1 - The period of Roman history between the Punic wars and Julius Caesar? Really, I never read about how Rome took over Greece, the Holy Land, etc.

2 - Reconstruction (the period immediately following the US Civil War). Beyond hearing the word "carpet bagger" thrown around, and the occasional discussion about military governors, I rarely see or hear much about it.

For one, I have no idea what you are talking about. The Macedonian Wars, Illyrian Wars, Mithridatic Wars, Social War, Gallic Wars, the Triumvirate era, etc.

As for the second, who cares? :smug: :D

Reconstruction shouldn't really be talked about...

It was a bad time in history for the American government, the economic status of Southern whites, and most importantly, horrible for blacks. There's not much to say about it except that pretty much everybody involved came out the loser.

I don't think it's legitimate to say that an unpleasant period of history shouldn't be talked about!

I too don't know much about Roman history in the two centuries before the birth of Christ. However, I do know one thing, which is that Roman didn't "take over" the Holy Land. On the contrary, Israel was a client state of Rome, with its own king who was in charge of taxation, policing, etc. Rome supported him and his dynasty and provided protection, in exchange for which Israel had to support Roman foreign policy. Rome's interest in Israel was almost nil, except that it wanted the region to be stable, in order to protect the much more important areas of Syria and Egypt. Rome only took direct control when no other option was possible. This happened in AD 6, when the tetrarch of Judea (a largely independent ruler) was deposed and Rome replaced him with a prefect. Even at this stage, the rest of Israel was still ruled by native tetrarchs (there were four of them originally, hence the name - they were the sons of Herod the Great, who had ruled the whole country by himself until his death in 4 BC). It was only after the First Jewish War of the 60s that Rome moved in and literally "conquered" the country.

This, by the way, is why the popular image of Palestine in Jesus' day as an "occupied" country, like France in WWII, with Roman soldiers patrolling Galilee and organised resistance movements all over the place, is completely false.

Here is a brief piece I wrote recently for another project about the aftermath of the American Civil War. This was specifically about the role of Christianity in the war and the period immediately afterwards. I was quite interested in the idea of a specific theology that developed in the South - the theology of the "Lost Cause". So this may touch only tangentially on the subject you mention, but I thought it was quite interesting.


If there was religious turmoil on the east coast, that was nothing compared to what happened shortly afterwards when the country was plunged into civil war. Like the other civil wars that we have looked at in this book, religion played an important factor in the war of 1861 to 1865. This was, in part, due to the tremendous success of the second Great Awakening in the southern states, which we saw in chapter 12. Most people in the South were Baptists or Methodists, though there were also many Presbyterians; the aristocratic families, meanwhile, tended to be Episcopalian. All of these churches were largely evangelical in outlook, which meant that there was far more religious uniformity in the South than there was in the North, even after the influx of the Lutherans and Catholics. There was a strong sense of regional identity, based around conservative moral values and chivalric codes of behaviour, which were associated with the agrarian economy and landscape that distinguished the area from the North. By the 1850s, many in the South had come to regard themselves as a culturally uniform group, distinct from the North, and one which might seek political independence. The issue over which the two would go to war was slavery, for the Southern Christians, in contrast to most in the North and most in Europe at this time, were still convinced that slavery was quite compatible with Christianity and indeed part of the stable world order that that religion promoted. But this was part of a more general cultural divide, one which was played out at the religious level too. Thus, in the 1840s the Baptists and Methodists both split off from their colleagues in the North over slavery, and the Presbyterians followed some years later.

When war broke out in 1861, then, many Southerners believed they were on a crusade for the protection of the Christian civilisation they had built, one which was morally superior to the more degenerate and fragmented North. Nine times during the war, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederation, called for a day of national fasting. There were frequent religious revivals in the Confederate army itself, generally erupting when the troops rested between active campaigning, and these were fostered by the large network of army chaplains that the churches set up. Of course, the great irony was that while the South believed they were fighting for Christian religion, the North believed exactly the same thing, convinced that destroying the wicked rebels was a divinely ordained task. The famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, written by Julia Ward Howe, presented the Union’s cause as that of God, and declared in its final verse:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

The irony was not lost on the participants themselves. When Union troops occupied Confederate towns, many of the soldiers attended churches presided over by southern ministers. In the Episcopalian churches, the set liturgy demanded that, at one point, the minister pray for the president. The Yankees were horrified when they heard prayers for Jefferson Davis being read from a pulpit, and intervened to ensure that Abraham Lincoln was commended to the Lord instead. And many soldiers on both sides, taken prisoner by the enemy, were amazed to find that their “wicked” opponents appeared to pray and read the Bible just as they did themselves.

