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So at least two major media bits have come out/are coming out this year that deal with ancient Egypt. The Mummy (a highly criticized Tom Cruise flick) and Assassin's Creed: Origins (not released, but there are quite a few trailers out as of this post).

Both have received a bit of backlash for featuring Ancient Egyptians that aren't, apparently, black enough. Now, this criticism hasn't been anywhere near massive and with all the racial issues going in America they've definitely taken a back seat to real world problems. But I think it's an interesting situation.

Ancient Egyptians are typically portrayed in media as being "tan."

Imhotep from the 1999 version of The Mummy. This is most likely a case of white washing as the actor is of Dutch and German ancestry.



Sofia Boutella from the 2017 version of The Mummy. Sofia is from Algiers and has French-Algerian ancestry.



Ramses from the animated Prince of Egypt (circa 1999 I believe). The movie featured Patrick Stewart and Val Kilmer (among other white actors/actresses in voice roles).



Ra from Stargate. Granted he is an alien in the film. I don't know anything about the actor's ancestry, just his nationality.



MC from Assasin's Creed Origins





Of course many films, Gods of Egypt, pretty much every pre 1990s film ie the 1950's version of The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston, feature only white actors.

Ancient Egyptians were closely related to people who lived along the eastern Mediterranean, the analysis showed. They also shared genetic material with residents of the Turkish peninsula at the time and Europe. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/30/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry/?utm_term=.7e833fb431c5

To me it looks like from a scientific standpoint Ancient Egyptians were most closely related to Arabs from the time. They weren't white and they weren't black. Which isn't surprising...Africa is a huge continent. There is a stark difference between north Africans and sub Saharan Africans.

This leads to a major issue I have with modern racial/ethnic conflicts in America. It is ALWAYS either black or white. Other groups are often ignored. It's almost as if they don't exist, so clearly Ancient Egyptians must be black because they're from Africa. (/s) They can't be related to Arabs...

Even during the Civil Rights movement the plight of Hispanics was secondary. I never learned anything about it until I moved to Texas which is a testament to the poor teaching of history in American schools. Africa outside of Egypt is largely ignored. It makes sense to me that African-Americans would develop a fascination with Egypt as a response. After all, it's the only African country portrayed in an admirable light. Hell, it's glorified while the only text I recall reading that dealt with the rest of Africa were The Heart of Darkness (portrays Africa poorly, but some argue this is satire) and Things Fall Apart (which is a fascinating read, but it was only required reading for AP English, so not everyone is introduced to it).

Obviously racism needs to be dealt with. But it can't only be in the context of black and white while other groups are lumped together as people of color. Asian-Americans are treated as model minority and as such racism against them is still open and tolerated. The assumption they are all affluent and educated is asinine. Only South Korea and Japan are true first world countries. Chinese immigrants come from a wide range of backgrounds. Most foreign exchange students and tourists do come from affluent backgrounds, but they represent the privileged few that can afford to travel. Large swathes of China remain quite poor. Filipinos probably represent the 4th largest Asian ethnic group (it might be Vietnamese, not 100% sure), but that country is still behind economically and is suffering from both Spanish and American colonization.

People are quick to rail loudly and violently against a wall, but racism against Hispanics remains common. It's not tolerated as much in Texas as in areas I've lived with a small Hispanic population, but it's not treated in my eyes as an unforgivable sin in the same manner as racism against African-Americans.

There is also the issue of widespread racism against Muslims and Arabs to the point where people assume Arab=Muslim, Sikh=Muslim, and most people seem to have no idea how Indians fit into the mix. Most Arabs I've met just want to get along. Including the ladies sporting head scarves. At least this an issue that isn't largely ignored.

I don't know. It just frustrates me greatly to see racism reduced to black v white by mass media. Sadly it goes both ways. The Nation of Islam and The Nation of Gods and Earths both teach that the black man is god and the white man is the devil. I understand it. The southeast (for a very long time) was strictly black and white. And the white man had power and blacks did not, but hat about the rest of the earth? Even added together white Europeans and black Africans aren't even half the global the population.

