Anyone here worried about the lack of history knowledge in our "college educated" generation?

Yep. There are grown humans who think Africa was in the stone age before Europeans conquered it.

Internet is more dangerous than any other media. It's full of propaganda, lies and ideologues. The rise of alt-right is a perfect example of this. It's basically the revival of outdated racist and anti-Semitic ideas popular in the early 20th century.

Honestly don't understand what you're trying to imply. That Trump lacks history knowledge? Or that his voters do? How do you even come to either conclusion?

Among college-going elites, certainly. Educational aspiration was a bigger part of culture in the 1800s and early 1900s, too. All those encyclopedia projects, different people selling their selections of great books, things like that.

Honestly I can't tell if this post is sarcasm or a genuine Jew trying to concern troll. Poe's law I guess.

It's not sarcasm, it's a fact. Conspiracy theories, holocaust denial and apocalyptic thoughts about the civilization all comes from the lack of historical knowledge. Internet is the biggest offender in all of this. Idiot radicals think they know everything about certain issues after reading a shitty blog or watching a video on Youtube.

Are you that Slovak antifa cucklord from /int/?

No, I'm just a normal historian teaching in high school.

If you genuinely believe conspiracy theories are a bad thing, especially when the conspiracy turns out to be the truth then you're more retarded than I thought.

I agree 100%, however, you're on Veeky Forums which is /pol/ junior, filled with such ideologues. Good luck having a coherent conversation.

Conspiracies very rarely turn out to be true.

My point exactly. Believing all sorts of conspiracy theories with any conviction means you just need to go outside once in a while.

There are whole libraries available to any peasant like me. college stuff. Try and ask for reading material on his/ about any subject

Have you checked wikileaks in the past 5 or so years? Many conspiracy theories that were considered ludicrous turned out to be true.

Seeing you mentioning the alt right, do you also believe the mainstream media reporting about them to be fair?

>these things were proven to be true
>therefore you should believe things that aren't proven to be true

This is precisely why people need to beat their fucking kids.

Like?

Shoo shoo /pol/

Well, the alt-right certainly don't help their image based on the things they publish.

give me 10 conspiracies that are relevant to the normal person that wikileaks revealed

you arent as important as you think you are

Conspiracies come out all the time, but when they do the media calls them scandals. The word conspiracy is reserved to stigmatize suspicion. They did a good job with you I guess

People saying things are 'surreal' and "I never thought something like this could/would happen!"
Being in US, I refer to all the secret CIA shit the government deems appropriate to teach us in the textbooks.
If they were willing to lie then, they are willing to lie now. They still have the capacity to tell an incomplete truth, so always question all and seek the most complete answer.

People need to learn historical precedents for daily life, the same as architects, chefs, engineers, scientists, etc. learn they're precedents for their specific fields.

>CIA waaahhh wahhh
How is the detrimental to your day-to-day life?

>wikileaks reveals the DNC hack, proving the DNC rigged the primaries for Hillary
>DNC first acts like it's not even genuine, then stays silent about it
>after the elections the liberal media don't even utter a peep over the content of the leaks, only focusing on who the whistleblower was
>the entire media narrative is now RUSSIA RIGGED OUR ELECTIONS even though Wikileaks confirmed it was leaked by a DNC insider

It's getting downright comical at this point.

And you still haven't answered me, do you think the alt right is portrayed fairly in the media?

That was my first post in the thread.

But still.

>there are FULL GROWN ADULTS who don't understand how burden of proof works
>the majority of Americans have no idea what Occam's razor is

This is precisely the kind of shit that keeps the voting public from holding anyone accountable. If people don't have any idea what constitutes evidence, they'll be totally vulnerable to misinformation.

Very few people have a natural desire to acquire knowledge apart from their necessary curriculum that would put them into working force.

stupid frogposter

It sets the precedent for all dealings with the government at the larger scale. CIA stuff is not the only example, of course.
Personally, it makes me ignore a lot of current events that go on, so I guess you could say it makes my life easier and simpler.

If you think you're still speaking to that other dude, then no. I never said anything about detrimental or beneficial or whatever.