Defeat in 1865 might have brought a period of soul-searching for the South, but in fact it brought what one might call cultural defiance. Many people were concerned to assert Southern culture and religion all the more vehemently, for fear of being overwhelmed by Yankee culture. Attendance at the Methodist and Baptist churches, still in schism from their northern counterparts, increased. The war was understood as a great martyrdom for the sake of Christianity, a crusade that became known as “the Lost Cause”, one that had passed through a “baptism of blood”. Ministers identified themselves with this “Lost Cause”, none more so than the famous J. William Jones of Virginia, Baptist preacher and former army chaplain, who edited journals and wrote school textbooks to perpetuate this understanding of the South and of the war, and of the Northerners as undisciplined, immoral rabble. He and others like him sought to hold before the eyes of their congregations the examples of the war’s “heroes”. Monuments were erected to many of them, such as the deeply religious general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and their names appeared in stained-glass windows of churches. Robert Lee, the great Confederate general, was hailed as a new Moses who had led his people on a righteous struggle and portrayed as the perfect Southern gentleman, virtuous and chivalrous in every way. Every 3 June (Jefferson Davis’ birthday), Southern women would place wreaths on the graves of the war dead, in a ceremony that explicitly linked the cause for which they had died with Christianity. And the living veterans held regular rallies where they sang hymns and looked forward to meeting their fallen comrades in heaven. Less savoury elements of the “Lost Cause” phenomenon appeared in the racist Ku Klux Klan, which also took inspiration from the “Know Nothings”, and which flourished in the 1860s and 70s before dying out. A new Klan, whose members styled themselves as Christian knights fighting for white America and traditional morals, appeared in the 1920s and was briefly powerful enough to organise great parades in Washington, DC.

The retrenchment of Southern culture and Christianity continued well into the twentieth century as the South became the celebrated “Dixieland”. As Elvis Presley put it, “old times there are not forgotten”, for the Christianity of the “Lost Cause” would become the “old-time religion” of the deep South.

Reconstruction shouldn't really be talked about...

It was a bad time in history for the American government, the economic status of Southern whites, and most importantly, horrible for blacks. There's not much to say about it except that pretty much everybody involved came out the loser.

So? Just because it was a bad time does'nt mean it should'nt be talked about. Thats the whole point of learning history. Furthermore there have been plenty of terrible times in history and if we did'nt talk about them then there would be very little to talk about.

Oh, I'm not saying it should be covered up because it was ugly.

I'm saying that there's not too much to say about it, and there's my analysis. Since no one's added anything to it, I guess there's not much to debate?

Rome only took direct control when no other option was possible. This happened in AD 6, when the tetrarch of Judea (a largely independent ruler) was deposed and Rome replaced him with a prefect. Even at this stage, the rest of Israel was still ruled by native tetrarchs (there were four of them originally, hence the name - they were the sons of Herod the Great, who had ruled the whole country by himself until his death in 4 BC). It was only after the First Jewish War of the 60s that Rome moved in and literally "conquered" the country.

This, by the way, is why the popular image of Palestine in Jesus' day as an "occupied" country, like France in WWII, with Roman soldiers patrolling Galilee and organised resistance movements all over the place, is completely false.

That's rather contrdictive, not?
I doubt the prefect came unguarded!

Deposing the Tetrach of Judea in 6 AD doesn't sound like an easy job to me.

Really I think the british history curriculum is trash. Focusing on things like the Tudors and Normans and ignoring far more important and interesting things like the Roman empire is just senseless. Things like WW1,WW2, the Cold War and countless others things are just breezed over and not done in anywhere near enough depth. Not to mention the complete and utter lack of any subject to do with Asian/Arab history, which is ridiculous. A six month section on China in any detail would do a world of good in a country where maybe 5-10% of the population know what the Taiping revolt was.

