One of the inherent limitations of teaching history from a single national perspective is that most nuance is lost in a largely fictionalized nationalist narrative. That's why teaching history is so much more interesting from an ethnic, gender or transnational perspective. Textbooks of the status quo bore students with tedious rehashes that lose sight of the bigger picture, or of other vantage points. One tree without others, let alone vast forests (or deforestations) of difference.
Look at one example -- the American Revolution. Consider that conflict from the perspective of: Loyalists, many of whose descendants now live in Canada and the West Indies; the tribes, now scattered from where they once lived or dwelling stationary on reservations; the Spanish, who with the French helped defeat the British in Florida and elsewhere (above picture: Spanish/French siege of and assault on Pensacola in 1781 -- missing from most school textbooks and completely unknown by most Americans, erased from history); and slaves and free blacks, the ones stuck in the USA and the ones freed by the British.
For purposes of this teach-in, here's my question: What might have happened differently if the British Empire had won the American War of Independence? Consider the impact on economic development, population growth, Indian policy, and Slavery in the history of North America. Instead of the American War of Independence, let's call it the American Rebellion of 1775 (like the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 in India) and go from there. . .
An initial round of student responses turned up some real cool speculations, and really engaged them. Why? Because they thought about what did happen, they thought about how things have been presented in textbooks as having happened, and they thought about what might have happened.
An inspiration for this kind of thinking came from Philip K. Dick's excellent alternate history novel, The Man in the High Castle (1962), postulating an Axis victory in WWII (maybe -- never understimate Dick's sly ways); Dick was in turn inspired by Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee (1953) in which the Confederate States of America wins the "War of Southron Independence." Now especially, I recommend this approach in Arizona! Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.
Today's Rune: Flow. (Image source: US Army Center for Military History).
3 comments:
First and foremost would have been the abolition of slavery seeing as how England made it illegal prior to 1750.
2nd I believe that America would have become a penal colony as Australia did.
3rd once the Brits realized just how huge the land was they would have exploited every possible resource and turned us into a nation of second class colonials like they did India.
Hey man, maybe we'd be playing cricket and rugby, ha! Good take, penal colony, included. I like it.
On the other hand, we might be merged with Canada.
Have you ever read the book or seen the movie "Fatherland?" It's set in 1964, with the premise that the allies were turned back at Normandy and negotiated a peace with Germany. The Nazis are able to keep their war crimes-- murder of Jews, slavs, etc. secret, and a German civil servant starts uncovering evidence of it. Rutger Hauer played in the movie.
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