I feel like the only way the issue of racism can really be dealt with in America is for us to recognize that the world is more diverse than we treat it. World History needs to be more than Ancient Egypt-Greece-Rome-Medieval Europe-Age of Enlightenment-Colonization-World Wars-Cold War-Modern Day with a few paragraphs thrown in on ancient China and Japan. Racism is perpetrated by people of all ethnic groups, nationalities, religions, etc, in ways that aren't even recognized. Also, I think the isolation of ethnic groups throughout America is a massive problem. It's easy to be racist when you never interact with everyone outside of your own background.

Ancient Egypt has a history over 3,000 years long from the pre-dynastic era to the final fall of the kingdom under Cleopatra (who was descended from Greco-Macedonians.)

At one or more stages in that vast swathe of time, at least part of the kingdom was ruled by black people who invaded from the Upper Nile regions and established themselves at the top of society. These are the rulers that people are thinking of when they say the Ancient Egyptians were black.

To the best of my knowledge, most of the population and ruling class were "brown to pale-brown" people, pretty much like modern Arabs and Somalians. They are depicted like that in the Egyptians' own art, which shows people with various skin colours ranging from fairly pale to ruddy brown, and also black skinned people.

Yeah saying "ancient Egypt" is encompassing multiple millennia and a tremendous geographical area complete with entirely different structures of governance, populations, and cultures. Hollywood is terrible about accuracy in this regard and Hollywood "Egypt" is just a mishmash of historical bits with lots of flat out wrong stuff thrown on top.

Moreover, the modern concept of "race" is just that- a modern construct. Historically, for example, white would have been a nonsensical distinction as 15th a Welshman and an Englishmen would have laughed if you tried to say they were the same "race". Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander. At best, modern races are a crude categorization of superficial traits and have no real biological basis. Really, its primary usefulness is in understanding how it was used as a tool of manipulation, discrimination, and other social factors (and their enduring effects) in the modern world, not in descriptions of ancient populations.

Since most white people are 1-2% Neanderthal anyway, it hardly matters.
[I'm white]

 jmurph wrote:

Moreover, the modern concept of "race" is just that- a modern construct. Historically, for example, white would have been a nonsensical distinction as 15th a Welshman and an Englishmen would have laughed if you tried to say they were the same "race". Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander.

IIRC, there's more genetic diversity amongst sub-Saharan African populations than in the entirety of the rest of the world - including Australian Aborigines and Inuit.

And you're als having to take into account the old white explorer issue of "These backwards savages couldn't have *possibly* built this thing. Why, they don't even speak English! No, no, clearly some other civilization lived here and was displaced."

Or the modern version, "Black people built a thing? No no no, it was aliens."

The civilizations that were along the western coast of Africa have been obliterated in history, with artifacts discarded and dismissed, and we don't even talk about how much damage to central and south America was done by conquistadores simply destroying all "Heathen religious materials" including assorted historical records that the literate people there kept.

History! We do the best we can with what we got, but hoo buddy, are there chunks missing.

The irony is that the only actual African actors on that list (Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep and Sofia Boutella as femMummy) are also the whitest people on that list.

squidhills wrote:
The irony is that the only actual African actors on that list (Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep and Sofia Boutella as femMummy) are also the whitest people on that list.

I'm not sure if you know this - but this is an actually racist statement - what is the state of being "the whitest" anyways?

I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

 jmurph wrote:

Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander. At best, modern races are a crude categorization of superficial traits and have no real biological basis. Really, its primary usefulness is in understanding how it was used as a tool of manipulation, discrimination, and other social factors (and their enduring effects) in the modern world, not in descriptions of ancient populations.

Given that the current black residents of the Caribbean are in fact sub-saharan Africans imported by European slavers, you might want a better example. :p

 Laughing Man wrote:

 jmurph wrote:

Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander. At best, modern races are a crude categorization of superficial traits and have no real biological basis. Really, its primary usefulness is in understanding how it was used as a tool of manipulation, discrimination, and other social factors (and their enduring effects) in the modern world, not in descriptions of ancient populations.

