you got it there, its all on who wrote the books.

my Canadian highschool history textbooks paints the American revolution as being almost entirely started by a few greedy merchants who didnt want to pay the high british tax so they riled up the country to revolution. from there the revolution seems only to have been supported because they would let you rob any loyalists without any consequences, no to mention allowing people to beat, torture and kill anyone who wasn't on board.

i never saw "no taxation without representation" as justification for all the terrible things done to innocent people.

then you have the boston tea party fun, i doubt most American teens reading about it know that the revolutionist dressed up as natives in an effort to get the brits to blame them for the incident. my perspective saw no glory or righteousness in the actions taken towards independence, and the irony on how the revolution itself probably would not have succeeded if it were not for the support by the French in relation to the icy relations and sour culture (there isnt a single maxim mag that dosent rail the french at least once) between the us and France that exists today.

dont get me started on the conceptions of the second world war.

"...a few greedy merchants who didnt want to pay the high british tax...". A bit more to it than that. The Brits were willing to spend more than 100 times in enforcement than they could ever hope to get in revenue. Sane Brits thought it ridiculous, but they were in the minority. Even the worst treatment of loyalists certainly never approached treatment of the indigenous peoples.

"i doubt most American teens reading about it know that the revolutionist dressed up as natives..." We are taught that, "in an effort to get the brits to blame them for the incident." and that's just not true. It was disguise, and theater. Many of the people doing the dumping were, in fact, tea merchants, who had just stocked up on expensive smuggled Dutch tea, acquired when British tea was being withheld.

Actually, what you learn of American history in US schools varies wildly by region. And most kids aren't listening anyway.

noted that the loyalists that fled to Canada never did get compensated by the newly formed US government for the land and possessions that were illegally confiscated. The Godfrey-Milliken Bill - Bill C-339 that was passed in the Canadian parliament demanding Restitution

Hee...hee, not a dime has ever been paid and no property was returned to what became the United Empire Loyalists (UEL) subsequent to the American Revolution. UEL's had to start over from scratch with whatever they were able to bring with them. Most settled in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and what later would become Ontario.

Wonder what the history books would have looked like in Canada and the United States if the North America indians wrote them? L0L Justice for all...surely you're joking! A singular perspective of a nation's history...nonsense. History books written by Mexicans that include passages about the United States have yet another view.

I haven't had the privilege of reading an American history textbook written by a black American. But I'll try to correct that deficit to improve my knowledge about the United States.

Howard Zinn quite deliberately wrote A People's History of the United States using the underdog's perspectives in each period. It makes a wonderful antidote to the usual rah-rah stuff.

like i said that's the perception i got, i know there was far more to it but then what revolution didn't have terrorism,propaganda, torture, and death. i think it can be assumed that the crimes against the natives are beyond anything, what they suffered kinda makes the holocaust look good. we really have no idea how much damage we might have caused, i still can't believe we in bc are still arguing and bitching about some real reparations while across the nation reserves look like third world nations.

as for WW2 perceptions, maybe its just the stuff i read online and the mass amount of hollywood that people seem to base the war on. i get the impression that WW2 didn't start until the us joined and they were the only ones who ever fought nazis, the french are cowards for losing to the blitzkrieg but the pols aren't because they were dominated by the soviets.only the us ever fought the japanese, D-day wasnt just a distraction so the russians could regroup by forcing the nazis to divert resourses and forces to a second front and they didn't actually fight the bulk of the german army. also we didnt all benifit from prison camp experiments performed by germany and japan and we didn;t hire hundreds of nazi scientists and japanese doctors despite the fact they committed atrocities almost unparalleled in human history from the mentioned brutal experiments to basing space programs on the vengence rockets.

But try comparing the American and French revolutions. In fact, Tom Paine went to France to assist the revolutionaries. He ended up in the Bastille and sentenced to death for arguing that King Louis should not be executed. (He was finally allowed to leave France).

WWII: The US did not really enter the war until Pearl Harbor. The lion's share of defeating Hitler fell to Russia, but the US was an undisputed help. No question that the US defeated Japan; in hindsight, I'm inclined to agree that the display of military superiority was overdone.

Yes, we did hire and protect a handful of Nazi rocket scientists (Werner von Braun first and foremost). I know we looked at the results of their prison camp medical experiments, but I've never heard of hundreds of doctors being hired, or anything other than some fantastical imaginings from the basements at the CIA and DoD coming out of that.

I'd mark the Spanish-American war (after an initial experiment in Hawaii) as the first turn towards imperialism. Then WWII and the Dulles brothers as the first we officially adopted the "dark side" in foreign policy.

As for "atrocities almost unparalleled in human history", you really need to read more history. From about 1750 to 1950, the wars of Western powers were remarkably civilized compared to anything bofore or after. Before, civilians were killed for fun and profit; now they're "collateral damage".

