back to, and using, contemporary sources does not equal taking each individual source as objective truth. If that were the case, history as a discipline would be obsolete.

:iagree:  A good example is Herodotus.  Now he is generally seen as Father of Lies instead of Father of History by the majority of historians.  His works are important at the very least for showing some of the myths, rumors, and thought processes of the past.  But you can not take his writings as historical accuracy!  :lol:  He used what was available at the time, with a decent splash of creativity thrown in.  All of these books have a purpose.  You will probably find more accuracy in texts by objective researchers-past or present-than in texts written for children or for propaganda uses.  Mary Shelley's biography of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley is another good example.  There was a lot of controversy over what she would and would not publish and what she wrote is influenced by those around her (including Percy's father). So though it was during the general time period of his life, you will see bias in the writings. 

 

Yes, he was considered horrid by some of his contemporaries and equals   At least the ones with a conscience -though of course others happily did much of the same things, especially those who could gain fortune this way. But it's not just us looking back that find the things he did horrific.

 

Bartolome de las Casas wrote an entire book condemning the Spanish treatment of the natives in the harshest terms, and tried (in vain) to change things. He was a contemporary of Columbus. You can read a bit here.  Here's a very brief excerpt: And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during tla! past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.

Yes!  Columbus had many critics and some people like Bartolome working against the atrocities of the day.  But which do you hear about in school?  You hear hero stories.  Even today you hear less of the (more) historically accurate contemporary accounts. 

[SporkUK]

I think discerning the perception and agenda is an important skill - and all education and historical books have a perception and agenda (as does all media). Many public domain history books in English give a White settler's perspective, they had an agenda that they were messengers of God and that what they did to American Indigenous people was a good thing/part of God's plan. Many of them have angry people pushing an angry agenda that these poor people their trying to save are fighting so hard against salvation and more than a few discussing how they are better of dead. There are still history books written today with this agenda - there are places in the US where most of indigenous history is banned as detrimental even after its inclusion saw history and general results rise and people fighting for such inclusion in education to be reopened. There is movement in the UK to ban/exclude many parts of UK history because they want to focus on "these traditional histories" and just as many fighting for greater opening up of what we see as part of UK history. All education has an agenda, learning to see and teach about it is a great skill for anyone. I find that certain people are angry and have an agenda and that others are being objective ignores that those 'objective' people also have an agenda - it's just the mainstream one wrapped up as objective. 

 

And as American Indigenous people are not history but present, right here, right now, toys representing them should be just as accurate as one would want toys representing oneself. There are over 500 American Indigenous nations and yet we have playsets and books blending them all together and that causes a warped perception that causes harm. The representation through media and toys affects our perception of ourselves and our perception of others. . My kids can have fun without learning and perpetuating stereotypes, creative play can happen while still understanding that other people's cultures are not costumes or toys. To paraphrase, we see ourselves through the representations all around us, and monsters are so often shown without reflections, what self image do we hope for those kids to have if that is the majority of what we give when we give it all. It's complicated but these things do matter even if they just look like fun, people absorb play and fiction more easily than they take in fact. 

[Farrar]

Regarding what I bolded:  not when they are advertised as accurate, as this one was back in the 1990's.

 

The ad literally says, "Explore Native American culture..." Um. No.

 

I do find it really difficult to tease out some of the restrictions that are placed on teachers when learning about First Nations peoples. I have read things about how you should never, ever make a model of a teepee. Um, what if you do a model of a teepee, a longhouse and a pueblo together and talk about how they served different groups in different landscapes? Or how you should never, ever do any sort of dress up when studying First Nations... except when kids study ancient Egypt or Rome or China, they totally do that without issue, so why not Aztec dress up as well?

 

On the other hand, I'm minded that the people appropriating the culture to turn this stuff into toys are, in fact, the cultural descendants of the pirates and medieval castle dwellers. And there's not a long history of misrepresentation and exploitation with continued ramifications for modern peoples when showing the middle ages as a toy like there is when showing First Nations culture as a toy... or when playing dress up or making models. So there's that.

[Matryoshka]

One of my favorite history subjects now is Genghis Khan.  I find him quite impressive and worthy of study, especially now we have new-to-us sources that have finally been translated.  I love it when old ideas of things that stood for too long on too little evidence get turned topsy-turvy!

 

Ooo, have you read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World?  That was quite an interesting read!

[Farrar]

There are books where people were traveling or hunting and used a tent in a forest. I agree a teepee in a deciduous forest is PROBABLY not representative of the way northern people lived on a daily basis, but it's been taken too far by some reeducation "experts". All tents in forests are absolutely taboo.

 

I feel like these taboos are worse blanket statements, than the blanket statements that all native americans lived in teepees.

