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At least in the US, many people do not even know England had a civil war during the early colonial period. And it was much more consequential than the American revolution or the American civil war, which were largely conflicts between regional elites.
The English civil war was momentous because the English king was executed, 150 years before the French king. The Roundheads were directly challenging the idea of a king's divine right, which was part of the religious ferment at the time. The idea was so strongly ingrained that Cromwell, who had had a religious conversion before the war, was compelled to sign the order of execution himself because others were afraid to.
The French revolution is more notable because it spilled out across Europe as France was on the continent, but the English civil war was the first to see a monarch executed by commoners. It did not spill out because England was on an island.
The Dutch revolt had preceded the English civil war, as had the German Thirty Years War. All were aftershocks from the Reformation. Most American students of history don't know of those wars as well, despite the fact that they are the lineal forebears of the American revolution. Instead they think the tea partiers in Boston got the whole ball rolling, when in fact there had been two centuries of revolt and revolution already.
Your typical American knows little about their own history, let alone that of other countries.
If you asked someone about the cavaliers vs. roundheads, they would likely think you were referring to two college teams, or, just react with a blank stare.
What do I give up? I don't understand what you're asking.
The enemy of perfect is good enough combined with the limitations of time. If you are going to teach everyone about X you must take time from Y and demphasize it.
What are you willing to give up for your project? Geometry, language instruction, history from some other era?
The enemy of perfect is good enough combined with the limitations of time. If you are going to teach everyone about X you must take time from Y and demphasize it.
What are you willing to give up for your project? Geometry, language instruction, history from some other era?
I would reorganize history instruction.
History is taught in most places as a disjointed set of vignettes.
I would teach history with long-term themes, such as the long term theme of European peasant emancipation that started with the Reformation and continues to this day. The English civil war would fit into that unit, along with the other wars and revolts I mentioned.
History as a subject in primary and secondary education is terribly disorganized and leaves most students with no sense of how history progressed. One year you study American history, another year world history, and then you study American history again with a lot of repeats, etc.
In the current system, the related events of the English civil war and the American revolution would probably be taught in different years, with different teachers, and maybe out of order.
History curricula are designed more as propaganda for various viewpoints (traditional American civics, post-modern revisions, etc.) than as actual efforts to understand history.
Is not very important for Americans. Brits probably learn about though.
American dont learn about all the other Euro revolutions of the 1800 besides the one with Napoleon, and that just gets glossed over.
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