Did anyone else comback from a trip to Europe and think USA History is wrong?

Not sure I understand the question, can you give an example? Is European history not taught well in the USA? Or are you talking about American history?

If you mean

"Does America overstate it's greatness both at home and around the world"

Oh yeah, by volumes!

Way too general of a question. And the last part of the title of this post is highly slanted.

It's a bit of a side question, but related- a final question on Jeopardy the other night showed how little of their history many Americans know.
The one about John Paul Jones, arguably the founder of the American Navy.
East Coast folk may know about him, but west coast people maybe not.

Two of the three contestants answered wrongly, I answered straight away within the time alloted.

Arguably anyone who comes on a RS tour to Keswick should learn about him, due to his infamous raid on Whitehaven. I'm not sure if that is mentioned in practice on the tour.

If you mean is European history that is taught in US schools defective. Probably more incomplete than defective. If you mean US history taught in US schools defective, then yes, and getting worse each year. If you mean we think too much of ourselves, no, dont think so. Just proud of our accomplishments as we should be; but also should be aware of our short comings so we can learn and be better in the future. Being proud of oneself does not by definition mean looking down on others; nor is it denial of the not so good in the past. As an American, accepting the pride the French have in their history and accomplishments is called respect. Nice when it works in reverse too.

History is often less fact-driven and objective but more his-story (or her) - meaning very subjectively told.

A good example is the Battle of the Skagerrak in WW1 between United Kingdom and Germany. Both fleets made fundamental failures, had severe losses and no remarkable achievements but both sides communicated themselves as winners.

What impressed me that I didn't know about Europe's history:
1)how much the people in countries there suffered in the last century-we were so fortunate in the US!
2)what a huge deal WW I was, especially Ypres

I think it’s interesting to consider historical events from different perspectives. We have recently been on Rick Steves tours to Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. It was fascinating to learn about the same events but with very different interpretations.

I wasn't born in and didn't go to school in the US, and my husband did - we found it curious just how much non-US specific history was omitted from his (admittedly, not great) high school. They didn't even teach them about Pol Pot, for example!

what a huge deal WW I was

Living next door to the US we are inundated with American history through TV, movies, etc. and it can be like the world started after WW2, and WW1 never happened. I was surprised at how many memorials there are to WW1 in France and how bad the suffering was.

In High School we were taught about the War of 1812 when the Americans invaded Canada, and I always thought it was a big deal, and I was shocked to learn in England that it barely rates a mention.

During my RS tour of France, our guide liked to poke fun at England while we were in the Dordogne region and discussing the 100 years war. As the tour was 26 Americans and just us 2 Canadians, our guide would point out French victories over the English and have everyone cheer (I stress it was all in fun), but here I am thinking to myself, wait a minute, I'm part of the British Commonwealth, should I be cheering?

PERSPECTIVE impacts the story of history.

They didn't even teach them about Pol Pot, for example!

I was a freshman in high school during peak US troop involvement in the Vietnam War. Young people of my age had grown up seeing TV footage of the escalation, the battles, the carnage, and the protests. It would have been a prime time to have taught both the background of that conflict, what happened before US involvement, the rationale behind US involvement (right or otherwise) and had current-event discussions as those occurred. After all, some our classmates had siblings who were serving. The draft lottery had also been enacted that year (1969) and our young men of age to register were anxiously waiting to see at what point their number would be called, or just an anxiously eyeing pending registration age.

Yet Vietnam was never even mentioned let alone taught in our high school history courses. I wonder if/how it's taught after the fact?

I am a huge history buff, always have been, yet it wasn't until I moved to Germany that I found out about the Japanese internments that the US did. I did not know that other groups of people were persecuted and killed by the Nazis.

I meet groups of teens and young adults who have learned very little in school about WW2, the Berlin Airlift, the Cold War, let alone WW1. Often, they tell me they spent 1 day or at most one week in all of those years of school, learning about any of those things. It is sad and horrific.

I used to teach Indigenous Studies at a couple of post-secondaries. It was an upgrading course, allowing (mainly Indigenous) students to get their high-school Social Studies requirement through taking Indigenous Studies, instead. Essentially, we studied history, governance, social structures, current events, etc. through an Indigenous lens instead of through a settler/colonizer lens.