Yeah, Canadians have a better record. But they haven't had the same opportunities (and temptations).

i was more just ranting and could have been a bit clearer.

ill have to look into the french rev a bit more but i think the point still stands, all revolutions were bloody and all had their share of unforgivable acts, my point is that the less informed us citizen dosent acknowlage the wrongs that were done during their independence. as if everything was somehow justified, i doubt you will find many french defending the reign of terror that saw the guillotine falling all day everyday.

i acknowlage the great us contribution to the second world war, indeed the pacific was nearly all us effort. what im getting at is that the rest of the nations involved are treated like an afterthought or their contributions are somhow overshadowed by the us contributions. maybe im just pissed at the average consenus or just hollywoods take: again its the player that shows up late at half time gets the attention but us guys who were fighting franz from day one are expected to heap praise and thanks on the guy who left us hanging so he could make a few extra bucks in the war debt.

as for the experimentors, yeah should a cleared it up not just the western allies benefitied russia aswell. and japan,i guess it was more that japan itself that rehired all these guys, i recall reading about how one of the worst doctors is right now rich and running his own hospitals. none of the countries that came out of wwII did so without a lot more shame than any will admit.

i really do have to read more on eariler history but how is nearly wiping out a continent of its indigenous people both in terms of culture and population not one of the worst atrocities in human history? certainly it wasent our most barbaric time as humans but i know of no other tens of thousands of years old civilisations that were reduced to a few reserves and museum peices over the course of a few hundred years, it may not have been done by hand but it was done with the same intention none the less.

as for canada, i dont think our record is any better, maybe with out as much goverment sactioned actions and less death by disease but the same result. and our current situation makes the us/native resolutions look pretty damd good when you tour our little chunks of the thrid world scattered around. less actually genocide but the political genocide is still being felt with all the school legal battles and victim reperations, we didnt kill a generation but we crippled them emotionally and culturally.

..."our shit don't stink" is reprehensible and damaging. Alas, it's completely predictable. I was seeing a bit of inverted American exceptionalism in your post, but that's as untrue as the normal kind. The Spanish conquistadors were vastly more cruel and bloodthirsty. There were many more slaves (for much longer) in Portugal's Brazil than here. Heck, the most evolved and civilized area of the world today was at one time sending out Viking raiding parties to slaughter entire villages for fun and profit. Nah, we're actually just pretty run-of-the-mill shits who got real lucky :-).

ah but could we veiw things reletivly with comparisons in levels of depravity and wanton violence and the age at when it occurred. the vikings were renowed for the most savagry because they were good at attacking undefended villages and monastaries, that and for successfully pissing off large parts of europe. could the sons of odin just have gotten a worse rap historically because nobody like them? not only that but its not like the rest of the world didnt consist of savage conquerors picking on weaker peoples. the vikings just picked on people who were more used to doing the conquering.

as for the spainish, again a slightly earlier time with the civilized murdering the "uncivilized" but were the results that different? mabye the spanish were more hands on and didnt need nature's little genocidal maniacs but both north,middle,and south america experienced a massive decrease in the people who were there the longest.
as for slavery, were blacks really free until the mid 20th century? they may have been free in the legal and political sense but still experienced constant terror and oppression, and i assume i am incorrect but do the nations below us white americas still have deep seated problems with racism and racial tensions or groups that openly encouraged that racism not all that long ago and continue to defend historic slavery if only as a racist attack? we still stand in a time where potential presidential candidates might indeed harbour racist ideology along with other exremist veiws, after all what christian sects does both many candidates and the kkk profess great faith in?

im probably just being far to critical here, but i feel that the us has a problem with facing its past for what it truly is and because of that the us is having great difficulties in moving forward, right now we face the us actually taking steps backwards to places we thought were at least traveled past if not acknowledged.

to get a little bit more on topic, the russians may have school textbooks that twist the awful truth to blind patriotism but russians dont have such illusions reinforced with the state of their nation and generations that lived during those whitewashed times. in the us there is little to dissuade that exceptionalist illusion and the isolation to as a whole ignore the voices of those who would challenge hollywood history.
this isnt everything but it certainly affects why it is that citizens of the much reviled former russian empire (and current citizens of the chinese one) dont have to pretend to be Canadians when they travel ( to nations that have long been allies no less) but citizens of the relatively far nicer us do. its almost a mini subsection of the travel industry, from books to professional tours to help americans pretend not to be americans in other nations.

ug im ranting again, i get really mean on subjects like this somtimes but then i probably talk to far to many people on unmoderated shoutwire who dont exactly make the best representatives for a nation or talk and argue with any acceptence of reality since you know, reality is just another part of the vast leftwing conspiracy. its hard not to affected by people who are convinced the extremist left controls the media when the plain facts say otherwise. mabye ive just has a bit too much of people screming america is better than everybody in every conceivable way while their nation suffers from many very serious problems and those "were number 1" ideologies should have died when they started to have create arguments to counter facts and statistics that say otherwise(like the healthcare debate, ive seen that dregged up again and again and there are those who still think the european and canadian systems suck when the us is ranked below all of them.)

ps anyone else think we dumb down school to much anyway? it seems nobody really learns the whole story unless they read up on it in post secondary materials.

"the us has a problem with facing its past for what it truly is and because of that the us is having great difficulties in moving forward" is exactly correct. We have the deepest denial about the worst (and closest to home) of our behavior - eg, Native Americans and Haiti.

You're absolutely correct that you don't learn anything approaching the real story until you get to post-secondary material. Most dramatic in history, but true in any field. The best way to counter that is to drop in some nuggets of the disconcerting but not threatening variety. Pique their curiousity. Let it stew for a year. Try again. You're trying to change an attitude, and that takes a long time to do.

I would be very interested in hearing these conceptions of WWII

...and that extends not only to governments, but to religions. (Who is it who considers themselves to be the "chosen people"--and who wrote that book?).

The problem arises when people actually believe the propaganda.

perhaps this is true, and would explain a few things that I have personally encountered.

I am just wondering if the author has actually read the books or is reporting this second-hand.

No need to get nasty.

By accident, my post appeared below yours.

The "post" I refer to is not yours, but -- the original post, Russian Textbooks Praise All Things Russian.

THAT post is already pretty nasty, in my humble opinion.