Au Revoir: A vLog

A History Lesson...

Hello fellow histrophiles!  Today, we are lucky enough to have a special guest writer join us for a post.  As a fellow high schooler, she joins us today to share her incredible wisdom and her amazing intellect.  She writes a captivating food blog, show check her out at thefoodmood7.blogspot.com!  Ladies and gentlemen, here she is, Baby Chip!

When a student reads a history textbook in class, they tend to assume it is the absolute truth.  It is straight up facts, has no bias, and is a fantastic learning tool.  I most definitely fall into this category, for ever since about a few years ago, I assumed that everything in my history textbooks, or any textbooks for that matter, was to be taken as the truth, no questions asked.  However, upon further examination, this does not seem to be the case.

I have now learned that someone must choose what things to include in history textbooks.  Everything that is put into textbooks is put there for a reason, whether it be because it actually was a historically important event, or because the author believed it to be a significant event.  Either way, students must learn to realize this process of deciding which facts to include and which to leave out.

It is often stated that history is told by the "winners."  We learn about Columbus and his "peaceful" voyage and about World War One from the point of view of the Allies.  In this regard, we often don't hear the perspectives of the so called "losers," and miss out on their points of views.  For example, last year in my United States History course, we primarily learned from our textbook, A People and a Nation.  However, when our teacher deemed it necessary, we read chapters from a book entitled A People's History of the United States by author Howard Zinn.  This book claims to tell history from the perspective of the "losers," or those who were taken advantage of, lost wars, or didn't have political dominance.  By reading both of these texts together, I feel that our class had a better, broader understanding of the history of the United States, for we were exposed to multiple authors and multiple perspectives.

Textbook companies are not evil, however, it is important to understand that they are flawed.  In order for anyone to get a better understanding of any historic happenings, we must take into account multiple perspectives.  It would be like only listening to the murderer's, who is pleading guilty, side to a story, and letting him simply go free because of this one perspective.

Titanic Moments

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the HMS Titanic. One of my best friends loves the 1997 movie (Titanic) that chronicles its demise, and -- although, personally, I find it sappy and long and historically inaccurate to some degree -- I went with her to see it in 3D for her birthday.

I've seen it a bunch of times, but something struck me for the first time while I was watching it this weekend. I realized that I didn't really know much about the actual sinking of the actual HMS Titanic. So, being the nerd I am, I did some research, and there were fascinating effects of the famous disaster (hyperlink to coast guard blog). The US Navy was immediately sent out to patrol the coasts for icebergs -- a job that the US Coast Guard and 13 other nations now share -- after the Titanic went down. In 1913, only months after the Titanic sank, the first Safety of Life at Sea Convention was held, and it's standards still stipulate many of the international safety regulations for maritime trade and travel. Did you know that the sinking of the Titanic is considered by some to be the first international disaster ever?

What does all of this remind you of?

The first thing that jumped into my mind as I read the information was September 11, 2001. I thought of how the airport regulations implemented shortly after are not all that different from what came out of the SOLSC. I remembered the international outcry after America was attacked by terrorists. But then there were other days I thought of: December 7, 1945; August 29, 2005; April 26,1986; November 22,1963. Days of disaster. National disaster. Global disaster. Natural disaster. Human disaster.

People remember these dates.

They stick with us because they are tragic and they bring us together.

They become part of our history.

Our national history. Our personal history. Our global history.

And they repeat, like the parallels between the Titanic and 9/11. And even though new generations are born and people die and forget and personal experiences are lost through endless time and graves and funerals, we're still affected by things like Chernobyl or Hurricane Katrina (to differing degrees of course). Mostly for the reason that they give us all a shared experience of loss -- something easy to bond over.

What do you think tragedy does for the ties of a people, nation, group, or community?

< Histrophile >

Don't Forget About the Fishies!

I absolutely adore aquariums. I love everything about them: the people, the animals, the atmosphere. They might, in fact, be my favorite type of attraction! So, as you can imagine, I was extremely excited to visit the Shedd Aquarium, my favorite aquarium of all time, last week during our spring vacation.

As you might imagine, while gazing through the glass into the underwater world of the smiling and swimming sea otter, my innate histrophile struck me: this little marine mammal also has a history. He has a mother and father, grandparents, and a whole lineage of other sea otters. They come from different places, have done different things, and have made an impact on the greater sea otter community. We, as humans, are not the only species who have a history, that can trace back our existence for hundreds and hundreds of years. So can Mr. Sea Otter here, as he flips on his stomach and smiles at his many spectators.

Ergo, I thought about the history of animals in comparison to our own history. Every species on our planet has their own unique story with their own unique past. And although most species have no way of recording this story, it is still of utmost importance. A pack of wolves is just as devastated when their head wolf is killed as our nation is when a president is assassinated. A herd of giraffes suffer just as much as a town of people would during a famine. Global warming can have the same effects on a pod of dolphins as it can on us.