So, yes, different perspectives open our minds and give us a greater understanding of the world and its people and history than if we are exposed only to the North American settler POV.

That's what makes the old cliché, travel is broadening, so apt.

yet it wasn't until I moved to Germany that I found out about the Japanese internments that the US did.

You just reminded me - that's another thing my husband said they were not taught in school. I was floored. I imagine that it's intentionally left off the syllabus.

A good example is the Battle of the Skagerrak in WW1 between United Kingdom and Germany

There is a difference. We call it the Battle of Jutland.

Years ago I was in South Africa and I mentioned the Boer War, and I was immediately corrected. "Excuse me! The Second war of Afrikaner Independence!" And the "Japanese Internment" was a polite term. They were concentration camps. Concentrating civilians, whose loyalty was suspected, in one place. And who first came up with that concept? Lord Kitchener during the aforementioned "Boer War", sorry, Second War of Afrikaner Independence. Lord Kitchener got a city in Canada named after him. It was Berlin, Ontario until 1916.

Speaking with relatives that have kids who finished school in the past ten years or so, what is being taught today about U.S., European, and world history isn't nearly as through and in depth as it was during my schooling. Of course, there's more to history now than when I was in school.

There is a difference. We call it the Battle of Jutland.

And with translations the problem starts. Jutland is the huge land part of Denmark, so has nothing to do with a sea battle. It does not happen in Jutland and Danish marine was not involved. So why? I mean Battle of Trafalgar is somehow a specific landmark space but Jutland is an over 20,000 sqkm mainland part, from which the half is located at a different sea where the battle did not take place.

Sometimes I do not understand why the translations are so badly or different from the European original to the English / American.Take the example Niederlande and Niedersachsen. Both "Nieder" come originally from Niederdeutsch (Low German) and have the same meaning: low lands. But Niederlande is translated by Netherlands and neighbor state Niedersachsen by Lower Saxony. This makes no sense and create a border where there is none - both parts were orginally settled by Frisian and below the Saxons. This is by the way the next thing where a bug in "history" is waiting.

In my small Southern town public high school, in 10th grade, I had to read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"-an eye-opening 1000 pages. I do think most schools never get past WWII because the time in class is so limited. As a former high school science teacher, we could really use at least another two weeks in the school year. Of course, no one would want to pay teachers for an additional two weeks of work.

In Britain that sea battle is and always has been (even contemporaneously) universally called the Battle of Jutland. Translation or not it is only the Germans who call it the Battle of the Skaggerak.

Anyone who wants to debate that should read the UK press of the time. And indeed even Royal Naval documents of the time.

Appalling casualties were suffered in the Battle (if small in the overall context of the war)- 6,000+ men and 14 ships on the UK side, over 2,500 men and 11 ships on the German side.

As a high school teacher, I taught both Spanish and US history, or rather History of the Americas. It is up to the teacher how much of each part of the Americas (Canada, US, and Latin America/Caribbean) to include. Most teachers go for making it a mostly US history class, up to WWI usually (with 1920s-to as far as we can get in senior year). Since we are in Seattle, I really wanted to teach about Canada, since we live right next door and our students no virtually nothing about its history. I took the first month to do a Canadian overview, and it was really eye opening for my students--and for me as well. They also have very little knowledge of Latin American or Caribbean history, beyond an inkling of the conquistadors, and perhaps a bit about the Incas or Aztecs. I zeroed in on the history of Mexico, and one Central American, three South American, and Cuba plus one other Caribbean country, along with an overview of significant events in many of the others. As far as US history, I think many Americans are woefully unknowledgeable about our own country--how we came to be, what we have done, who has been affected, and what its impact has been. The students in my history classes were juniors, and I was always amazed how disjointed, disconnected, or incomplete their information was, or how much of the material--big moments of US history--was totally new to them. Things they had never heard of before--and they were often way off in the chronology of when events occurred. In terms of travel, going abroad allows a person the opportunity to get away from this country and look back on it from a distance, and from another perspective.

