How is the US Civil War taught in schools not in the USA?

October 7, 2013 7:39 AM

I was watching the excellent Ken Burns documentary about the Civil War last night, and found myself wondering how this particular conflict is taught in schools outside the US. If you were raised outside the United States and remember learning about the US Civil War in school, what do you remember? I would love to hear about your experience.
posted by juniperesque to Education (45 answers total)

I'm in the Netherlands and I don't think we were taught about the US Civil War at any time.
Sorry, I know it's not really interesting, but it's a data point.
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:45 AM on October 7, 2013

From Scotland, and the same as Too-Ticky. After 1776, the USA was its own problem, and we had the industrial revolution and lots of ill-advised wars to memorize.
posted by scruss at 7:51 AM on October 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

I'm in Canada, and did not learn about the American Civil War either. In fact, we barely touched on any US history at all.

I imagine that this is a subject that isn't really covered much in history courses outside of the US - at least not your basic mandatory high school history classes.
posted by ohmy at 7:55 AM on October 7, 2013

Canadian- no Civil War discussion in school that I remember but I read the book "The Root Cellar" which discussed it.
posted by bquarters at 7:56 AM on October 7, 2013

when I attended high school in Canada, I recall that our history lessons focusing on the mid-latter half of the 19th century would talk about Canada's role as a terminus for the Underground Railroad, as well as the way that American politics influenced the evolution of Canadian Confederation. But, at most it was, like, a sentence tossed off hand by the teacher: ie. "one of the arguments for a stronger centralized government was the perception that the ongoing civil war in America could have been attributed to the dangers of states rights."

We never got into any of the battles, the generals or campaigns; more about the way that the war's outbreak and eventual resolution would affect our own society. It's much, I suspect, like the way World War I can be taught in American schools where it's: Ferdinand gets assassinated > everybody declares war on everybody else > lots of people die in trench warfare > Lusitania gets sunk > America joins the war > Germans who have been fighting and dying for 4 years say 'fuck it' > The End. Whereas Canadian schools will devote whole days to studying Passchendaele or Vimy Ridge or The Somme because of their cultural and symbolic value to the nation.

What's important and terribly significant to your country is of marginal interest to others. The rest only study it insofar as how it's affected them.
posted by bl1nk at 7:57 AM on October 7, 2013 [16 favorites]

Australia: I did a single project on Gettysburg as an optional component in high school. It wasn't covered in the regular curriculum.
posted by zamboni at 7:59 AM on October 7, 2013

Australian here, and don't recall it being mentioned at all. In fact my grade eight social studies teacher told us the Mason-Dixon Line was the border between the US and Canada and I had to correct her.
posted by goo at 7:59 AM on October 7, 2013

English: we did a general sweep of US history post-1918, but covered nothing earlier. bl1nk is right.
posted by holgate at 8:03 AM on October 7, 2013

Answering your question in a bass-ackward way, as I'm from the US -

I'd be very surprised to hear about any country outside the United States discussing the US Civil War at all, because it was effectively a domestic conflict within the US. So just as we don't hear about things like the Crimean War or the Franco-Prussian War in the United States, I doubt they'd read about our Civil War.

But just in case, you may want to have a look at the book History Lessons - it's an anthology of passages from other countries' textbooks about events from United States history - usually events that impacted other countries. You still may not find anything about the US Civil War, but I have a hunch that there may be passages that discuss the Underground Railroad to Canada, at least; and I vaguely remember some passages from Mexican or Central American textbooks that may discuss other conflicts that were at about the time of the Civil War. Or maybe even a passage from Irish textbooks which discuss how Irish immigrants were often pressed into military service (but this last one I'm speculating, it's been a while since i've read it and am not certain on that).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 AM on October 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

It isn't, generally, in India, and if it is it's a one-paragraph mention. Maybe a line. Sorry.
posted by Tamanna at 8:04 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Raised in Sweden, where I dimly remember High School equivalent history taught in chunks: first Sweden for one year, then Europe (including the two World Wars) for the next, then an ambitious and nebulous "rest of the world" for at least some of the final year.

The Civil War was taught the same way our teacher taught everything: a collection of facts to memorize about causes of the war, start and end dates (plus possibly the dates of an important battle or two), notable historical persons involved in and consequences of the war - all liberally sprinkled with anecdotes and stories to make the lessons actually interesting to a bunch of 15-16 year olds.

It's been long enough now that I can't swear on any of this, and we had an eccentric sort of teacher, but that's how I remember it from the mid-90's.
posted by harujion at 8:06 AM on October 7, 2013

Australian here, and I agree it never came up. My highschool history classes covered the world wars, the Russian revolution, Japan, the industrial revolution, a few other things, and of course Australia. The only US-centric topic covered was the Bay of Pigs/Cuban missile crisis.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 8:08 AM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

We never got into any of the battles, the generals or campaigns; more about the way that the war's outbreak and eventual resolution would affect our own society.

It was this for this Canadian as well. The US Civil War was covered in terms of the Underground Railroad, as a reason behind Canadian Confederation and our particular constitutional structure, and so on. The actual war as such -- not so much.

That said, as with much American history and culture, we pick up a lot just through being saturated by US media. So while we may not have been taught much about American history in a formal way, we still know a lot about it just by being neighbours.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:10 AM on October 7, 2013

UK respondent

We jumped from the tudors etc, maybe a bit on the English Civil War then straight to British social and economic history from 1700-1900 for our O levels. No mention of the American CW or the American war of independence either. It was all farming, canals, railways, bit on the unions, something about the corn laws which has long departed my mind. Can't even remember if there was anything on slavery. Not a lot on empire. Good god, looking back its like they went out of there way to pick the most uninteresting topics then tried to make us remember a pile of dates for dull crap.
posted by biffa at 8:10 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

We touched on it briefly in Canadian social studies classes, but the understanding of it didn't go much past the level of Slavery vs. Freedom and some self-congratulatory stuff about freed slaves coming to Canada. We talked more about the Revolutionary War because it had a bigger impact on us, what with the Empire Loyalists and all.

When I was in Brazil, we had a class on histories of the Americas, in which basically each country in the Americas got a single hour of class time. That class probably also touched on the Civil War since even in a single hour overview of American history, the Civil War is going to feature pretty prominently, but I don't specifically remember what was said about it. That one class hour was also the only time we touched on American history while I was there, so you can imagine how in depth it was.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:11 AM on October 7, 2013

Odinsdream makes a good point - you may also run into the fact that, like in the US, some schools have classes that are more comprehensive than others. The more advanced classes in schools may get further into "world history" than others, but what they discuss in "world history" may be a crapshoot.

What I mean is: Odinsdream did learn about the Franco-Prussian war in a US high school, but in my high school the "world history" class got bogged down in the Hundred-Year War and we never got around to it. