Which Countries Have the Most Obvious/Well Known History and Which Countries the Most Unknown/Obscure History? (Rome, Europeans)

[Randomstudent]

Obscure just off the top of my head and in no particular order

1. Tonga
2. Togo
3. Brunei
4. E. Timor
5. Sri Lanka (this is the odd one out, but it gets so overshadowed by India not many people know about it)
6. Burundi
7. Malawi
8. Burkina Faso
9. Bahrain
10 U.A.E.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Actually as an American I know very little about Canadian history.

For major countries, some other ones whose history I've not that familiar with would be New Zealand, South Korea, Germany (aside from WW1 and WW2), Poland and Portugal. I don't know much about Scandivanian history aside from the Vikings either.

Most familiar probably Britain, France, Italy (including ancient Rome), China, Japan, Israel (because of the Bible). THere are many countries where you know about a significant empire or time period but not about its modern history like Greece, Egypt, and Mexico. I know about ancient Greece, and I know about how Greece is a mess today, but nothing in between, and I know little of Mexican history besides the Aztec and Mayan empires. To think of it I'm not too familiar with Germany before it became a nation, I'm only familiar with the WW1 and WW2 period and the Cold War divisions. Not very familiar with the various German kingdoms before they united to form one country.

I now Ireland had a potato famine and got its independence from the UK but no real details about Irish history.

[Dopo]

In Venezuela people learn about the history of Guyana
since at one point it was part of Venezuela and now both dispute the 2nd largest disputed land in the World.

[Grandstander]

The most obscure has to be Fritzenlund, no history of it has ever been written, nothing about it may be found online, many claim that it doesn't actually exist and in fact never has existed.

[Dopo]

Most obscure: All African countries

Most Americans don't know that most African countries were European colonies until a few decades ago and that most people that speak French live in Africa.

[msgsing]

Perhaps the original question is somewhat flawed. It all depends on perspective. If you have a Eurocentric point of view then anything outside of that view can be unknown and or obscure. The opposite occurs when viewing the world from a different geographic angle.

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

For westerners, the history of China is probably at the top, relative to the historical records that are available. It's just too lengthy and convoluted for most people to get into. However, those who do will find a lot of resources in all the major western languages. Chinese dynasties usually had very strong bureaucracies with lots of scribes and recordkeepers, and that goes back a long while.

In terms of a country/region with a big impact on western history, probably Turkey, and all of its predecessor governments and empires going back to the Romans, and perhaps even going back to the Hittites. The story of the Byzantine Empire isn't all that well-told in modern Turkey itself, either, for various reasons.

Now, in global terms, if we're trying to pick one relatively sizable country that nobody knows much about, including its inhabitants, Papua New Guinea might win. This is because - while the country is the size of California - it has so many different tribes, languages, and historical migrations that nobody can even agree on the basic facts - just how many languages are there in PNG? How many distinct ethnic groups?

Not only are the "real" answers to those questions unknown - they are probably unknowable given the imprecision of our definitions of those things.

But there is certainly a lot of history there.

Tannu Tuva

[SWFL_Native]

most of the discussion is focused on geographic history.... I would argue that pre-christian history and the associated documentation burned at the Library of Alexandria was the largest loss to us all. There was so much history documented and lost their that we are left with scarce hand me down biblical stories.

IMO all religions wanted all documentation of "pagan" or pre-christian/roman/muslim documented history destroyed that would question any of their published bedtime stories.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by Tom Lennox 70

Actually as an American I know very little about Canadian history.

For major countries, some other ones whose history I've not that familiar with would be New Zealand, South Korea, Germany (aside from WW1 and WW2), Poland and Portugal. I don't know much about Scandivanian history aside from the Vikings either.

Most familiar probably Britain, France, Italy (including ancient Rome), China, Japan, Israel (because of the Bible). THere are many countries where you know about a significant empire or time period but not about its modern history like Greece, Egypt, and Mexico. I know about ancient Greece, and I know about how Greece is a mess today, but nothing in between, and I know little of Mexican history besides the Aztec and Mayan empires. To think of it I'm not too familiar with Germany before it became a nation, I'm only familiar with the WW1 and WW2 period and the Cold War divisions. Not very familiar with the various German kingdoms before they united to form one country.

I now Ireland had a potato famine and got its independence from the UK but no real details about Irish history.

Read the book How The Irish Saved Civilization for an entertaining, though not comprehensive, history of Ireland.

[EvilEyeFleegle]

By my reading this of thread...I think that India is overlooked a lot...which is surprising, given that India's influence on the world has been profound over the millennia.

For obscure, yet influential...we have the Phoenicians, whose trading empire spanned a third of the globe--they also were the first major state to use an alphabet..which they gave to the Greeks..who gave to the Romans..and thus on to all of us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia

Which kind of brings me back to the subject of this thread....for many countries and cultures..their history depends on their literacy and the storage of records...there were great kingdoms on Africa..but there are few records.

But I guess your point is taken..most do not know much of history outside of their culture. I know a lot of people that just don't get the relevance of history in their lives and don't feel inclined to 'waste' the time to get educated.