The students in my history classes were juniors, and I was always amazed how disjointed, disconnected, or incomplete their information was...

Yes and that's just history, let's not get started on geography lol! I'm still amazed by how many Americans I have met who still think Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia are still countries. Many I feel think "America" is the only country in the world and the rest of the world is on another planet!

These type of videos always crack me up - EUROPE according to Americans

Long before I studied and worked in the American history field professionally, I remember one of my first "a-ha" moments came at the Deutsches Museum in Munich (this was late 80s). I was walking through the automobile section and there was no mention of Henry Ford! I was so confused. My broad-brush "American heroes"-style education had left me convinced Henry Ford had invented the automobile, just like the Wright Brothers invented human flight! 🤔 [Added note: I don't think I actually had a history teacher that SAID Ford invented the automobile; just, in the absence of anything else, it was easy for young minds to make that assumption.] Decades later my bread-and-butter is history through alternative lenses, contextualization, forgotten voices, and comparative studies. But that museum visit was my first memorable awakening to such possibilities.

I hope the OP comes back to expand on his question. I came back from our Sicily trip with a new understanding of how the US in WWII re-empowered the mafia there, and how the Allied invasion was not a joyful bloodless liberation if your family is the one being bombed.

Teaching is one thing, learning is another. Students who don't have the curiosity or imagination to see how history might impact their lives (or are in fear of bullies, guns, on drugs, un-fed, abused or coddled at home), just aren't interested enough to learn it no matter how you package it. So I think teachers have to focus on the few things they can get across, that might be relevant to current events. The Battle of Jutland not being one of them.

My history teachers were usually the product of the same education system and conveyed a bored and disinterested message. Anything I learned about history, geography, literature, etc., was from the reading I did outside of school.

We were on a tour of Cartagena Columbia, when our travel companions were stunned to see monuments of battles against "the Pirate Francis Drake" and the greedy, rapacious English. They were from Northern California, where Sir Francis Drake was held as a hero with named buildings and monuments to his exploration. A learning moment?

First and foremost, a country is going to teach its own history before that of anothers. And in most cases they are going to make it sound positive for itself. Sometimes, the bad stuff is covered up.

It would be virtually impossible to teach the history of every country on the planet. You would be in school the rest of your life.

Curriculums vary depending on the school system. (Just because you see a couple of people not know the answer to a question doesn't mean all of the nation doesn't know it.)

In many cases, history will be "modified" to fit the image society wants to project.

Case in point....Paul Revere. Most kids are taught about how Paul Revere rode through the Massachussets countryside alerting all that "the British were coming."

Only he never said it. If he had, the people would have mocked him. Why? Because they were British. What he really yelled was "the Regulars are approaching" meaning the regular British Army was on its way.

So, why do we think he said "The British are Coming?" Well, you can thank a poet by the name of Longfellow who wrote a famous poem titled "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." This is a case where folklore became fact.

By the way, Revere rode a whopping 17 miles on his ride and it's taught in every school. The next day, Israel Bissell, set off on horseback from outside Boston enroute Philadelphia to warn everyone along that way that the war had begun. It took four days and covered 345 miles. It's hardly taught in any school.

Travel gives us the opportunity to learn about other places.

Carlos--let's not get started on geography

Oh man, that was a whole other issue. The lack of knowledge for that topic was I think even worse than for history at times!

It's not just history and school that people use as facts.

Little was taught about the horrible way US settlers treated the Native Americans. But at the same time, every other John Wayne film was portraying how terrible those "Indians" were.

Let's face it, very few countries who tried to expand beyond its borders did so by being nice. Conquest, usually for money or power or both, was never taking lightly. It was often deadly. But that goes back thousands of years.

A good example is the Battle of the Skagerrak in WW1 between United Kingdom and Germany

There is a difference. We call it the Battle of Jutland.

There was an excellent exhibition at Portsmouth Historic Naval Base devoted to the Battle of Jutland. It was very factual, informative and certainly not jingoistic. Sadly it was only ever a temporary exhibition and was closed after two years.