Given that the current black residents of the Caribbean are in fact sub-saharan Africans imported by European slavers, you might want a better example. :p

I think his point is that a modern Haitian mulatto and and a modern Luba from the DRC bear little resemblance to each other culturally DESPITE the fact they are superficially similar and may have a common ancestor.

You're falling into the trap, person A is black so must share similarities with person B who is also black and ignoring several centuries of disparate living conditions.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 jmurph wrote:

Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander. At best, modern races are a crude categorization of superficial traits and have no real biological basis. Really, its primary usefulness is in understanding how it was used as a tool of manipulation, discrimination, and other social factors (and their enduring effects) in the modern world, not in descriptions of ancient populations.

Given that the current black residents of the Caribbean are in fact sub-saharan Africans imported by European slavers, you might want a better example. :p

Presumably they are mixed descendants of the imported slaves and the native peoples that were already there.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

Oh, certainly, with the vast amount of ethnic groups in Africa (it's the largest continent, after all) any individual group is going to be radically different from each other, let alone descendants on other continents. Still, when you're comparing one of those groups (well, groups of groups) and their direct descendants...

Culturally, there's a vast difference between Haitians and native Africans, as Europeans did a pretty good job of annihilating any African influence or religion. Those that did survive are syncretic religions like Vodou. Genetically, any divergence would be from intermixing with other enslaved African ethnicities or rape by Europeans. The Taino were essentially extinct in Haiti by the time the Spanish started importing African slaves, so no real contact occurred there.

Honestly, if you wanted to look at an ethnic group that actually diverged from their ancestral stock, you'd want to look at the Spanish colonies in South and Central America, with their stupidly over-complicated caste system that regulated what rights each mix of races was afforded.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

That's an interesting take on Intelligent Design. You don't see many folks assume the Intelligent Designer is actively malicious. Have a cookie for that.

Presumably they are mixed descendants of the imported slaves and the native peoples that were already there.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

On that front, not so much. In 1492, there were about 1 million natives on Hispanola (today's Haiti) ... they were brutally oppressed, forced to mine for gold, and were murdered at staggering rates. Mothers were known to hurl their babies into the ocean rathe rthan them be picked up and enslaved by the Spaniards, and by 1517, twenty years (!) after the Spanish arrived, the population of natives was down to 14,000 ... nearly 999 of every 1000 had been killed. The arrival of Smallpox didn't help, either.

By 1502, the bloodletting had become so dire that African slaves were being brought in and, today, that's the population, intermingled with Spanish. The natives had their culture eradicated and effectively went extinct. There's not much inter-breeding and the culture itself was completely replaced.

The governship of Columbus was a really, really bad time. There are those that say that he's not to blame, but, well, "the buck stops here" and all that.

Regardless? The native Hatians were eradicated and replaced with Africans. It's an ugly, ugly colonial period.

A minor nit-pick: Asia is the largest continent, not Africa. It doesn't take away from your point, however.

Wakshaani wrote:

Presumably they are mixed descendants of the imported slaves and the native peoples that were already there.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

On that front, not so much. In 1492, there were about 1 million natives on Hispanola (today's Haiti) ... they were brutally oppressed, forced to mine for gold, and were murdered at staggering rates. Mothers were known to hurl their babies into the ocean rathe rthan them be picked up and enslaved by the Spaniards, and by 1517, twenty years (!) after the Spanish arrived, the population of natives was down to 14,000 ... nearly 999 of every 1000 had been killed. The arrival of Smallpox didn't help, either.

By 1502, the bloodletting had become so dire that African slaves were being brought in and, today, that's the population, intermingled with Spanish. The natives had their culture eradicated and effectively went extinct. There's not much inter-breeding and the culture itself was completely replaced.

The governship of Columbus was a really, really bad time. There are those that say that he's not to blame, but, well, "the buck stops here" and all that.

