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What people know about war today?

Discussion in 'WWII Today' started by Kai-Petri, May 4, 2004.

  1. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    From The Independent, 5th April, 2004.


    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=508517


    The Battle of Hastings never took place and Adolf Hitler is a fictional character. Robin Hood really existed, Harold Wilson saved Britain during the Second World War and Conan the Barbarian is a bona fide figure from early Nordic history.

    It might sound like the latest attempt by revisionist extremists to pervert the past but the reality is perhaps more disturbing: this is how a significant chunk of the British population, muddled by Hollywood films and unmoved by academia, sees history.

    A survey of the historical knowledge of the average adult, to be published this week, has uncovered "absurd and depressing" areas of ignorance about past events, and confusion between characters from films and historical figures.

    Researchers, who conducted face-to-face interviews with more than 2,000 people, found that almost a third of the population thinks the Cold War was not real and 6 per cent believeThe War of the Worlds, H G Wells's fictional account of a Martian invasion, did happen.

    Some 57 per cent think King Arthur existed and 5 per cent accept that Conan the Barbarian, the warrior played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a 1982 film, used to stalk the planet for real. Almost one in two believe William Wallace, the 13th-century Scottish resistance leader played by Mel Gibson in his film Braveheart, was invented for the silver screen.

    The study raised new questions about the teaching of history after it found that 11 per cent of the British population believed Hitler did not exist and 9 per cent said Winston Churchill was fictional. A further 33 per cent believed Mussolini was not a real historical figure.

    Lord Janner of Braunstone, the chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "Such findings show that in our schools we are not conveying sufficiently the recent past - a past in which many of us lived and so many people died.

    "If we are to prevent the return of Hitlerism in our present or future, we have to know what happened in the lifetimes of so many of us.

    "It is a terrible indictment of the level of knowledge of the general population."

    The detractors of the survey's findings blamed Hollywood and television, which have gained a reputation for skewing historical events to fit audience profiles and lift profit margins.

    The film U-571, starring Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi, sparked fury in Britain four years ago when it told how American servicemen altered the course of the Second World War by capturing the Enigma code machine from a German U-boat. In fact, it was British and Canadian sailors who captured the machine in May 1941, before the US had entered the war.

    The survey of 2,069 adults aged 16 or over was conducted for Blenheim Palace to mark the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Blenheim.

    Some 27 per cent of people interviewed thought Robin Hood, whose story has been featured in films by directors such as Kevin Costner and Mel Brooks, existed whereas 42 per cent believed Mel Gibson's Braveheart was an invention. More than 60 thought the Battle of Helms Deep in the Lord of the Rings trilogy actually took place.

    Michael Wood, the historian, said the "dumbing-down" trend was damaging people's knowledge of the past.

    He said: "If you don't give an audience a clear idea of how we know things, I believe this is a problem. Hollywood distorts history the whole time and once you get that far down the line it's not history, it's entertainment.

    "History is there to give value to the present as well as to entertain. You do diminish it if you take the mickey out of it in an attempt to make it 'accessible'."

    More than a quarter of people do not know in which century the Great War took place and 57 per cent believe that the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazi counter-offensive in the Ardennes in 1945, never happened.

    A further 53 per cent think the military leader who lead British troops at Waterloo was Lord Nelson whereas a quarter think the admiral's fatal triumph at the Battle of Trafalgar did not take place. Nearly one in five believe Harold Wilson, not Winston Churchill, was Prime Minister during the Second World War.

    John Hoy, the chief executive of Blenheim Palace, said history had become boring. He said: "People associate history with dry and dusty dates and facts. Once they realise that history is about people, the way we used to live and the way we live now, it becomes more relevant and more exciting."

    Others pointed to the popularity of history programmes. Francis Robinson, the senior vice principal of Royal Holloway, University of London, said the delivery of history to a wider audience was a worthy goal.

    He said: "I have no problem with using different media to get across the message to different sections of the audience. There is always a chance of misrepresentation, but you have to weigh up that against the broader good of encouraging more people's interest."

    But Andrew Roberts, the right-wing historian, said: "We have abandoned the teaching of history according to dates and context - if you don't know that the Tudors came before the Stuarts then you can't understand anything of that period.

    "Within a generation we are going to lose our national memory and for Britain, which has such a unique and complex history, that is a complete tragedy."