With so much that has to be crammed into those youg skulls full of mush in such a short period of time, I am not taken back that the Battle of the Skagerrak isnt taught in US schools.

Some subjects that have taken on new cultural awarness or contreversary do need to be moved to the top just so the students have a clear understanding of what they are hearing in the debates. The native American topic for instance. My son and I got into a disagreement on the subject about 10 years ago and rather than let it be a dividing point we decided to start researching together. We both discovered that the common arguments on both sides of the issue were factually bankrupt. And we both learned not to repeat the current mantras on the subject.

Take just one country, Ukraine. One widely accepted scholar on the subject boiled it down to 23 one hour lectures in his "overview" on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNewfxO7LhBoz_1Mx1MaO6sw_ and individual battles, authors, artists, politicians are not discussed for the most part, just cultural ressults. Now multiply that by the 50 countries that have land in Europe. Good luck.

At the very least an American, through his travels to Europe, should come to learn how incrediably messy and complex the history of Europe is so they know when they hear simplistic statement they recognize them for what they are, even if they dont know the truth themselves. Same holds true with complements and critisims that begin with "in Europe".

Nick, without that slave-owner the US wouldn't exist. We are all a product of our times and I'm sure that we have all promoted wrong opinions at some time in our lives. Hopefully not as egregious as slavery and its aftereffects or putting Japanese-Americans in camps or destroying Native Americans(to which Spain certainly contributed) but none of us are perfect.

destroying Native Americans(to which Spain certainly contributed)

This is actually a common misconception, a remnant of 16-17th century Protestant Black Legend propaganda that's still permeates the Anglo-American education system. As opposed to the Anglo style of colonialism which was to genocide or segregate indigenous peoples, which was another big inspiration of Hitler. The Spanish opted for integration and hybridization between peoples. That's why you have so many Mestizo people in Latin America, and also why so many indigenous groups and languages survived in Spanish controlled areas. Why are the Iroquois and Cherokee pushed out of their historical homelands with their languages critically endangered, when the Mayan and Quechuan peoples still reside in their historical homelands with millions of native speakers.

Of course they probably don't cover that in American history schools too - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend_(Spain)

My moms college friend was from the Costa Rican German community and her family was interned in Texas during WW2. Another interesting story. Personally I wish we could improve our geographic and historical knowledge of both the US and the world around us. All of us could have a much richer experience if we knew more of the history of where we are visiting.

Not "wrong", but very limited in scope and perspective. But, I see that in other places as well - a focus on "me" and the nearby events that have an impact on me.

Lifetime travel, people everywhere are living out history right now. Travel sort of opens up that reality. I suspect you can fund dramatic examples in several European countries. Right now for a dramatic view of first hand history I suggest yoi consider visiting Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and yes, Hungary so you can discuss them I'm a more personal and factual way.

Hey folks, all posts need to bring this back around to how it relates to travel. Otherwise the thread will be removed.

Mr Webmaster, sir, I am very serious in the concept of travel where history is changing. To be "there" at some pivotal moment in history is equivalent to walking in the foot steps of of Cesar in some ways.
A perfect way of choosing the next trip. "I was there, i saw it, and this is what happened... " to the grand kids.

I think you're taking the juxtaposition of my post appearing after yours too literally. :) I'm commenting more about what happened up thread. My comment is for everyone.

So far it's still a bit of a mystery what this post is actually about, I hope the OP can circle back to enlighten us.

our travel companions were stunned to see monuments of battles against "the Pirate Francis Drake" and the greedy, rapacious English. They were from Northern California, where Sir Francis Drake was held as a hero

Such culturally determined contrasts exist not only between nations, but also within them. For example, I learned in school that king Gustav Adolph of Sweden, the savior of German Protestantism in the Thirty Years' War, was a hero, or almost a saint. My children, who grew up in a Catholic environment, learned at school that he was the devil, or at least an emissary of him ;)

But there is one truth ...

After they've boosted all the rest
Then they will come and join the best
For we are the Aggies, the Aggies are we
We are from Texas A.M.C.

So my tractor transmission is shot. Can ya fix it?

