John’s good for an introductory overview; I’ve watched all of the Crash Course history series. It’s well done stuff.
OTOH: every historian has an ideological point of view. Any historian who claims otherwise is either lying or deluded.
John’s history is strongly based in a middle class, white liberal Christian American perspective. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing to keep in mind when watching his stuff.
Here’s Cypher’s take on the US entry into WWI, BTW:
Indy Neidel’s Great War channel is fantastic for WWI stuff, and the Extra Credits folks do a lot of good quick history videos, too.
Yes, and given how long and broad history is, there is a lot of stuff that I had very casual knowledge of, and learned a bit more about. It isn’t a deep dive, but he does seem to try to connect things.
I agree, but I also think he is self aware of both statements. Repeatedly he chastises his past self (and thus people with similar views) for his oversimplified and centric to who he is world view.
Does it matter if the outcome was the same? And I do think our goal was expanding American influence and the free market gobally and there is plenty of hard evidence to suggest that. Why are our actions only attributable to stupidity and why should it matter if it still leads to deaths? It’s like racism or sexism, why do only intentions matter instead of actual outcomes?
I know it can be tough to accept, because we never want to think our country is “the bad guy” in global politics, but if we can’t look at our actions objectively and see the damage we’ve caused over the past century (even as not all of our ideas and actions have been bad), then we’ll continue to blunder around in pursuit of our aims, putting more lives at risk and continuing to divide the world into these artificial camps.
Well I think it matters just like it matters in Manslaughter vs Murder in the First Degree. If it was a “good” reason, then good plan done well may have a different/better outcome than a bad plan done poorly. But if the reasoning to do something was just to destroy something and fuck shit up, then doing it differently would have that same outcome.
I also think the intention matters for moving forward. Ddo we go full on isolationist? Pull back on the military expansion, but keep the political and economic? Do we ever get directly involved, even if that may also cost lives as well? Adopt a softer touch, like a safe cracker, where no one is really certain you did anything at all?
But also we have to narrow down what were are talking about. Wars? Economic policies? You mentioned specifically “free market globally”, which while it isn’t perfect, is one of the reasons WHY we are seeing world wide poverty levels drops and other positives. I truly think Africa is poised for the next economic boom (China thinks so too.) Then again, it is causing possibly more world wide issues, as now the Sleeping Dragon is waking up and may regain its place as the #1 superpower in the world.
Again, I am not disagreeing with this in general, and I agree that if one expects to do a good job moving forward, they have to analyze mistakes of the past if they hope to not repeat them.