I suppose one could say that, if you want to stay in a box, that's fine. If you want to break out of it, that's fine too. Both may lead to fulfilling lives. Perhaps we should not call a supposed 'illusion' one is living in as an incorrect and wrong world - that person has adopted that illusion as his or her world, totally unawares of what may lie beyond. Who are we to judge what makes someone happy?

This is the saddest part for me. I like to learn and I am a curious person. It really gets me down when people show no interest and "are just there for the degree".

Like really, genuinely, makes me sad.

I'm also not necessarily saying "live in a box", but I just think Occam's razor is usually the explanation (no, I'm not the user above who also mentioned the razor). I think it just goes a little too far sometimes - as humans are capable of doing. That capacity to overthink is somewhat of an evolutionary disadvantage to be honest.

Can you please stop comparing CIA agents to historians?

Pretty sure the Wikileaks emails do constitute evidence.

Do you see how now that there's evidence a thing happened, people believe in it?

There's a pretty important point here.

Claims require evidence. This is why conspiracy theories are universally despised. They require no evidence and are unfalsifiable.

>theY don't know about Kang WeWuz III and his pillage into Germany in 2,000 BC

I think the point is media is now outright ignoring evidence and calling everything just a theory.

Oh, Africans went to Europe in 2000BC? Never heard of it.

Are they?

I don't have cable.

I seem to remember the chairman of the DNC resigning.

The mainstream media are the ones spreading conspiracy horseshit, especially when it comes to Russia's involvement in basically everything. While they don't go full Alex Jones it's still pretty baffling.

This is hardly some great conspiracy theory.

And what do you consider to be a great conspiracy theory? Aliens and freemasons only?

>FBI and CIA report that something happen
>media says that they reported it happened
>people believe the FBI and the CIA

This may sound odd, but this is actually why there are groups of people in our society dedicated to "investigation" and "intelligence." To determine the facts in a matter.

It's hardly different from America and Israel are responsible for everything. We know that Russia funds some radical right groups and even conservative parties in Europe. We also know that USA and Israel support Islamic rebels. For political ideologues it's not a stretch to say that Russia rigged American election or that USA created ISIS.

So intelligence agencies reveal conspiracies to the public when they find them, and never withhold or fabricate information?

I'll have to hear from an intelligence agency that has investigated these intelligence agencies before I believe them.

To me the real wake up call was when I realized how both the media and the US government misrepresented the happenings in Syria.

Give me the name of ONE history book and I'll read it. It will be the only history book I'll read from front to back.

t. mathematics undergraduate who knows nothing about history

>we can't be 100% sure of anything
>this absolves me of the responsibility to look for the most probable explanation

amazon.co.uk/Times-Complete-History-World/dp/0007315694

I mean... it has nice pictures and it's pleb friendly/

Not him, but to me the issue seems that while people are realizing that their media is increasingly acting as mouthpieces or reflections to bounce off news that promotes some political or corporate platform, many are too conditioned by years of self-segregation to not see the exact same thing in other sources, with the added issue now of news being spread around just for lulz and keks.

I didn't ask for pleb friendly. I want the best book.

Fernand Braudel's "Civilization and Capitalism" series. Might as well make it a big read.

Also you're safe as a math major, I was more referring to social sciences and humanities.

>the mentally maladapted user doesn't realize his naziboo fanficiton is literally naziboo fanfiction and calls people with other views FUCKING JEWS

Color me shocked, the weirdo brigade is weird

Higher education isn't where to learn history if it isn't what you have chosen to study, or otherwise pertinent to your degree. People should have some degree of historical and historiographical literacy, but if they missed out in high school due to a poor curriculum, teacher, or most likely themselves, the answer is autodidacticism not catch up at college or whatever your implication is by use of scare-quotes.

Definitely. It's super disappointing that such a large majority or people couldn't pinpoint Syria on a map or know what a "Yugoslavia" is.

Hey Moshe.

iktf user. just don't get discouraged by their ignorance, there's always Veeky Forums here for you

What makes me sick is that people think history is largely useless.
As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, there's nothing new under the sun. People have been doing the same thing in remarkably similar contexts again and again, making the same mistake. Unless you read history, you will fall into the same trap.