Well, and travel reveals that our views are over simplified.... I expected on my first trip to Ireland in 1986 that JFK would be a part of my daily conversation.

My brothers blame the disjointed nature of our middle school and high school history education on our history teachers being hired for their coaching skills first, teaching history was a side light.

It seems like every fall we started with Columbus and every spring we had just gotten to the buildup up to world War One, we would run out of time, and the next fall, start w Columbus. I graduated in 1982, and no one was yet willing to talk about Vietnam. In college I learned about Bay of pigs and the Cuban missile crisis as a part of a political science class.

Travel, seeing museums in other countries, and reading have filled in the gaps

Mr. E, I keep forgetting you have encountered one of the most impactful lessons of experiencing history, Aggieland! Do you ever return to A&M?
Gig ‘em!

How does the A&M stuff relate to travel? Because that stadium is on my "do not travel there" list. Sorry Webmaster-in the SEC it Just Means More (which is why AL now has Kalen Deboer)!

Carlos, this post is about the history we weren't taught in school that Americans learn when we visit Europe. I, for one, did not take Geography or US Government(called Civics then) in 8th grade where it was taught because I took Latin instead. And I have never taken a modern foreign language. How's that for a sub-standard education? However, I have a really useful skill that I employ to educate myself about subjects where my education is deficient-reading!

Carlos, thanks for posting that link. I laughed out loud but I know it's really not funny. But hey, I learned that IKEA is a country-who knew?

Certainly depends on what years you went to school in the US, and yes, as someone who went to high school on both continents - huge differences in the curriculum. Still today, I feel way too much time is spent on the very short local history!! And not enough time on world history! How many times can you discuss the same 200 years in one location when you have several thousand years around the world?! But I do see positive changes - kids are now learning some things from other cultures’ history and viewpoints, some critical views on some events. The uncomfortable or negative parts of US history, domestic or US conduct overseas, were completely left out just a few decades ago - and many US graduates had no grasp of world events and their historic contexts, or timelines.

But hey, I learned that IKEA is a country-who knew?

It's about time a Rick Steves Best of Ikea tour was offered.

I feel way too much time is spent on the very short local history!

@Sam, when I was in primary school in California in the early 70´s, we spent a year learning about the "Spanish explorers and missionaries." So I grew up thinking Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portola, Juan Bautista de Anza, or Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo were famous people. When I came to Spain, I soon found out that almost no one here had every heard of them.

The kicker was a few years ago we visited the Cabrillo monument in San Diego, and the bronze plaque was paid for by the Portuguese government to honor a "distinguished Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain".

It's about time a Rick Steves Best of Ikea tour was offered.

OK, Mary, you made me laugh!

But actually, isn’t what we gain most from travel exposure to different ideas that we have no way to access if we either stay home or travel with closed minds? Even if facts are the same, the perception of what the facts mean may be different.

TTM. Tomorrow. Nope, not for all the money on earth. Or a RS tour of orange home improvement stores that aren't Home Depot.

I love learning about local history when I travel. I teach history (well, sometimes), and the reality is that one simply cannot teach it all even if we had a lifetime. And as every history teacher knows and has been pointed out here, history is written by the winners. That means what one learns is bound to be different, not just by country or even region, but by school and even teacher.

What is important in studying history is to have an understanding of basic concepts--power, resources, and values are the drivers of things like innovation and conflict. The purpose of understanding where we have been is to better understand where we are going. It isn't important to know that Khufu built the Great Pyramid, especially in these modern days of Google. It's not even important to know that the pyramid was a tomb. What does matter is an understanding of power and religion and how they shape a society, both locally and regionally. We can use Egypt's Old Kingdom to understand class, to discuss rituals around life and death, and even to talk about things like engineering. When we study history, we should learn to look into primary and secondary sourcing and the limitations of the source.

Interestingly enough, most of us know something about the death rituals of the ancient Egyptians, but we tend to know very little about their lives because our greatest sources are those around death. So the limitations of our source can give us a false impression of what Egyptians valued. It is only when we dig deeper that we better understand what it is we do NOT know. So I would posit that the study of history is less about learning things that happened and more about learning FROM things that happened and learning how to know and how to study things that happened.

