Crash Course World History

[Traitorfish]

Riiiight

Like it or not, most people watching this are Westerners. They *should* know where countries like Germany or France or Britain came from, how they or their previous incarnations came into being, if for nothing else than because of their later role in colonizing 2/3 of the World, including all the glorified places which were so much better and more important than Europe that they'd eventually become its colonies.

I don't disagree. I just don't think that this series has to be the place to do it. If you're treating this as an authority, rather than an encouragement to do further reading, then you're probably a lost cause before we start. And while nobody with an interest in history needs to be told to read about German unification or the French Revolution, but it might do them some good to point them towards the Caliphate or the Indian Ocean trade, so the preference of subject-matter is understandable.

This modern trendy non-eurocentric approach to history only makes people more ignorant of the important things[...]

Go into a bookstore. Go the history section. Count the books that are about non-European or North American history, or the history of the colonial projects of those countries. Chances are that it won't be more than 10% of the total, and you're damn lucky if it's that much. Similar ratio applies to history that isn't about men, or the rich and powerful, etc., etc. Chances are, you'll find more books about Hitler than about the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa. So while you might lament the terrifying wave of academic history that concerns itself with poor, brown, female and otherwise objectionable people, it's over-stating things a bit to say that this has somehow overtaken the popular conciousness.

[...]just as the post-modern approach to literary scholarship makes people less aware of what the truly important works are (because we need to redress the White bias by focusing on minority writing 95% of the time).

Again, bookshops, ratios, non-existence of the cultural Marxists conspiracy, etc.

Nevertheless, talking about this with you is like complaining to the Pope about religion, in other words, utterly useless and a colossal waste of time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council

But of course, you know about the important things in history.

 

[Winner]

I don't disagree. I just don't think that this series has to be the place to do it. If you're treating this as an authority, rather than an encouragement to do further reading, then you're probably a lost cause before we start. And while nobody with an interest in history needs to be told to read about German unification or the French Revolution, but it might do them some good to point them towards the Caliphate or the Indian Ocean trade, so the preference of subject-matter is understandable.

The target audience are high school students and people generally ignorant of history, right?

Then why on Earth you make an episode about "Dark Ages" in which you sum up the feudal system in one sentence and than go on talking about things unrelated to what was happening in Europe? I see that they wanted to get across the point that 'Dark Ages' is a stupid eurocentric (I'd say Anglo) concept and the rest of the world was not "in the dark" at the time, but they do it extraordinarily badly because...

... by the end of the video, the ignorant viewer still knows NOTHING about what was happening in Europe in all that time since the fall of Rome until the Crusades. So he/she is still very much in the dark, with the big black hole in history remaining unfilled.

Well, good job fighting stereotypes by upholding them

Go into a bookstore. Go the history section. Count the books that are about non-European or North American history, or the history of the colonial projects of those countries. Chances are that it won't be more than 10% of the total, and you're damn lucky if it's that much. Similar ratio applies to history that isn't about men, or the rich and powerful, etc., etc. Chances are, you'll find more books about Hitler than about the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa. So while you might lament the terrifying wave of academic history that concerns itself with poor, brown, female and otherwise objectionable people, it's over-stating things a bit to say that this has somehow overtaken the popular conciousness.

Of course the numbers of books in bookshops entirely correctly reflect what's going on in the academia, got it

Again, bookshops, ratios, non-existence of the cultural Marxists conspiracy, etc.

Right right, I am well acquainted with your discussion strategy, you don't have to remind me again

In the literature courses I unfortunately had to take, 9 out of 10 were dedicated to minority writing, and about 80% of the time in the ones which were supposed to be general was likewise spent talking about minority/feminist stuff. I am all for variety, but that is insane. And if this is happening here in this country, where we are still in the process of ruining legitimate scholarship by blindly adopting Anglo-American approaches to the study of humanities, I don't even want to know what's happening further to the West.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council

But of course, you know about the important things in history.

You never fail to amuse.

 

[Tee Kay]

i just watched the clip on Communist China, where it was said that the Communist "were better in fighting Japanese". I am pretty sure that actually they put the Japanese aggression to use by not fighting them at all but instead concentrating forces on the Chinese authorities. Making the Commies circumstantial allies of Japan against China.
So exactly the opposite of what the video claimed.