Regardless? The native Hatians were eradicated and replaced with Africans. It's an ugly, ugly colonial period.

Fething hell. I didn't know it was that bad.

 feeder wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:

Presumably they are mixed descendants of the imported slaves and the native peoples that were already there.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

On that front, not so much. In 1492, there were about 1 million natives on Hispanola (today's Haiti) ... they were brutally oppressed, forced to mine for gold, and were murdered at staggering rates. Mothers were known to hurl their babies into the ocean rathe rthan them be picked up and enslaved by the Spaniards, and by 1517, twenty years (!) after the Spanish arrived, the population of natives was down to 14,000 ... nearly 999 of every 1000 had been killed. The arrival of Smallpox didn't help, either.

By 1502, the bloodletting had become so dire that African slaves were being brought in and, today, that's the population, intermingled with Spanish. The natives had their culture eradicated and effectively went extinct. There's not much inter-breeding and the culture itself was completely replaced.

The governship of Columbus was a really, really bad time. There are those that say that he's not to blame, but, well, "the buck stops here" and all that.

Regardless? The native Hatians were eradicated and replaced with Africans. It's an ugly, ugly colonial period.

Fething hell. I didn't know it was that bad.

It's one of those things that make you wish you could go back in time with a stash of modern military hardware and kit the natives out.

Relapse wrote:

 feeder wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:

Presumably they are mixed descendants of the imported slaves and the native peoples that were already there.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

On that front, not so much. In 1492, there were about 1 million natives on Hispanola (today's Haiti) ... they were brutally oppressed, forced to mine for gold, and were murdered at staggering rates. Mothers were known to hurl their babies into the ocean rathe rthan them be picked up and enslaved by the Spaniards, and by 1517, twenty years (!) after the Spanish arrived, the population of natives was down to 14,000 ... nearly 999 of every 1000 had been killed. The arrival of Smallpox didn't help, either.

By 1502, the bloodletting had become so dire that African slaves were being brought in and, today, that's the population, intermingled with Spanish. The natives had their culture eradicated and effectively went extinct. There's not much inter-breeding and the culture itself was completely replaced.

The governship of Columbus was a really, really bad time. There are those that say that he's not to blame, but, well, "the buck stops here" and all that.

Regardless? The native Hatians were eradicated and replaced with Africans. It's an ugly, ugly colonial period.

Fething hell. I didn't know it was that bad.

It's one of those things that make you wish you could go back in time with a stash of modern military hardware and kit the natives out.

That, or Chris's dad had a long talk with him before he set sail about how just because someone doesn't share your culture or beliefs doesn't make them any less human.

 feeder wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:

Presumably they are mixed descendants of the imported slaves and the native peoples that were already there.

Speaking of which, mixing of genes is clearly in the best interest of humanity's genetics. If one subscribes to an Intelligent Design Theory, one must come to the conclusion that insular tribes are deliberately designed to be detrimental to our species.

On that front, not so much. In 1492, there were about 1 million natives on Hispanola (today's Haiti) ... they were brutally oppressed, forced to mine for gold, and were murdered at staggering rates. Mothers were known to hurl their babies into the ocean rathe rthan them be picked up and enslaved by the Spaniards, and by 1517, twenty years (!) after the Spanish arrived, the population of natives was down to 14,000 ... nearly 999 of every 1000 had been killed. The arrival of Smallpox didn't help, either.

By 1502, the bloodletting had become so dire that African slaves were being brought in and, today, that's the population, intermingled with Spanish. The natives had their culture eradicated and effectively went extinct. There's not much inter-breeding and the culture itself was completely replaced.

The governship of Columbus was a really, really bad time. There are those that say that he's not to blame, but, well, "the buck stops here" and all that.

Regardless? The native Hatians were eradicated and replaced with Africans. It's an ugly, ugly colonial period.

Fething hell. I didn't know it was that bad.