Since we cannot and need not learn it all, history should be taught with a focus on cause and effect, example and counterexample. It is a jumping off point for talking about current events. And which causes, effects, and examples we choose is ultimately not as important as what we gain from them. When we visit a site like Checkpoint Charlie or Notre Dame or the Tower of London, we are learning not just what happened there and to whom, but WHY and HOW it happened. We learn what effects it had, sometimes visible ones (Berlin is a terrific example because so much of the effect of what happened is so very visible), but also less visible. Local history helps us understand things like the Russian tendency toward fatalism and thus helps us understand the Russian bent toward autocracy even today. It helps us understand Italian gregariousness or the deep connection the Sami have with nature.

Travel is a chance to see the Colosseum, but it is also a chance to understand its effects on the culture, which in turn helps us understand both the nature of empire and the subsequent spread of Christianity, a foundational element of modern Western society. It doesn't mean we were wrong to learn about the gladiators fighting for blood sport. It means we missed the opportunity to better understand our own culture and understanding of the world. And travel gives us more opportunities to correct that.

HowlinMad, You are obviously a great teacher, wish i’d been in your class when i was in school. All through school, history was boring, having to learn dates of wars and conflicts and not much else. What you describe is why i love history now.

History teachers are heroes. My two most memorable teachers were both history teachers and not only got me interested in world history, but by extension, travel.

HowlinMad is dead on point. Maybe if we're not for the number of characters in a post limitation he would have gone into how we interpret what we observe is based a lot on where we are in history and our own cultural biases and norms.

The title implied that the history we do learn is wrong. Most of the comments deal with a lack of what was learned in school not it's correctness. Although thre is a lot being taught that deserves scrunity.

I would say to blame the schools for not teaching the entire history of the earth in 12 years is a bit silly. The limitations of our knowledge is more our own fault because we choose not to be inquisitive, and choose not to challenge what we hear; and not the fault of the schools.

Great post, HowlinMad!

My own take: When you return from your travels, you will see your own
home differently. It hasn't changed while you were away, but you have
(if you were paying attention at all).

Yes, true, but so far nothing that I have seen or experienced or learned has caused me to lose any appreciation for my home.

Mr E, most of us who responded to this thread have spent years being inquisitive and filling in the gaps in our knowledge through travel and study (both formal education and self guided) I did not say that I expected my K through 12 education to teach me everything. I do "blame" them for covering the same era (Columbus through 1900) year after year instead of exposing us to new decades. I'm not expecting my 13 year old self to have been in a position to "challenge " my teachers and where they began the school year.

I taught high school history. 90 days each semester, classes were 60 minutes per day. Remove 2 days for start and end of semester, 8 days for testing, leaving 80 days. 80 days to cover roughly 160 years of Western history, from 1850 to say 2010. About 20 years per class. Some things you can certainly cover in an hour. But stuff like the Industrial Revolution, the US Civil War, Unification of Germany and Italy, Colonial expansion, unraveling of Spanish America, US depression 1893, the lead up to WWI, the war and the consequences, The Great Depression, lead up to WWII, the fighting and the consequences, the Red Scare, Space Race, Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam, Suez Crisis, Cuban Revolution, 6 Day War, Cultural Revolution China, Troubles in Ireland, American Civil Rights Movement, Cambodia and Pol Pot, they all take a lot longer.

It's just a matter of time.

Funny examples are when you read classic literature like War & Peace or Les Miserables and the authors include a lot of historical and geographical details that, as an American, I am totally unaware of. Historical figures (usually generals or politicians) of the Russian or French 18th & 19th centuries are nearly completely unknown to me beyond a few of the most key figures. But US generals and politicians of the same era (our Revolutionary and Civil wars) are very well known and still surround us in things like road names, parks names, and monuments.

I enjoy reading those classics, but find myself either googling like mad or glazing over at the names & "petty" events of the day.

doric8, sorry. I didn't mean to make it personal. My apologies if you took it that way. My knowledge isn't anything special so I sure can't point a finger.

Thank you, Mr E

de nada ,.,...

