Why do so many American schoolbooks gloss over or straight-up ignore the Byzantine Empire...

Why do so many American schoolbooks gloss over or straight-up ignore the Byzantine Empire? Despite being ill-fated for much of its existence it's still a substantial part of early-medieval and late-Roman history. I didn't even know about it until years after grade school.

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How the fuck do you expect every school to teach ALL of history like you except? I mean you surely aren't picking the Byzantine Empire due to subjective reasons right? You honestly expect schools to teach the whole of human history in the short period they have their students for. Not just picking the parts of history which are more relevant in today's society attempting to light a spark in the student to pursue it further.

I took a humanities class and if I remember right we spent several weeks studying Byzatine art, so you're wrong OP

Forgot to add.

Are you meant to expect anything else from a frog poster?

Would never have known the Byzantine Empire existed if it wasn't for Medieval II: Total War. Wouldn't have known Carthage existed without Rome: Total War. Never knew about the brozen age collapse. Never knew the Greeks & Phoenicians set up colonies as far away as Spain. Never knew what the Revolutions of 1848 were until I read about it in a history book on my own time. Never knew England had its own Civil War until I read about it in a book. Never knew what year the Reformation happened until I looked it up. But I can tell you the name of Columbus' ships and what Juneteenth is.

Thanks public school.

This, it's contextual. Byzantium is almost entirely irrelevant to the US and most of western history. Where I could make a case for the pre-Roman Hellenistic nations that existed in the same region being more relevant and those we do learn about.

College-level classes do quite a bit on it

I went to literal nigger schools and learned all of this, are you sure you weren't just one of the stupid kids who didn't pay attention?

How is carthage or the Greeks setting up colonies relevant to the US?

American Primary-Highschool history glosses over or straight up ignores everything that isn't the revolution or WW2-modernity

Universities offer courses on everything you could imagine but that's up to individuals to participate

I took all AP classes and none of that was even mentioned in passing.

Because those colonies (like Carthage, Neopolis, Syracuse) would play a crucial role in the development of European civilization.

>none of that was mentioned in passing
What did you get on the tests? What textbook did you have?

I remember things like the Revolutions of 1848 were a large feature in the class and covered heavily in the textbook. But then there were things on the tests, and in the textbook, but lectures never covered it. Though that's because AP Classes are meant to train one to actually be able to study and do research, and not rely on an instructor to spoonfeed you.

Also with classes in the American school year of only 180 Days, time becomes a major deciding factor of what to cut and what to keep. When the average class time (on a regular day( is usually fifty minutes at most, one needs to budget it all very effectively, which means there might be little room to talk about what is only marginally less important than the essential.

I can't recall what textbooks I had, but I went to public school in Texas so I had two semesters devoted entirely to Texas History and instead of history senor year we had Economics instead. History class was essentially all about America with almost all time devoted to the Revolutionary War & The Civil War with some occasional diversions like Jackson & the Bank & the effects of the telegraph & the locomotive.

>Texas
There's your problem, you guys have fucked up history textbooks because of the bizarre statewide mandate board or whatever.

Forget about the Byzantines, what about the Achaemenidians?

>largest empire in ancient history
>pioneered centralized government and infrastructure
>military system inspired empires for centuries
>not a word about it in school
>only known in America today as the bad guys from 300

>Byzantine

Fuck the persians. The mongol hordes are where its at

The average american history book glosses over much more important shit than the Byzantine empire.

American schoolbooks gloss over everything before the 17th century.

I knew about Carthage from that fucking Gladiator movie with Russel Crowe back when I was a kid, how stupid are you?

western bias against the byzantines sinxe the great schism, plus the renaissane and enlightement jerked off to what they imagined the GreatRational pre christian romans and greeks were like while the byz were seen as mired in mysticism and superstition

What do you mean American school books gloss over it? No two states have the same regards with European history in classical/antiquity or middle age periods.

Fuck the Mongols.

This desu, high school history classes generally gloss over everything except world history. However universities and colleges will get more in depth.

american history education goes like this:

-fertile crescent, egypt, greece, rome. also rhe bible happened. also china existed,
-rome falls in 476 ad, the middle ages happen, but nothing happens except the crusades
-in 1492 columbus sailed the ocean blue and we emerged from a housand year dark age. protestants happened. then the pilgrims came to america. slavery happened but also the revolution, followed by the civil war. then industrialization, wwi (though noone knows why), the great depression randimly happened, then wwii. then the cold war and vietnam but we won bc reagan. 9/11, iraq, obama, the end

Because this

High school history in Texas goes as follows:

God said let there be light -> 2nd GREATEST civilization, Greece is formed from the ashes of Thermoplyae, and freedom is invented -> ROME, third greatest civilization, our predecessors on the international stage and conquer everything and make aqueducts or something -> Fag Brits colonize the greatest piece of land God created, but we still weren't free -> muh Revolution, greatest civilization in the world is created. It invented the concept of freedom and oppressed people throughout the world used it as a rallying cry against monarchy--wait what French Revolution? -> muh Alamo -> some Civil War-HEY freedom is threatened once again from the east, as the most maniacal man in human history tyrannizes Europe, the greatest country on planet Earth swoops in and saves the day, all by itself -> modern day

I realized I'm autistic for writing all this but I have nothing better to do

Ohio public school history education in order of when taught:

>"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
>"Neena, Peenta, and the Santa Maria!" (Do not draw connections to Mary, the mother of God.)
>Pilgrims/Native Americans/Thanksgiving
>Native American serpent burial mound
>Revolutionary War
>Native American conflicts with Americans in newly founded country/Trail of Tears
>American Civil War
>Spanish-American War
>WWI
>WWII
>French Revolutionary War
>Latin American Revolutionary Wars
>Vietnam War/Nixon/hippies
>9/11 (even though I saw the buildings fall on TV, not sure what I was even "taught" about this)
>War of Terror/Bush

Pretty terrible history education overall to be honest. Learned almost no world history and learned only basic barebones information about American history.

(Was in advanced placement classes growing up, straight A student until halfway through highschool.)

nailed it

america is viewed as the epitome of western civilisation so why would you branch into central powers like byzantium when you can so much more easily control pleb peasent schizo minds in a post rene descartes english speaking christian nation of faux dialectics?

T EDUCATED CITIZENRY

>I don't like Renaissance
>Look at all my edge gaiz

I'm not sure in regards to AP classes, I only took Euro(which begins at 1500) and US.

they do the same with carthage, seleucid empire, assyria, all the main chinese dynasties, holy roman empire, mughal empire, etc. etc.

but non of them has the most butthurt fans that think their favorite empire is special because cataphracts looked cool in age of empires 2

its tough to exactly remember what I learned in history in high school but we basically glossed over the roman empire and mostly focused around Julius Caesar and how Rome went from a republic to an empire, only towards the end of the lesson did it just briefly cover that the empire split and the west fell

only went over the eastern part again briefly when we had our lesson on the ottomans

The Ottomans are more relevant than the Byzantines tbqh fām

You never heard of Hannibal crossing the Alps? That's extremely common knowledge evem outside school.

This.

they teach all this shit in schools now

required classes too.

unless you are...youtube.com/watch?v=nelh55xTnHM