Yeah, there was a bit about how much gold a native was suppose dto mine in a week. They'd present whatever they'd gathered to the overseer, who'd measure it. If it wasn't enough, you'd lose a hand. They'd then put it on a cord to wear around your neck as a warning to the others. After another rmissed week, that'd be both hands. Needless to say, you didn't live long afte rthat. (Or even if you got that far ... medical tech in 1500 wasn't exactly great at this.)

By 1570, there were 0 natives left in existence, but they'd likely gone extinct decades earlier.

Haiti's history is quite possibly the worst in the entire chain of western colonialism, and that's saying a LOT.

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

They all probably havn't learned about this stuff in 20+ years.

World History I remember covering every big civilization from ancient Sumeria all the way into the enlightenment in Europe.

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

Exalt

I find history education varies wildly from school to school. Some of the ones I went to only covered American history, and only the "rah rah murica" parts. Some covered a much more nuanced version that included the not so great parts. Only one covered non-American history and only in an honors course. The basic course was just civics + revolution to Civil War. Things have become more standardized since I was in K-12 so I don't know how it's changed but I don't imagine there's been much improvement on the breadth of material. The Haitian Revolution was actually a huge deal for American domestic policy and cultural ideology, and border's on a defining watershed in the history of European Colonialism and Expansion under which America falls but I never even heard about it until senior level college courses.

For colleges I find it really depends on what kind of school we're talking about. The Baptist college I attended in Freshmen year only taught "Western Civilization" but the state school I attended after that had "World Cultures" as a Gen Ed requirement and that course was basically Intro to World History. My sister's Evangelical school that she first attended had World History, but that school was apparently crazy and taught some weird gak in that class (which is why she stopped going, among other reasons) and her state school after that just had a generic "World History" class that only taught Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Americas and apparently didn't mention Asia much. Africa was only brought up broadly and never in depth.

I'd consider African history to probably be the least understood by the general population. Count how many African civilizations south of the Med you can name. I'll bet it's not very many. I can only name... Songhai, Zulu, Ghana, Aksum, and Kongo so only five for me and only two of those I can talk about in more than a paragraph (Songhai and Aksum). South East Asia I think gets it pretty bad two but a lot of people have become generally aware of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history to some extent even if what they know is super vague and probably littered with inaccuracies.

 LordofHats wrote:

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

Exalt

I find history education varies wildly from school to school. Some of the ones I went to only covered American history, and only the "rah rah murica" parts. Some covered a much more nuanced version that included the not so great parts. Only one covered non-American history and only in an honors course. The basic course was just civics + revolution to Civil War. Things have become more standardized since I was in K-12 so I don't know how it's changed but I don't imagine there's been much improvement on the breadth of material. The Haitian Revolution was actually a huge deal for American domestic policy and cultural ideology, and border's on a defining watershed in the history of European Colonialism and Expansion under which America falls but I never even heard about it until senior level college courses.

For colleges I find it really depends on what kind of school we're talking about. The Baptist college I attended in Freshmen year only taught "Western Civilization" but the state school I attended after that had "World Cultures" as a Gen Ed requirement and that course was basically Intro to World History. My sister's Evangelical school that she first attended had World History, but that school was apparently crazy and taught some weird gak in that class (which is why she stopped going, among other reasons) and her state school after that just had a generic "World History" class that only taught Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Americas and apparently didn't mention Asia much. Africa was only brought up broadly and never in depth.

I'd consider African history to probably be the least understood by the general population. Count how many African civilizations south of the Med you can name. I'll bet it's not very many. I can only name... Songhai, Zulu, Ghana, Aksum, and Kongo so only five for me and only two of those I can talk about in more than a paragraph (Songhai and Aksum). South East Asia I think gets it pretty bad two but a lot of people have become generally aware of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history to some extent even if what they know is super vague and probably littered with inaccuracies.

I think the only history understood less than African is pre-European colonization Australian history.

AndrewGPaul wrote:

 jmurph wrote:

Moreover, the modern concept of "race" is just that- a modern construct. Historically, for example, white would have been a nonsensical distinction as 15th a Welshman and an Englishmen would have laughed if you tried to say they were the same "race". Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander.