Well explained HowlinMad and Kate thanks too. The more we get in contact world wide the more we need to understand each others background so each others history and with that culture. If your home country is a winner or not think most learn their national history putting the “good things” in the spot light and actually ignoring the “bad things”. In some countries this is more the case than in other countries. But this way you just get a bubble perspective and in fact narrows your mind if you never step outside that bubble.

It’s not only about interest in Western history, it becomes more necessary to learn about non-western history and culture too. The world is rappidly changing and learning about each others background is important to see our own in perspective (as we are grown up with the idea being the standard for everybody) and not putting it automatically first.

To my idea all those national (hi)stories become more and more part of a global unified story in the future.

@Susan --Thank you for your kind words!

@Mr. E --I am a woman, but otherwise, yes, I would absolutely say interpretation is based on our own cultural norms and biases. For example, how many people think it's okay to have mummies in the British Museum? But the mummified people themselves felt that having their bodies undisturbed for their use in the afterlife was of vital importance, so having them in the museum could be considered a violation of their religious beliefs. We could also talk about the western need for black and white answers, so we tend to assign winners to battles whose conclusions are ambiguous (and this doesn't necessarily mean war battles, but could also include political battles or other struggles or conflicts, up to and including internal ones; an example is Alan Turing, whose death by suicide means he "lost" the struggle--but if he got the release from suffering he craved, is it a loss? And society got one less of the homosexuals they despised and persecuted, so shouldn't that be a win?)

We all know the saying: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Our own Patriots are a great example of that.

@Tom R -- You google the Russian names like mad, but on the flip side, Hamilton the musical has not been as successful outside the US as in it because people have to google Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, and even Washington. Meanwhile parks and schools and streets here in Germany are named for people you've probably never heard of and maybe some you have (Willi Graf Straße, for example).

My response may suggest that I do not fully understand the question in the original post.

But as some above have stated, I am always surprised to see in the UK the many memorials to "the Great War"--World War I. In the US, the war remembered and constantly celebrated is World War II. To my knowledge, we do not have a National World War I Museum. In Britain, you can see everywhere--churches, rail stations, theaters--the lists of those who died in World War I. The trauma of that war severely impacted, though in different ways, the UK, France, and Germany. In fact, it seems World War II was a continuation of the earlier war. I am not sure Americans, especially those under 50, can fully understand how great that trauma was. For those over 50 who live in certain parts of the country, the American Civil War comes to mind.

One ought never to read a history book without first gaining awareness that one is reading one very specific point of view. And that there are other points of view that may have equal or greater validity.

One of the greatest things about travel, IMO, is gaining an understanding of many points of view that are unavailable at home. I wouldn't expect the presentations of, say, Finnish naval history to bear much resemblance to what I've read in school or in leisure reading, and they sure don't. But that's the joy of it.

One ought never to read a history book without first gaining awareness
that one is reading one very specific point of view. And that there
are other points of view that may have equal or greater validity.

Or less validity.

As a time traveler from the Future, I gotta say the Past isn’t what it used be.

The United States does actually have a National WW1 Museum at Kansas City.

But then to us in the UK Vietnam was a conflict in which we played no official part. We have almost no memorials to Vietnam, unlike the US- just 8 in the entire UK. From memory none of those men commemorated were serving with UK forces- rather Australian or US forces (but UK born) or war correspondents working for the Reuters news agency.

With reference to the battle of Jutland (Skaggerak) - both sides were correct to consider themselves winners. The German side because they sank more ships, the British because they succeeded in sending the German navy back to port, from where they never tried to break out again.

As an aside, in 2018, many towns in the UK put up plaques on streets showing the fallen during WWI, where they died, and on what date. So many streets in Portsmouth have long lists from 31st May/1st June 1916

Thanks for advising of the World War I Museum in Kansas City. I did not know.

From my experience living in the USA, I've found those Americans most knowledgeable of the "outside world" beyond their borders are the military or former military, those also seem to be the only Americans who ever get a chance of living outside their country. I guess more than a century later this still rings true: "God created war so that Americans would learn geography" - Mark Twain