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History in different languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 33 of 51 15 March 2010 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I really enjoyed reading "A People's History of the United States", which tries to
balance out American history classes. There are some things that I already knew from German history classes (e. g. Manifest Destiny was not portayed nicely in Germany), but other things were totally new to me as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 34 of 51 16 March 2010 at 4:54am | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 35 of 51 16 March 2010 at 6:11am | IP Logged | |||||
US history books used in schools vary widely. The New York Times has covered some recent changes in Texas. On the other hand, it appears that the People's History Sprachprofi mentioned is also recommended reading for AP students, and it has quite another slant - I wouldn't call it a propaganda book, and consider it eminently worth reading, but it gets close at times. There's plenty of propaganda in many history textbooks, and much of it can be very hard to recognize without further background knowledge. Even while sticking to historical events with a minimum of slanted interpretation (unfortunately, this is not a given), what one chooses to present and the framing used can go a very long way. Reading from various sources and time periods, in various languages, having a lot of background knowledge, and knowing how to evaluate all help. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 36 of 51 16 March 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
eh... Manifest Destiny. One of those things the US history books usually puts in a great and wonderful light. Considering some of my ancestors were Native American, yeah... Sore spot. I kindly tried to explain what I had been told by my elders during that class and was abruptly told that I was "lying". Another weird thing is that at least for me, you never hear about inventions outside of America. It's always Americans inventing things. Hell... For a time I thought Tesla was American. Well... he was kind of. It just blew me away when I got older and got slightly obsessed with the History channel, and started finding out that there were multiple viewpoints to history (though still skewed). Granted though, most people I know couldn't care less about history. It's just that to them, history. As in "not important", *sigh*. Anyone point me to some good German, Japanese and Russian history books/videos? I'd really love to learn about WWII from different aspects other than Pearl Harbor and D-Day. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 37 of 51 17 March 2010 at 9:49am | IP Logged | |||||
Do you mean the whole or just one aspect? I liked "The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945" (original title: Der Brand) by Jörg Friedrich. Amazon.com has it, but in the UK it's censored, you can't buy the English version of the book. Yet Jörg Friedrich is a well-known historian, whom nobody would count among the right-extreme fringes of society. In Germany you can easily get accused of being a racist if you talk about the 2nd world war from a German perspective (and being accused so is not a light matter, it has ended several careers). For example, people make an effort to forget about the violent mass expulsion of Germans from the areas in the east that were randomly assigned to Poland in order to make up for the part of Poland that Stalin stole and kept, and the other crimes that accompanied the occupation of Germany. For example, more than 110,000 girls and women were raped just in Berlin between spring and autumn 1945. (Now don't call me a racist) I don't want to compare numbers of victims. Nazi Germany probably has done worse or would have done worse (in the case of the bombing) than any of the things I mentioned. However, two wrongs don't make a right, and I think it's sad that people are kept ignorant of this, especially since it's hurting their relationship with the grandparent generation and their ability to take care of them, not expecting to find PTSD. Edited by Sprachprofi on 17 March 2010 at 9:51am 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 38 of 51 17 March 2010 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've found the following to make for interesting reading when going beyond the Amerocentric view of Pearl Harbor, D-Day and the atomic bombs. - Galland, Adolf. "The First and the Last" (translated from original: Die Ersten und die Letzten) (memoirs of a general in the German air force who was also one of Germany's best-known fighter pilots. They include not only Galland's experiences in air combat (dogfights), but also some of the "politicking" behind military policy within the Third Reich. ) - Caldwell, Donald "JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe" (an American's book on JG 26 which was a group ("wing" or "Geschwader") of German fighter squadrons. If you're fascinated by military aviation and its tactics, this book can be quite enjoyable because much of the book gives detailed accounts of air battles/dogfights from the German point of view. Caldwell has also written an expanded version of this book called "JG 26: War Diary" (Vols. 1 & 2) which gives an almost daily accounting for all of the aerial action undertaken by JG 26. This might be too much for a casual reader, but for a big fan of military aviation the "war diary" could be a real treat). - Sajer, Guy "The Forgotten Soldier" (historical fiction about a German soldier on the Eastern Front. It'll give a reasonably accurately portrayal of the nastiness in the fighting there yet keep in mind that it is not a soldier's memoirs but an amalgam of experiences from German soldiers.) - Davies, Norman "Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory" (Norman Davies is a somewhat iconoclastic historian for Westerners. Unlike most Western historians, his book places emphasis on the USSR's role in initially supporting/helping Germany (1939-1941), and then doing most of the dirty work in defeating the Germans (1941-1945). He also downplays somewhat the Western Allies' role in the European side of WWII. For all of Davies' perceived faults (especially his strong sympathy for Poland), his book is quite thought-provoking) - Okumiya, Masatake (with Jiro Horikoshi and Martin Caidin) "Zero" (This is an account in English of Japanese involvement in WWII from the viewpoint of a naval officer, Masatake Okumiya. You'll get Japanese takes (or even "blow-by-blow" accounts) of important operations including the attack on Pearl Harbor, the aerial assassination of Admiral Yamamoto, and the Battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, Santa