We are not the only ones with a history or a meaningful past. Ergo, it seems necessary to learn to respect and appreciate the histories of others. What would life be like if Mr. Sea Otter wrote could write down his story, his history? What would it say?

But most importantly, what would we have to learn?

< Histrophile >

Historical What Ifs

We all study history. We have to. But something that a lot of histrophiles, myself included, always wonder is this: what if we studied a different history? What if things played out differently? For nerds like me, it's a sort of mental aerobics -- who can think of the most interesting historical "What If.."? So here are some I have thought of over the years

1. The usual: What if Germany had won World War I or II? I have literally spent hours thinking about what a map of the world would look like. Something I always stop on is whether the United Kingdom would exist anymore if Hitler had won. Would the US have been able to save their closest ally or would it have been absolved into a greater German Empire?

2. What if the American Revolution had been crushed? What if all of the Founding Fathers had been caught, tried for treason, and hanged? Would it be possible for the United States to still be apart of the United Kingdom? Would Britain have tried even harder to hold onto its other colonies like Australia and India out of fear of losing the US (and probably Canada too)? Would the British Empire still the exist?

3. What if the German generals in World War II had followed orders and destroyed Paris?

What if Zheng He's voyages had never been stopped? What of China dominated the seas from the 1400s onward? How far would Chinese culture and occupation have spread? Would Europe have ever competed? What if they colonised America too?

4. What if Nicholas II never mobilized the Russian Army after Franz Ferdinand was assassinated? Would the domino effect of alliance mobilization ever have happened?

5. What if Shakespeare never learned to read and write?

6. What if Catherine of Aragon was able to give Henry VIII a son? He would have never had to divorce her to marry Anne Boleyn, and then he would have never had to break from the Catholic Church to divorce Anne. How would the relationship between England and the Church have panned out? How would the relationship between England, Spain, and France have been different?

7. What if Abraham Lincoln had lost the Presidential Election of 1864?

8. What if the Roman Republic had never turned into an empire? Would the West be so tied together by a similar foundation?

9. What if Napolean had succeeded?

10. What if Africa colonized Europe?

11. What if the US had used an atomic bomb against North Korea in 1950?

12. What if the Sumerians never developed cuneiform and the Egyptians never created hieroglyphics?

Time Capsules

This blog has become as much about collective memory as it is about raw history. Part of understanding the collective memory of a society, of a culture, of the world, is being able to look back and -- through different mediums -- learn about the past.

Often we use literature to study history, especially specific time periods. And there is a debate on whether it is ever possible to define a novel (or other piece of writing) as "timeless". Can you take a story out of its time? It's similar to discussions on ignoring the background of the author. Opinions on this issue vary widely. There is a specific school of literary thought, called New Historicism, whose central argument is that all works are essentially tied to their time and place in the world, no matter what. You cannot , by any means, separate a novel from when it was written. As a result, it is very beneficial -- and often quite easy -- to study a time period by reading literature written during it.

But here's something I, myself, am struggling to comprehend about New Historicism: how are we supposed to study works of literature written in one period about another?

For example --

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, a story set in the mid-17th century, in 1850, far removed from the setting of his story. I've read The Scarlet Letter and studied both time periods rather closely. There are definitely points in the novel where Hawthorne's very romantic style and theology shines brightly through the tale of a Puritan woman in 1640s Boston. Yet, in my opinion, there is still an argument that the novel is a legitimate medium for educating oneself on Puritan America. The story is realistic; the values are conveyed. On the other hand, if you take a more language and symbol centered approach to analyzing The Scarlet Letter, you can learn about Romanticism and the 1800s --- a time extremely different from the 1600s.

I suppose a New Historicist would stress reading The Scarlet Letter to study Hawthorne's time period over using it to study the 17th century...? But, by doing that, aren't you ignoring Hawthorne's original intent? He chose to make Hester Prynne a Puritan woman for a reason, irregardless of whether he was unconsciously expressing to his readers something about his own time.

But personally, I take a rather New Historical approach to the world of literature. I love reading books set in a different time period because I love history. But reading something written by someone in a different time period has a another kind of splendor. It's almost like a time capsule -- a perfectly preserved gem of the Italian Renaissance or the American Civil War. And, however hard you try Nathaniel Hawthorne, you just can't recreate that true experience. That is the joy of reading something old. It doesn't know what happens next. It is purely then.