If the CCP weren't better at fighting the Japanese (which is tricky to measure in any case; how do we measure "better"? Number of kills? The CCP was always going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to inflicting casualties on the Japanese vis-a-vis the KMT on the account of their much smaller force and resources at their disposal) they were at least perceived to be better than the KMT by a considerable segment of the population, with some justification. The CCP actually benefited from their small size: neither the CCP or KMT really engaged the Japanese in any large battles between 1938 - 1944, preferring to conserve their strengths to use against each other, but the KMT being the larger, more regular force with troops more widely spread on the ground had to battle the Japanese more often than the CCP, especially in the early stages of the war and during Ichigo, and the results were almost always disastrous for KMT. The CCP being a guerilla force operating largely underground were able to spin their operations in a positive light more easily, while KMT defeats and incompetence were very obvious and public by comparison.

 

[Traitorfish]

The target audience are high school students and people generally ignorant of history, right?

Then why on Earth you make an episode about "Dark Ages" in which you sum up the feudal system in one sentence and than go on talking about things unrelated to what was happening in Europe? I see that they wanted to get across the point that 'Dark Ages' is a stupid eurocentric (I'd say Anglo) concept and the rest of the world was not "in the dark" at the time, but they do it extraordinarily badly because...

... by the end of the video, the ignorant viewer still knows NOTHING about what was happening in Europe in all that time since the fall of Rome until the Crusades. So he/she is still very much in the dark, with the big black hole in history remaining unfilled.

Well, good job fighting stereotypes by upholding them

You seem to be arguing that he should have spent less time on Europe, not more; that he should just have dropped it with the Romans, and came back after the Crusades, rather than leaving a stump of a discussion in between.

Of course the numbers of books in bookshops entirely correctly reflect what's going on in the academia, got it

No, it reflects what's going on in the population at large. That was my point: that the impact of academic trends on popular culture is limited, and to the extent it exists at all, usually quite long-term and slow-burning. So even if you're concerned that academic history spending too much time on people of insufficient pastiness/wealth/penis-having, the population at large is still largely preoccupied with rugged Nordic supermen, at least for the time being.

I mean, you're somebody who's built up a not unjustified reputation as CFC's resident anti-intellectual, and that in a place with several Randians. What's it to you what the rootless cosmopolitans waste their time with?

Right right, I am well acquainted with your discussion strategy, you don't have to remind me again

Eh? My "strategy", surely, is what I think Winston Hughes not unfairly called the "bargain-basement Socrates act"; greeting every claim with "Ah, but what is X?" until everyone else gets fed up and leaves. Dismissing the whole thing out of hand is pretty uncharacteristic.

In the literature courses I unfortunately had to take, 9 out of 10 were dedicated to minority writing, and about 80% of the time in the ones which were supposed to be general was likewise spent talking about minority/feminist stuff. I am all for variety, but that is insane. And if this is happening here in this country, where we are still in the process of ruining legitimate scholarship by blindly adopting Anglo-American approaches to the study of humanities, I don't even want to know what's happening further to the West.

So you went to a crappy school were the staff were more interested in fads than content. Sucks to be you, I guess, but it's not exactly a sturdy critique of anything much.

You never fail to amuse.

I do try.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

i just watched the clip on Communist China, where it was said that the Communist "were better in fighting Japanese". I am pretty sure that actually they put the Japanese aggression to use by not fighting them at all but instead concentrating forces on the Chinese authorities. Making the Commies circumstantial allies of Japan against China.
So exactly the opposite of what the video claimed.

All in all I am skeptical if the mixture of knowledge and illusion of knowledge and BS-knowledge the Crash Course provides is preferable to a lack of knowledge.

This was my understanding of how the Chinese communists largely dealt with the Japanese invasion as well.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@taillesskangaru
So you would say that KMT and the Commies just as much wanted to avoid fighting the Japanese but for natural differences the KMT simply was less able to? Sounds reasonable. But this documentary I watched last year on Mao's rise gave me a distinctly different impression. But perhaps it simply overlooked this natural difference and was like "While Moa did hide in the mountains the KMT had to defend China". Though I believe there was somehow more to it - just can't remember

 

[Traitorfish]

Oh, hey, I actually found something in these big enough to actually make me frown. In the video on Cook, Green talks about Marshall Sahlins' interpretation of the events surrounding Cook's death in terms of the Hawaii ritual framework, including the claim that Cook was perceived as a god or in some way god-like. Green suggests that this claim, which has questionable historical grounding (true), forms part of a "white man's burden"-style narrative, in which the foolish, primitive natives are incapable of distinguishing between a god and a man in a silly hat.

But that isn't anything close to what Sahlins argues. His emphasis on the significance of Hawaiian ritual order in the events, while probably over-stated, isn't about presenting the Hawaiians as dumb savages, it's about emphasising the importance as the framework through which subjects engage with their world, and contesting the assumptions of liberal universalism that everyone, fundamentally, shares the same "rational", i.e. white, male, bourgeois mode of thought, condemning cultures which fail to conform to this declaredly-universal reason to be stripped away by the rationalising forces of modernity. It's pretty clear that although Green references Sahlins work explicitly, neither he nor his co-writers have actually read it, but are rather getting their summary second-hand via a textbook, which I get the impression is a recurring problem with this series.

