Reading tech history and medieval history in the last decade has been highly satisfying and informative. Old tech journals tell you what was happening in society if you know the jargon and know how to read between the lines. The newer medieval historians are actually DOING THEIR JOB, telling us in clear language how ordinary people lived and worked.
What we learned in school “history” was utterly useless. I knew it was useless but didn’t know what I was missing, because better info simply wasn’t accessible. Thanks to Googlebooks we can READ the old books and journals now.
School “history” was nothing but kings and battles.
General St Leger** defeated General Fontainebleu in the Battle of Scampathia on July 17, 1743.
These facts were probably true but told us NOTHING about real life.
What would school “history” say about this era? Even less, because all of our battles are cloaked in Deepstate secrecy and strategized by computers. Future students will read:
[REDACTED] defeated [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED] of [REDACTED] on [REDACTED] [REDACTED], [REDACTED].
This would look less informative than the crap we learned, but really wouldn’t be any worse.
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** I picked this general because the atrocious Miss Berger, tenth grade in 1965, mispronounced him along with everything else while feeding us the memorized list of kings and battles. She called him Saint Legger. Admittedly she tried now and then to give us some “enrichment”. Once she told us authoritatively that “China has a new leader named Mayo Tiss Tongue. Mister Tongue may be causing trouble for America soon.” I knew that Mister Tongue had been causing trouble since 1950, but she wasn’t aware of it. Another time she played a record of Revolutionary era music, informing us that the instrument was a “Har Piss Chord.”
Polistra's Mill 