Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
....
right now i'm reading Zinn's _People's History..._ you
recommended to me last year. very interesting there too.
Jackson, wow...

Yeah, the beginnings of modern politics. Talk one way, and act another.

here, yes, i doubt however that in any other country
that there haven't been eras like this one with their
politicos.


History is a contentious subject. A national standard curriculum was
advocated in in the 80s in response to a study called a "A Nation at
Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform". Most everything was agreed
to, except history. Some see history as Christian Europeans bringing
civilization to the unwashed masses, others, however, like Zinn, see the
contributions, good and bad, made by all people to history. The standard
curriculum was never ratified.

considering the issues involved i could see
why. the saddest things though to me are that
we could have had such an interesting country
otherwise, one that contained groups of people
who actually knew how to live off the land.
so much knowledge lost, languages and cultures
destroyed, etc.


A good companion book to Zinn's "People's History" is "Lies My Teacher
Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James
W. Loewen.

i've been reading a lot of history lately. time
to get back to basics. plants, dirt, critters,
science, etc. are up next. the title sounds
familiar and if it is much of a rehash i'll skip
it. as i told Ma, after reading through the anti-
slavery and civil war rhetoric, several presidential
biographies, and now almost done with Zinn's book,
i'm ready to ponder other topics. i'll continue on
with the Firefox books i've not read yet.


songbird