Also, understanding history is vital to understanding why the modern world is the way it is.

But conspiracy theories normally do center around some evidence, but the evidence is ignored because it's "a conspiracy theory", a term exclusively used by the media to stigmatize suspicion

There has always been a lack of history knowledge among the college educated. The huge amount of history that's available now is unlike anything we've ever known when most college students would only know history in the form of select Latin texts they would memorize.

It's not the lack of history that should concern you, but the way it's so readily available yet almost always misused because there's no discipline or respect for the information. It's just another tool for non-historians to not understand but form sweeping and influential opinions and decisions with.

>the best book

you know there are literally 'hundreds' of best books depending on the topic, right? and you want to read 'one'? :D What a dumb question. What are you interested in?

The problem is that conspiracy theories forming around a core of facts is just the tip of the iceberg, and they can't help but constantly shit the bed by taking those kernels of truths and weaving theories that can't be supported by the meager amount of evidence available.

It's called disinformation. The media does that sound they can Straw man the theory later

there no point to history

>people at my college didn't know what kind of government the United States is

>I knew people who thought Hitler was in charge of Germany during WWI

>lack of history knowledge in our "college educated" generation

That applies to every generation, you dumb frogposter.

Almost every academic discipline disagrees with that statement. How stupid can you possibly be?

You're retarded. I want a general book this is why I'm asking for ONE. I'm not a student of history and don't plan on becoming one.

Just like the German people elected Hitler, the American people elected Trump.

The Histories. Everything in it is true even the Werewolves.

And giant ants.

What history topic would you like to read about

A general history of the human world.

>le Trump is LITERALLY HITLER maymay
Jesus Christ nigger go back to HuffPo or some other panicked leftard site.

le godwins law XDDDDD

it's okay because a republican is in office now XDDDDDDDDDDDD

Like all the humans? Every kind from every era?

Try this. It's also got a practical element to it and isn't just dates and places.

You're the historians, I'm telling you that I'm ignorant about history, which single book should I read to at least become acceptably knowledgeable to an historian? If you could get everyone to read one history book which would it be?

that's like asking for a book summarizing The narratives of every movie and TV

No it's not. It's like asking a book summarizing all the important ones or worth watching.

You already got an answer though.

Wow, there is corruption and backroom deals in politics, who would have suspected? Clearly only people on the fringes like Alex Jones talked about such things.

Actually, you don't need to have a wild imagination to suspect something like that could happen. And people like Alex Jones didn't predict the DNC's dealings, they just kept talking about fantastic shit like chemtrails, the nwo and gay frogs to shill for their water filters. No condpiracy theorist predicted the Panama scandal either, instead it was the mainstream media that investigated it fully.

Gr8 b8 m8

Yeah, I've taken a look at the suggestions. I'm still open to other suggestions.

>all history except some history
>except which ones
>hurr idk general

The point is that you should decide. Is Veeky Forums always this retarded?

The problem is there's no single book that will make you acceptably knowledgeable about all of history. It's very much a field of specialization, and books covering huge time frames or subjects that aren't flimsy or amateur are very rare. Best you can do is pick out a great book devoted to a particular era or theme, or something from the French annales school that deals with broad social history like Braudel mentioned earlier. You could also skip the focus on historical events altogether and read Marc Bloch's "The Historian's Craft" to understand some of the discipline and philosophy of historians. Think of it like learning how to fish first rather than being tossed what others caught for you.

Or you could read Edward Carr's "What is History?" for another take on the same topic.

>proving the DNC rigged the primaries for Hillary
do people not realize that a cadre of like minded and well connected political elites coming together to decide who they wish to support in upcoming elections is LITERALLY the purpose of a political party?

That isn't what you said. You said general human history. Not "decide what part of history"

Do you know what primaries are?

>...which all points to the holocaust being faked and by the way guys, 9/11 was also the jews

Go away /pol/

>wikileaks reveals the DNC hack, proving the DNC rigged the primaries for Hillary
Rigged the primaries for Hillary? Some staffers had a bitch about Sanders, that's literally it.
>DNC first acts like it's not even genuine, then stays silent about it
You mean how the Chairwoman immediately resigned? Does that count as staying silent?