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I'm white, my step-father is a very prominent native American speaker and activist. He's always had it ingrained in his head that Europeans were dirty medieval war mongerers and that Britain was this black, desolate industrial-revolution like place, and that his people suffered a unique and savage injustice when conquered. Last summer he went to England (hesitantly) for the first time and visited the British museum. Driving through the british countryside and seeing how beautiful it was completely surprised him. Seeing how much nature and farmland there was did too. It was also the first time he learnt about British culture. Learning that the British had also been conquered by the Romans, then the Saxons, then the Normans, then were attempted to be invaded again by Spain, France, and Germany. Was a blow to his beliefs that what happened to the Native Americans was some sort of bizarre event. Everyone's been conquered many times over. I actually liked this, because it puts in perspective that the Europeans were just like the North American Native Americans before mass agriculture and metal works and animal domestication came into play, and not some sort of savage alien race. As it often feels is implied by people from the left.
I completely understand the intellectual transformation your step-father went through. Historical narratives can be so powerful that they distort the past and how we imagine our ancestry, and our place within the human species. I think that is why it is so important for 21st century historians to deconstruct the eurocentric narratives that were constructed in the past. For the most part I feel they are doing a good job of this. When I write about the past I try my best to do this as well. Although I constantly encounter obstacles because for many time periods there just aren't enough (or any) written records with which to find a deeper meaning and context about a certain group of people. In those situations integration with anthropological and archaeological knowledge becomes essential. Thanks for your comment.
My college application essay was done in the style of a field report in which I detailed my observations of white people and their bizarre behaviors. Racist? Maybe a little. Effective? Heck yeah! Facetiousness aside, this really has been on my mind for over a decade. The Eurocentric view of history is no more ludicrous than any other centric perspective, but the view that one historical perspective is The Right One is crazy. It's such a shame that other histories have been lost, "lost" and outright destroyed.
The problem is that compromising on what's to be included in a textbook will sacrifce some very important history. Yes it skips the vast majority of the Americas but its a full European picture. I'd rather have a full course in history for Europe, America, and the Middle East as standard, but if we can't have that ideal I'll take the full European history and sorry minorities. Maybe one day people will value history as a subject.