Cruz, and Philippines' Sea. This book is also supplemented by a couple of chapters from Jiro Horikoshi who was the designer of the famous Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane. Horikoshi's chapters are quite interesting since they include his recollections of life on the home front from 1944 to 1945 when Japan was clearly losing the war and his reaction to the atomic bombings and tour of the devastated areas.) *** A general comment - when reading ANYONE'S book about WWII, be aware of the author's biases and do not accept everything unquestionably. WWII still figures prominently in many national myths and perceptions of national self-righteousness. Popular or widely-available history books from each of the former Allied nations will present their nation's contribution to victory in the best possible light even if it means excluding, downplaying or even denigrating the other allies' actions which are deemed contradictory to the respective historical narrative or national myth. Popular British history books tend to trumpet the Battle of Britain, the Battle of El-Alamein, and D-Day, American ones tend to trumpet Pearl Harbor, Midway, D-Day, and the "island-hopping" campaigns, Russian ones tend to trumpet Stalingrad, Kursk, the Siege of Leningrad, and the capture of Berlin. Another thing to be aware of is the tendency for people to at least temporarily forget that it was a global war (or the nearest approximation that humans have experienced so far). For example, Norman Davies' book which I listed above is valuable for its ability to provoke thought in people who have been raised on the highly Amerocentric or Anglocentric view of WWII. At the same time, I find Davies' sometimes less-than-subtle slagging of the Western Allies' contribution in Europe to be out of line. He seems to forget that it was the biggest player for the Western Allies (i.e. the Americans - with important contributions from the Australians, New Zealanders, Chinese, and less so the British) who did virtually all of the decisive fighting in defeating Japan. Despite the blatant Eurocentric bias inherent in many North American or European minds (including that of Davies), it is called WORLD War II for a reason. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ManicGenius Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 288 posts - 420 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese | Message 39 of 51 17 March 2010 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Very cool, thanks to both of you.
Yeah, I have a very big interest in WWII aviation, since to me it's the last of the true dogfight era. The advent of Jet engines and missles basically reduced dogfights to "Locked On and Let Go". I do not blatantly think that WWII happened only happen in Europe. I've even heard of Japan's plan to cross Australia's outback on bicycles or something. Another problem with WWII is that people focus on the Nazi camps, but generally ignore the Japanese Death Marches and "Comfort" women. Along with ignoring American internment of Japanese decendant American born citizens in camps (yet allowing German POW's to nearly walk free along city streets as long as they were accompanied by a guard). War is something that should not happen, with World War II encompasses some of the worst of mankinds atrocities. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 40 of 51 17 March 2010 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed. The problem is that despite what you and I have already made clear about remembering that the war was not an exclusively European affair, a lot of people today still look at WWII in this way i.e. it was a war lasting from 1939 to 1945. Even in school in the USA or Canada, kids learn that WWII began with the German invasion of Poland in 1939 (and even then it's not commonly taught to these children that the USSR also participated by occupying eastern Poland per the terms of a deal made between Hitler and Stalin about a week before Germany launched its invasion forces. At least however, the children seem to learn that the war ended in September 1945 with Japan's surrender rather than in May 1945 with Germany's surrender). However for the older relatives of some of my Chinese friends, the reference to 1939 makes little sense. They lived in China when it was beset not only by civil war between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, but also by the Japanese invasions or occupation (BTW Japan and China are almost always considered to have been at war from 1937 to 1945 (this being the second Sino-Japanese War). They thus started officially fighting all-out two years before the "official" start of WWII in 1939). The myopia is understandable (especially when you think of the national myths that have sprung up about various countries' roles in WWII) but not justifiable if the goal is for everyone to learn from the mistakes or transgressions of WWII. The matter of brutality toward civilians or prisoners of war is a very sensitive one, and in addition to your mentioning of German, Japanese and American (mis)treatment, British and Russian (mis)treatment was quite shocking as well, no matter how hard each side tries to sweep things under the rug or put up (sometimes flimsy) excuses for its actions. Oh, I just remembered a couple of movies that may interest you. They may even be a bonus as I see that you're currently learning Japanese. 1) "Yamato" (2005) 2) "For those We Love" (2007). These are Japanese movies about the super-battleship Yamato and the experiences of kamikaze pilots respectively (both have the requisite battle scenes too ;-)). While they are interesting for presenting something about the Japanese side, be aware that these movies opened with some controversy. Pacifists and critics disliked the films because they felt that the movies unduly glorify Japan's conduct in WWII. At the same time, nationalist Japanese loved them because they emphasized the sense of duty and patriotism of its fighting men. The nationalists seemed to have got the feeling that perhaps Japanese conduct in WWII wasn't inexcusably bad and also got a boost to their national ego after watching the movies. Nevertheless, the legacy of the war is still an awkward topic for the Japanese. The education ministry recently approved a new series of history textbooks for schoolchildren which Chinese and Korean authorities criticized heavily because they assert that the new books downplay or whitewash the effects of Japan's occupation or invasions in China and Korea. Anyway have a look at those two films if you're interested. They're available on DVD. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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