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Comment by t-3 | Hacker News Reader

In the US, we covered a lot of old world colonial abuses in AP Euro and World History, but they are only briefly mentioned in regular courses. Irish and Armenian genocides were given special focus, probably mostly due to the demographics of the area I grew up in.

US and Eurocolonial treatment of the Native Americans was covered extensively in regular courses though, often alongside and explicitly compared to the Holocaust which is also covered extensively.

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That's pretty recent. If you look at older US history school books, the physical and social genocide of the Native Americans is largely glossed over. It wasn't until after A People's History of the United States came out in the 80s that the school books slowly became more honest.

> Irish and Armenian genocides were given special focus, probably mostly due to the demographics of the area I grew up in.

There's just so much history to cover, and to be charitable to those who exclude events deemed important it can be that other events are deemed more important (especially by the local population) and there's only so much class time.

History instruction seems to be of two minds, either grand narratives (great men in the past, metrics-driven narratives like agricultural productivity now), or the case study approach where you sample some episodes from a variety of times and places and study each in depth. In both cases the approach must involve leaving some stories on the editing floor.

I'm curious, how old are you if I may ask? I'm 61, and of these things, only the Holocaust and the failure of the Soviet Union were covered.

34.

Thanks. I should also note that my kids learned about those things in school.

Just to add some (unprovoked) additional info here: I'm a 26 year old Canadian. We covered early Canadian history, abuse of the aboriginal peoples of Canada, war with America, and WW1/WW2/the Holocaust.

I don't think we were really taught at all about European/Asian history or the Soviet Union. I think I could have taken some classes related to those in highschool (secondary school), but for anyone working towards a non-history bachelor's degree those courses were generally not something that you could fit in your timetable.

I am 30. In all my schooltime history classes, we never covered any famine in India or the Global South. Only the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Irish Potato Famine, the Chinese famine, and maybe I'm forgetting a few. These are the main times famine showed up in our books. No discussion about Armenia, or any related such things. Population transfer policies of the USSR and China were discussed (and these are close to genocide). Native American extermination was obviously covered heavily. As was the role of slavery in American history up to the present day.

I believe there was also one in Africa committed by Belgium in the Congo? I remember seeing some photos of something cruel from there to this effect.

The Congo belonged personally to King Leopold of Belgian (not the Belgian state). His minions committed all sorts of atrocities, mainly in the pursuit of rubber. You can read about it online, but it is stomach churning stuff.

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