IIRC, there's more genetic diversity amongst sub-Saharan African populations than in the entirety of the rest of the world - including Australian Aborigines and Inuit.

Yes. I remember reading that. Skin tone is the most visible difference so the assumption is that it's highly relevant, but not really.

avantgarde wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 jmurph wrote:

Likewise "black" is a tremendous catch all that include ethnic groups that are wildly different- a Sub Saharan African, for example, is in no way the same as a Caribbean Islander. At best, modern races are a crude categorization of superficial traits and have no real biological basis. Really, its primary usefulness is in understanding how it was used as a tool of manipulation, discrimination, and other social factors (and their enduring effects) in the modern world, not in descriptions of ancient populations.

Given that the current black residents of the Caribbean are in fact sub-saharan Africans imported by European slavers, you might want a better example. :p

I think his point is that a modern Haitian mulatto and and a modern Luba from the DRC bear little resemblance to each other culturally DESPITE the fact they are superficially similar and may have a common ancestor.

You're falling into the trap, person A is black so must share similarities with person B who is also black and ignoring several centuries of disparate living conditions.

I read an interesting article about that by an African-American in regards to how they disagreed with the widespread sentiment individuals in Haiti are their brothers by skin tone and Egyptians are their brothers by being from Africa.

It applies across a broad spectrum. Particularly in America. There's a fairly big difference between midwestern whites, those in the Appalachians, those in the deep south, etc.

 curran12 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

Exalt

I find history education varies wildly from school to school. Some of the ones I went to only covered American history, and only the "rah rah murica" parts. Some covered a much more nuanced version that included the not so great parts. Only one covered non-American history and only in an honors course. The basic course was just civics + revolution to Civil War. Things have become more standardized since I was in K-12 so I don't know how it's changed but I don't imagine there's been much improvement on the breadth of material. The Haitian Revolution was actually a huge deal for American domestic policy and cultural ideology, and border's on a defining watershed in the history of European Colonialism and Expansion under which America falls but I never even heard about it until senior level college courses.

For colleges I find it really depends on what kind of school we're talking about. The Baptist college I attended in Freshmen year only taught "Western Civilization" but the state school I attended after that had "World Cultures" as a Gen Ed requirement and that course was basically Intro to World History. My sister's Evangelical school that she first attended had World History, but that school was apparently crazy and taught some weird gak in that class (which is why she stopped going, among other reasons) and her state school after that just had a generic "World History" class that only taught Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Americas and apparently didn't mention Asia much. Africa was only brought up broadly and never in depth.

I'd consider African history to probably be the least understood by the general population. Count how many African civilizations south of the Med you can name. I'll bet it's not very many. I can only name... Songhai, Zulu, Ghana, Aksum, and Kongo so only five for me and only two of those I can talk about in more than a paragraph (Songhai and Aksum). South East Asia I think gets it pretty bad two but a lot of people have become generally aware of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history to some extent even if what they know is super vague and probably littered with inaccuracies.

I think the only history understood less than African is pre-European colonization Australian history.

So poorly understood in fact that it didn't even cross my mind

 LordofHats wrote:

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

Exalt

I find history education varies wildly from school to school. Some of the ones I went to only covered American history, and only the "rah rah murica" parts. Some covered a much more nuanced version that included the not so great parts. Only one covered non-American history and only in an honors course. The basic course was just civics + revolution to Civil War. Things have become more standardized since I was in K-12 so I don't know how it's changed but I don't imagine there's been much improvement on the breadth of material. The Haitian Revolution was actually a huge deal for American domestic policy and cultural ideology, and border's on a defining watershed in the history of European Colonialism and Expansion under which America falls but I never even heard about it until senior level college courses.