< Histrophile >

Four People Who Really Messed Up (in one way or another)

I think I might have a brain tumor. For the past week, I have been thinking non-stop about King John. Normal people don't do things like that. I've been thinking and thinking about why people always talk about how badly he screwed up English history by signing the Magna Carta. Isn't that the first document to guarantee people things like, um... liberty? How is that a screw-up? Finally I came to the realization that he did sort of muddle up the place of the monarchy within the political system of the nation. So if it was the king or someone royal that was the first to place blame on King John, that makes some sense.

But that question has, once again, planted a broader question inside of my brain. How much would it suck to be someone remembered for doing something dumb? So, here are four people (of many) throughout history who just, plain messed up...

1. King John: Although I don't completely understand the modern day criticism of his actions, he, nonetheless must make the list because, at the time, it was by no means a good idea to sign the Magna Carta (ignoring, of course, the fact that he was somewhat forced).

2. Jacob Malik: on January 13, 1950, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations (Malik) stormed out of a meeting of the Security Council and never returned. He was angry about the United States blocking the expulsion of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from the Security Council. In June of that same year, the United Nations voted to intervene on the Korean Peninsula. There was no Soviet delegate (one that would have blocked this resolution) present. Three years of war followed --three years of war that the USSR opposed vehemently. Funny thing is that they could have stopped much of it.

3. Herbert Hoover: Three years into the Great Depression, President Hoover vetoed a bill that would have given World War I veterans their federal bonuses early. If that wasn't bad enough to wreck his public opinion ratings, when the veterans decided to organize a makeshift tent village in protest of the veto (and dubbed themselves the "Bonus Army"), Hoover sent in General MacArthur to clear out the poor, unemployed, homeless veterans of the Great War (and their families). Let's just just say it didn't end well for him...

4. Hongle, Ming Emperor of China: In the early 1400s, Emperor Yongle commissioned a series of maritime expeditions, led by General Zheng He, to explore the unknown. For less than twenty years, Zheng He and his crew discovered the previously undiscovered and reaped the benefits of acquiring exotic treasure from far off lands. Years later, the Europeans made exploration and colonization fashionable, but the Chinese did it first. They didn't create colonies, but, in the span of a decade, they literally became the most affluent and powerful nation in the world. The trade routes were theirs, the commodities were theirs, and all the wealth they could dream of was at their finger tips. Then, it all ended. Emperor Yongle died, and Hongle took over. He immediately halted all of the expeditions and imposed a policy of isolation, thrusting China into 500 years that involved little to no contact with the outside world. By the 19th century, they were fresh meat for the new, powerful cannon of European and Western powers.

Something that is hard to process when pondering the actions of people like Hongle and Jacob Malik, is that at the time it might not have seemed like such a bad idea. I've done many things in my eighteen years that seemed like a good idea at first, but, in retrospect, we're just dumb. All four of these historical characters did what they thought was right. Not one of them was malicious or self-sabotaging in their actions. But the way the story played out just didn't go their way.

How would you feel if the only thing people ever remember about you is the worst decision you ever made?

< Histrophile >

Tookie Thought: Part 1

I was very excited to read a book over break. Since the beginning of high school (aka more than three years ago), I've found it very difficult to find time for any reading other than assigned texts. So, with the prospect of two weeks filled with nothing except practice and naps ahead of me, I was eager to dust off one of those novels sitting at the top of my "To Read" list. Instead -- and I'm not ashamed to admit it (okay, I kind of am...) -- I somehow found myself reading Tyra Bank's fictional, fantasy-esq novel Modelland.

Tookie de la Crème is the protagonist of Modelland. She's an awkward teenage girl, living with cold parents who are obsessed with her gorgeous younger sister, Myrracle. The novel is set in a sort of alternate world, one in which places have names like "Bou-Big-Tique" and "Sans Color" and models are world-wide phenomenons with magic-like powers. The book follows Tookie as she attends the esteemed modeling school, Modelland, on the top of a mountain overlooking the entire world.

Although, at times one finds oneself trudging through messy, outrageous descriptions of oddly contrived situations and settings, and to be honest it can be hard to keep names like "Theopilius" separate from "Zarpessa" and "Shiraz Shiraz," and the parallels to Tyra's life are quite evident to anyone who knows anything about the retired supermodel, Modelland has a clear message.

Beauty doesn't have to be conventional.

People give Tyra a lot of crap for being a model and trying to do a lot of good. She's constantly ridiculed for being fat, or dumb, or too ambitious, or fake. But, as an "America's Next Top Model" aficionado, I am one of those people who truly like Tyra because you can't honestly say that she's a bad person. She's dedicated her life to redefining definitions of female beauty, first within the fashion industry and now outside of it.

And all of this got me thinking about society ideals of female beauty and how they change overtime. Next week, I will post solely on that subject, a the research I've begun to read is quite interesting so far. So, to end this post, I'd like to throw out this thought, a preview of next post: what is the catalyst for ideas of beauty to change?

< Histrophile >