Analysis Of Stromberg's Ideas About Teaching History In Isolation

To begin this class, a reading from an old history textbook was presented. In the reading, the author, Professor Stromberg presents his idea of teaching history in isolated regions as the best way to get the message of world history across. In response to this, as a history student, and a student taught in a different manner, I believe this is incorrect.

The first reason Stromberg’s ideas about teaching history in isolation are wrong is because history taught in isolation provides events in a way of illogical chronology, this is not to say that the events throughout history aren’t taught in order of occurrence, but rather when taught in isolation the order of occurrences does not make sense, and we miss out on a familiar pattern seen through

Throughout the lecture this is very evident. Examples of this are evident throughout the course. The first example was in Unit 1, in the case of Chinese expansion, Stromberg might focus on internal reasons as to why the Chinese dynasties rose and fell and eventually became what China is today; however, the lectures focus on the idea that there were many examples of power struggles and great interaction between Mainland China and nearby areas. These interactions include the influence of “Mongol raids, spread of Buddhism from India, and even the interaction, or lack thereof, between China and inner Eurasia, ultimately leading to the identity of China” (1/1). The lecture gives evidence as to why China, even to this day, is such a diverse nation: Mongol invaders expanded Chinese landmass in hopes of security against other invading empires and took people previously excluded under their wings

Moving forward from the Industrial Revolutions, the course emphasized World War I, as a truly world-redefining war. Stromberg may argue that the First World War was devastating and then arbitrarily move on to the next period in history, which was the rise of Communism and Fascism, but through the lecture we see the connection. “Communism and Fascism were the two big movements out of WWI” (6/1). As the lecture explains, World War I produced many extremist ideas, and the reason for these extremist ideas was the problems the world identified inherently from the conditions it was left in after the war. The role of communism and fascism did not end here though, its impact continued until after the Second World War and led to giving fuel to decolonization. In isolation, we may treat the two wars as having impact on each nation individually, the truth is far from that, and many nations leaned on common ideas in order to decolonize. “Class, religion and race were all forms of identity that transcended national borders, and movements of national independence drew from international movements” (6/3). The highlighted idea being “international movements. From this we understand that the big story was that imperially ruled nations wanted to decolonize and start anew as independent world. The big story, is not, as Stromberg may have us believe that each nation, in isolation, worked on