The Reason Teaching American History Is So Important

And it is not what you think

(Public domain)

There are intellectual properties in popular culture that have amassed massive followings. Franchises like The Lord of the Rings, The Elder Scrolls, and Warhammer 40k have thousands of devotees. One thing that all of these properties have in common is detailed and rich lore. For the newcomer, the amount of lore and accumulated information can be overwhelming. There are numerous posts on Reddit asking where to start and how to begin digesting all of the necessary information to start understanding the worlds they want to interact with.

I say all of this to draw a comparison to real life history as a whole. Similar to the fictional worlds of Middle Earth and Tamriel, our world has a dense lore that spans thousands of years with hundreds of thousands of names, dates, places, and events. Just like trying to parse through the opaque and voluminous lore that makes up the Warhammer universe, so too do people struggle with breaching humanity’s very own lore.

That brings us to the subject of American history. For some people, history is a terribly dull subject. My wife’s eyes often gloss over as I start talking about things like the connections between German wheat deficits and Operation Barbarossa. I have also heard from other family members that I sometimes use…