For colleges I find it really depends on what kind of school we're talking about. The Baptist college I attended in Freshmen year only taught "Western Civilization" but the state school I attended after that had "World Cultures" as a Gen Ed requirement and that course was basically Intro to World History. My sister's Evangelical school that she first attended had World History, but that school was apparently crazy and taught some weird gak in that class (which is why she stopped going, among other reasons) and her state school after that just had a generic "World History" class that only taught Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Americas and apparently didn't mention Asia much. Africa was only brought up broadly and never in depth.

I'd consider African history to probably be the least understood by the general population. Count how many African civilizations south of the Med you can name. I'll bet it's not very many. I can only name... Songhai, Zulu, Ghana, Aksum, and Kongo so only five for me and only two of those I can talk about in more than a paragraph (Songhai and Aksum). South East Asia I think gets it pretty bad two but a lot of people have become generally aware of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history to some extent even if what they know is super vague and probably littered with inaccuracies.

That's pretty much status quo worldwide. I've asked some of our British friends here about their history curriculum, and they're very British centric as well.

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

Exalted indeed.

 LordofHats wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 avantgarde wrote:
I agree the US history education is inadequate.

Most high schoolers or even college students never learn about non-western history. Ask them about Darmok and Jalad at Tenegra and they'll give you a blank look.

Exalt

I find history education varies wildly from school to school. Some of the ones I went to only covered American history, and only the "rah rah murica" parts. Some covered a much more nuanced version that included the not so great parts. Only one covered non-American history and only in an honors course. The basic course was just civics + revolution to Civil War. Things have become more standardized since I was in K-12 so I don't know how it's changed but I don't imagine there's been much improvement on the breadth of material. The Haitian Revolution was actually a huge deal for American domestic policy and cultural ideology, and border's on a defining watershed in the history of European Colonialism and Expansion under which America falls but I never even heard about it until senior level college courses.

For colleges I find it really depends on what kind of school we're talking about. The Baptist college I attended in Freshmen year only taught "Western Civilization" but the state school I attended after that had "World Cultures" as a Gen Ed requirement and that course was basically Intro to World History. My sister's Evangelical school that she first attended had World History, but that school was apparently crazy and taught some weird gak in that class (which is why she stopped going, among other reasons) and her state school after that just had a generic "World History" class that only taught Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Americas and apparently didn't mention Asia much. Africa was only brought up broadly and never in depth.

I'd consider African history to probably be the least understood by the general population. Count how many African civilizations south of the Med you can name. I'll bet it's not very many. I can only name... Songhai, Zulu, Ghana, Aksum, and Kongo so only five for me and only two of those I can talk about in more than a paragraph (Songhai and Aksum). South East Asia I think gets it pretty bad two but a lot of people have become generally aware of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian history to some extent even if what they know is super vague and probably littered with inaccuracies.

I think the only history understood less than African is pre-European colonization Australian history.

So poorly understood in fact that it didn't even cross my mind

Well, not to stray too off topic, but I think a lot of the reason it is so understudied is how uncomfortable the original peopling of Australia was, given that there is evidence of humans on Australia long, long before there is any evidence of humans being able to have ocean-going craft.

That's because boats were made from wood. Wood, baring fossilization, won't last 65,000 years. As a historian, and a man whose spent years studying pre-history, I find absolutely nothing uncomfortable about the idea of original Australian population, and I don't see why anyone would.

 djones520 wrote:
That's because boats were made from wood. Wood, baring fossilization, won't last 65,000 years. As a historian, and a man whose spent years studying pre-history, I find absolutely nothing uncomfortable about the idea of original Australian population, and I don't see why anyone would.

Wait. Humans were making boats 65,000 years ago? I thought they got to Australia by a land bridge.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
That's because boats were made from wood. Wood, baring fossilization, won't last 65,000 years. As a historian, and a man whose spent years studying pre-history, I find absolutely nothing uncomfortable about the idea of original Australian population, and I don't see why anyone would.

Wait. Humans were making boats 65,000 years ago? I thought they got to Australia by a land bridge.

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/haywood/s2_9519.pdf

Not likely. I was also reading a story the other day that was pushing the idea that the first American's came by boat as well, not the land bridge as has long been thought.