So, there's that, for what it's worth.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Oh, hey, I actually found something in these big enough to actually make me frown. In the video on Cook, Green talks about Marshall Sahlins' interpretation of the events surrounding Cook's death in terms of the Hawaii ritual framework, including the claim that Cook was perceived as a god or in some way god-like. Green suggests that this claim, which has questionable historical grounding (true), forms part of a "white man's burden"-style narrative, in which the foolish, primitive natives are incapable of distinguishing between a god and a man in a silly hat.

But that isn't anything close to what Sahlins argues. His emphasis on the significance of Hawaiian ritual order in the events, while probably over-stated, isn't about presenting the Hawaiians as dumb savages, it's about emphasising the importance as the framework through which subjects engage with their world, and contesting the assumptions of liberal universalism that everyone, fundamentally, shares the same "rational", i.e. white, male, bourgeois mode of thought, condemning cultures which fail to conform to this declaredly-universal reason to be stripped away by the rationalising forces of modernity. It's pretty clear that although Green references Sahlins work explicitly, neither he nor his co-writers have actually read it, but are rather getting their summary second-hand via a textbook, which I get the impression is a recurring problem with this series.

So, there's that, for what it's worth.

After viewing this debate for the last few days (couldn't comment because busy with college crap ) What you have said seems to be the main and overarching complaint about the entire program. Not all the superficial stuff, that's obviously take it or leave it. But the substance.

Everybody who has criticized Green's work the most pointedly have been more or less very well read (and arguably specialized) in the topic their criticizing. Dachs with the Romans, myself with the Medieval/Crusades periods, and you last post. While people may praise his "overall" work as anywhere from good to passable, when you place what he specifically says about a certain topic it always falls short. I put the blame for this of his lack of historical training and understanding and thus relying on his "high school teacher" (always a bad idea) and Wikipedia (even worse). I love Southern Gothic literature, but because I have me degrees in History I wouldn't take it upon myself to teach the whole world about literary themes because I'm nowhere as prepared to accurately do so without an English/Lit degree or similar training.

 

[Angst]

I thought Winner was a history major?

 

[Dachs]

I thought Winner was a history major?

International-relations, last time I checked. Since he's a self-described Realist, one might argue that it's impossible for him to be a history major, because a history major would know better.

 

[Tee Kay]

@taillesskangaru
So you would say that KMT and the Commies just as much wanted to avoid fighting the Japanese but for natural differences the KMT simply was less able to? Sounds reasonable. But this documentary I watched last year on Mao's rise gave me a distinctly different impression. But perhaps it simply overlooked this natural difference and was like "While Moa did hide in the mountains the KMT had to defend China". Though I believe there was somehow more to it - just can't remember

The thing about both the KMT and CCP is that they both knew that, in any direct engagement with the Japanese, they were almost always guaranteed to lose. At the same time, Japan had enough trouble keeping control of their occupied territories, and from December 1941 would be busy elsewhere. Neither could mount a successful offensive against the other side, so, you know, why bother (this mentality partly explains why Ichigo was such a shock to the KMT). To their credit though, when the KMT forces did fight, they really fought. Unfortunately, they were up against quite terrible odds, militarily and politically, and Chiang Kai-shek's tendency to remove successful generals from command didn't really help either.

 

[JohannaK]

Maybe you guys could all make a joint project with the same aim but properly done, I'm sure it could be entertaining.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

We could pull our resources and make CFCs attempt at world history. If everyone focused on a specific region/time period we could make quite alot in one year.

 

[Tee Kay]

Maybe you guys could all make a joint project with the same aim but properly done, I'm sure it could be entertaining.

"Properly done"

That'll take at least 100 episodes...

 

[Traitorfish]

40-60 of which would be about Ireland.

 

[Tee Kay]

CFC World History: 50% Ireland, 40% Byzantium, 10% Poland

 

[Dachs]

40-60 of which would be about Ireland.

And the rest of them would be about leftist philosophers and political movements.

 

[JohannaK]

Bah, there is never too much of anything! At a weekly rate, 100 episodea would sit somewhere around the 22 months. Most of you have been in CFC longer than that, if not all of you.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

I demand we do a complete history of Equatorial Guinea and Bhutan (The Most Awesome Dragon Kingdom).

 

[Tee Kay]

history of Equatorial Guinea

No. Too depressing.