Anglocentric rubbish. Not to mention that I'm in Northern Ireland so we do a whole year(ish) of work around the den of sectarian vermin that is Irish political history.

A six month section on China in any detail would do a world of good in a country where maybe 5-10% of the population know what the Taiping revolt was.

Right so you argue about them focusing on one area of history and then decide to recommend them focusing a large portion of time on another area which would still not be enough time to cover all the events of China in real detail. Basically they have to concentrate on certain topics since there is limited team and there has to be some way of marking people. An Exam on the entire history of the world would be heavily down to luck of what time period was given the main focus in the exam.

Finally UK history is a logical choice to mainly focus on since thats where the courses are being run. If you went to University you would be able to specialise more on different topics and there is nothing stopping you reading up on other topics.

India before the Mughals. As it is most of Indian history revolves around the Brits and rightfully so, they have written history. As it is history is not eurocentric, it is not western europe centric either, it is English centric.

Anyway never really hear much about India between the Gupta empire and the Mughals. No talks about the other Turkish dynasties. This really extends to the Turkish empires in the Middle East as well. As far as most people are concerned Turk = Ottoman, forgetting about the Seljuks among many others.

Like you said in point number two, American history between Lincoln and TR is largely overlooked. I also feel that American history between Andrew Jackson and Lincoln is also mostly forgotten. The only thing people seem to know from this period are the cowboys fighting Indians out west.

Plotinus-

Have you read "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horowitz? It's an interesting read on the "Lost Cause" to this day.

That's rather contrdictive, not?
I doubt the prefect came unguarded!

The prefect had only a few troops, and they spent all their time in Caesarea, on the coast. They only came to Jerusalem for Passover, because tension was always high at this time, and they needed to borrow lots of troops from the legate of Syria (the prefect's boss) to do it. Of course they never went near Galilee.

Deposing the Tetrach of Judea in 6 AD doesn't sound like an easy job to me.

Oh, Archelaus was a very bad tetrarch, and the people rose up against him. Rome basically had no choice but to exile and replace him.

Really I think the british history curriculum is trash. Focusing on things like the Tudors and Normans and ignoring far more important and interesting things like the Roman empire is just senseless. Things like WW1,WW2, the Cold War and countless others things are just breezed over and not done in anywhere near enough depth. Not to mention the complete and utter lack of any subject to do with Asian/Arab history, which is ridiculous. A six month section on China in any detail would do a world of good in a country where maybe 5-10% of the population know what the Taiping revolt was.

Your school evidently taught history in an almost diametrically opposite way to mine. We never studied either the Tudors or the Normans in the slightest, and we spent what felt like a decade on WW1 and WW2, as well as a pile of stuff on the Cold War, including endless material on the Cuban Missle Crisis.

Still, I'd have liked to have studied the Tudors. And why do the Roman empire? Everyone already knows about *that* from primary school, where they seem to teach you nothing else...

Have you read "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horowitz? It's an interesting read on the "Lost Cause" to this day.

I haven't, but thank you for the tip. It's going on the list!

I actually liked our History classes here, in 3rd-4th form (first two years of highschool) we done social study which has a section on history, In this i remeber doing Victorian era and Maori history. When history became a full class in 5th form we done 20th century which was two parts Causes of ww2, NZs Search for secutiry (our move from Britian to ANZUS, then our seperation from america over nukes plus Rainbow warrior and springbox tour). Then next topic was social changes made up of black civil rights in america and Womens rights in NZ. last topic was Palastein and Ireland.

6th form, we done cause of ww1, american revolution, Veitnam, russian revolution.

7th form was Early modern england. From Elizabeth to charles2.

Good mix of history that is all relavent to New Zealand, while american and russian revolution were so huge even if not relavent to NZ.

Also the Galipoli campaign of ww1 and Charles Upham during ww2 were hamered into us all through school.

Plus in 7th form i did two huge reports (20% each of grade) on Australian-New Zealand relations and the fall of signapore (ww2)