hi Dark, Yes, I see that. I've been doing some reading of Spanish history and while I knew who Isabella and Philip were I really had no idea of the history leading up to the exploration of the Americas. I didn't know, for example, that Philip and Isabella married to unite the two most powerful Catholic kingdoms in order to unite Spain under one crown and that the Muslims were finally defeated in 1492. Of course, that was the same year Columbus set sail. I had no idea how much power and influence Spain had in Europe during the 1500's because all American history teachers wanted to discuss is what was happening in the western hemisphere. Now, I'm happily filling in the gaps in my knowledge and realizing exactly how little detail was spent on the big picture so to speak.
For example, if we talk about the U.S. War of 1812 that's all American history will talk about. They totally ignore the fact that one reason Britain didn't send all the red coats in to smash us flat is they were primarily involved in the Napoleonic Wars. Britain was fighting two wars at the same time, and we were the lesser of two evils. That naturally worked to our advantage because while Britain was concentrating on the French we were free to give you a thrashing in our own backyard. As poorly as the war started off we almost got smashed flat anyway and the history books like to ignore those facts. Same goes for Spain in the 1400's and 1500's. American historians seem not to care why the Spanish were conquering Central and South America but merely the fact that they did so. Its appalling. Cheers! On 9/6/12, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > yet tom, the irony is that as I've said before, Christopher columbus, the > treatment of civilizations like the aztecs and the Maians depend very much > on Spanish views and spanish history of the time. > > In fact, other than when I studdied the first world war, sinse the history I > > learnt concentrated on Europe, the spanish settling of south America is the > > closest I've been to studdying formal American history. Although when i > studdied Arthur Miller's the crucible and George steinbeck's Of mice and > Men, in English literature during secondary school, we also learn something > > of the times and culture that those works were set in, as well as (in the > case of the crucible), the time's surrounding the author's life as well. > > Beware the Grue! > > Dark. > ----- --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