    Stranger than fiction: Disraeli, Hitler and the Cold War

    Real people that some believe never existed
    Ethelred the Unready King of England 978 to 1016 - 63 per cent
    William Wallace 13th-century Scottish hero - 42 per cent
    Benjamin Disraeli Prime minister and founder of the modern Tory party -
    40
    per cent
    Genghis Khan, Mongol conqueror - 38 per cent
    Benito Mussolini, Fascist dictator, 33 per cent
    Adolf Hitler - 11 per cent
    Winston Churchill - 9 per cent

    Real events some people believe never took place
    Battle of the Bulge 52 per cent
    Battle of Little Big Horn Scene of Custer's last stand - 48 per cent
    Hundred Years' War 44 per cent
    Cold War - 32 per cent
    Battle of Hastings, 15 per cent

    Fictional characters who we believe were real
    King Arthur , mythical monarch of the Round Table - 57 per cent
    Robin Hood - 27 per cent
    Conan the Barbarian - 5 per cent
    Richard Sharpe , fictional cad and warrior - 3 per cent
    Edmund Blackadder - 1 per cent
    Xena Warrior Princess - 1 per cent

    Fictional events that we believe did take place
    War of the Worlds , Martian invasion - 6 per cent
    Battle of Helms Deep , Rings Trilogy - The Two Towers - 3 per cent
    Battle of Endor , The Return of the Jedi - 2 per cent
    Planet of the Apes , the apes rule Earth - 1 per cent
    Battlestar Galactica , the defeat of humanity by cyborgs - 1 per cent

    http://pub18.bravenet.com/forum/1461146350/show/324370

    -----------

    Well some of it might be a joke by the people but as I have heard that some people think that WW2 took place in the 1970´s I´m quite prepared to believe some of this stuff,actually...

    :eek: :eek:

    [ 04. May 2004, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]
     
  2. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    They've obviously been watching 'Pearl Harbor'.... :(

    Seriously, there seems to have been a reduction in the importance of teaching history which has been reported in the press as being politically-motivated. Thatcher was famously uninterested in history, Major seemed uninterested in anything much ( except cricket :rolleyes: ) and 'New Labour' are on record as espousing a 'history is bunk' stance.

    Do we have any teachers ( or indeed, students ) on the Forum who could comment ?
     
  3. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    it's no wonder that coming into the 2000's that youth/adults of today don't give a rats u know what about history as they are stuck on themselves and life in general. things are fine for the most part and it is so much easier to deal with the present and to try and get ahead and not bring up the sadness of the past...........yeah right
     
  4. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    Which is all well and good until their country goes to war, and then they're surprised when people die in unpleasant ways.... [​IMG]
     
  5. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    I'm a mature second-year History student at uni, and I agree with everything that's been said.
    I (and my fellow mature students) are constantly amazed at the level of ignorance displayed by younger students. They don't even seem to know the basics we got at primary school!
    They only seem to read the absolute basics for tutorials, and if the tutor asks something a bit more complicated, they just look blank.
    There's no point blaming private schools, as the ex-council school kids are just as bad.
    Other departments don't help. A few of my mates doing social science subjects were told to keep quiet during tutorials, as "mature students tend to intimidate younger students with their knowledge". Go work THAT one out!
    I personally haven't come across much pc b/s, except (bizarrely enough) in an archaeology module.
    When I was at school, it was still mainly the older teachers who took classes, which probably explains the emphasis on History. The young trendies hadn't got their feet under the table then, but now they have and I can see the effects on my own kids. A couple of years ago, my son came home from school with a version of the Glorious Revolution which resembled nothing I have ever seen in a history book. Let's be kind and say it favoured James II. My blood pressure took weeks to get back to normal!
     
  6. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    I'm a mature second-year History student at uni, and I agree with everything that's been said.
    I (and my fellow mature students) are constantly amazed at the level of ignorance displayed by younger students. They don't even seem to know the basics we got at primary school!
    They only seem to read the absolute basics for tutorials, and if the tutor asks something a bit more complicated, they just look blank.
    There's no point blaming private schools, as the ex-council school kids are just as bad.
    Other departments don't help. A few of my mates doing social science subjects were told to keep quiet during tutorials, as "mature students tend to intimidate younger students with their knowledge". Go work THAT one out!
    I personally haven't come across much pc b/s, except (bizarrely enough) in an archaeology module.
    When I was at school, it was still mainly the older teachers who took classes, which probably explains the emphasis on History. The young trendies hadn't got their feet under the table then, but now they have and I can see the effects on my own kids. A couple of years ago, my son came home from school with a version of the Glorious Revolution which resembled nothing I have ever seen in a history book. Let's be kind and say it favoured James II. My blood pressure took weeks to get back to normal! ;)

    Regards,

    Gordon
     

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