 

I feel like we have vastly overcorrected, and that some angry people with agendas have been elevated to unquestioned "experts" with a great deal of power. We are told we are supposed to swallow everything they say, without question. 

 

When I was younger, I just swallowed almost anything that was attached to shaming. When that angry older gentleman told me I should be ashamed, I was. Other people I trusted told me I should ALWAYS believe what the Wampanoags said over a book. ALWAYS.

 

I didn't think for myself. When I was working in the public schools, there were older teachers who refused to stop teaching some things and they were tolerated, but mocked by the younger teachers. I used to be so sensitive to mocking. I fell right into line with the younger teachers. I was ashamed and wanted to do the "right" thing.

 

I lost the ability to think for myself. I discarded blanket statements for even more foolish blanket statements. And sometimes I even engaged in some righteous feeling thoughts about how educated and enlightened I was, when really I was being pretty stupid.

 

But worse off, I allowed myself to be isolated in yet another areas. I allowed people to shame me into denying myself good things.

 

When an angry man told me I was bad and offered me a way to be good, I jumped at it. The number one thing he wanted me to do was isolate myself from some books, and I was more than willing to do that if it meant being "good".

 

I think because of my abuse background, I was more easily led astray, and less able to think for myself. I don't think I'm isolated in this reaction, though. I just think teaching people to isolate themselves from books, at any extreme level, is a crime.

 

I think I see what you're saying, Hunter. The root is really what Regentrude said above, I think, about training students to think for themselves and question (or, in the case of people who didn't have that chance, retraining ourselves to question and think critically). There are people in all quarters who want people to not think for themselves or who want everyone to toe a certain line unquestioningly. Certainly we see that in politics these days, but it's in all kinds of situations. And just because one "side" presents themselves as critical of the old regime doesn't mean they're actually encouraging critical thinking per se, or that they're actually very good at it.

 

On the other hand, I don't think that this taboo not to talk about this stuff or question it is as strong as you're perceiving in most situations. And I think we shouldn't let questioning things and valuing different perspectives get in the way of common sense. There is a line somewhere, I hope. We don't have to become complete relativists just because we can see nuance or that where you stand shifts what you see. We can still draw a line at misrepresentation or outright fabrications.

[SporkUK]

There is a big push away from dressing up and such that I've seen across the board, Farrar, not just with American Indigenous. For schools, a lot of parents are fed with it (on other parenting boards with more school goers, it's one of top complaints about schools) and it is questionable whether it helps anyone learn. There is no one way Egyptians of any time period dressed, There is no one way Romans dressed, there is no one way Chinese dressed - each of those groups would be made up lots of other groups, Chinese alone related to dozens of ethnic group. In any of the American Indigenous nations, there is no one way to dress. The Aztec Empire covered hundreds of thousands of square miles and many different groups, attire would have been different depending on group, time, status, occasion. Sure, some find it fun, but is it teaching anything more than stereotypes? A bigger problem with dressing as American Indigenous is that the history of faux American Indigenous costumes comes from boarding schools where they would be put on American Indigenous children to show them how silly they were - and many of those costumes include Plains nations feathered headdresses where each feather is earned and it's placement and colouring means something like a veteran's medals, they aren't really appropriate for costumes. 

 

Many Universities campuses across the States, Canada, UK, and so on run 'my culture is not a costume' PSA at this time every year and they speak about the harm these 'cultures as dress up parties' cause and a lot of people go in confused because that way of connecting to others is all they've been taught and then they find themselves angry and lost. I hear it year after year. I think with as many people from these groups openly discussing and giving out resources about themselves and trying to connect that the dressing up as learning will hopefully fade away soon. 

[Farrar]

Yes, I'm aware of that. And there's also the whole dress up as "black" parties on some college campuses, which is just... I mean... wow. It's maybe even a whole other level of offensive beyond the Halloween costume issue. (Though it's not a contest... it can all be offensive!)

 

We didn't really do much dressing up beyond the Ren Faire and Greek gods kind (why do we keep ending up in situations that call for the children to dress up as Greek gods, I don't know, but I know it's happening again next week...). I really was mostly just saying that there are a lot of restrictions that are specific to First Nations peoples over any other group, which I think does make it hard for teachers to figure out how to be culturally sensitive. The dress up is probably a bad example. But there is something to how kids learn through pretend play at a young age and that's with toys and costumes and so forth. And I do think there's a sort of deep learning that comes out of that for young children. And I wonder how do we give kids that arena to play in without it being "Cowboys and Indians" or that astounding Playmobil set. I feel like kids do get something out of dressing up as knights and running around with wooden swords. It's stereotyped knights and games that don't really have anything to do with the middle ages, but does it lead to an interest and sense of kinship with European history that then kids lack with other cultures? And if so, how do we give them that in a way that still brings play into it? No answers... just thinking...