History Notes

“Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be…”

(Attributed variously to several people, including, of course, Yogi Berra)

I am a student of history. I am so very interested in the way that society has changed over the years. I study things like “what were the forces and challenges of that period of time that occurred, and how did (do) we react to those changes?”

History is not just a story of the past, it is a story about change. Sometimes, in looking back, we try to rewrite those narratives to fit a present reality. We, of course, have the benefit have of hindsight to explain societal changes, and often we look at the past through nostalgic lenses.

I am often prone to do that. I grew up in the simpler time of the 1950’s and 1960’s. At least they appeared that way to me. However, those years were not always simpler times for many people around the world. History is often viewed from a very narrow window. We look back and we may only see life from our perspective.

For example, one of the facets of the study of history from an American perspective was the intense interest in courses called “Western Civilization”. I was fascinated by the stories of European culture, from the time of the Roman Empire through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Age of Exploration, and finally the rich history of the Unted States.

However, I learned very little, in my early schooling, about the history of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Yes, such history books were there, but there was great emphasis on Western Culture. And, fair enough, that is a large part of American heritage. I loved it, and I still do.

However, I often wonder if world history might have been different had we studied more about Eastern cultures. Indeed, in the minds of many Americans in the 18^th 19^th, and early 20^th centuries, Chinese, Japanese, Philippine, Korean, and other Asian and Pacific region cultures were felt to be odd and inscrutable. Presidents like Theodore Roosevelt (and others) believed those cultures to be backward, primitive, and even dangerous. Such provincial thinking may have led to serious misunderstandings which ultimately involved us in the Second World War.

History is complicated, and this essay does not do justice to a very complex topic. Suffice it to say, when we think about history, we need to take a look first at the lenses through which we view it.