kellymurphy:Hi Luca -
I'm thinking that deathdiety may be the exception....as my nephew who is 19 learned about this in World History classes. My thoughts are that possibly this person never took WORLD History, perhaps just US History classes. I wouldn't take this as being the NORM.
Thanks
Kelly
Of course Kelly, generalization is hardly ever the right way to draw a sensible conclusion, so I absolutely didn't mean to generalize deathdiety's case (by the way, excuse me, deathdiety, if we go on mentioning you about this subject: it's just because your post started this conversation). Nevertheless, what you say tends to confirm my perspective. Let me explain why: I don't know how American schools work in detail and I don't want to talk about something I don't know in a direct way, but what you say makes me believe than an American student can choose whether he wants to learn the world history or not. That's what I consider somewhat discouraging: in my personal and very humble opinion, the ideal school system should consider some matters as absolutely mandatory, and History should undoubtedly be one of them. In a globalized world, contemporary history makes no sense if it is not seen within a global perspective. Then, let me express some perplexities about a scholar system which admits learning only US history without the world history (by the way, US history is no longer than about 230 years, an almost insignificant portion compared to History).
Some time ago, somebody posted here a thread (a questionable one, in my opinion) asking what people thought about America. Well, Kelly, here's something that many people in Europe think: we sometimes have a feeling that many Americans tend to ignore the world outside their borders. I don't know if this feeling is well-grounded or not, maybe it isn't well-grounded at all, but as a matter of fact it is quite widespread, at least in Europe where I live.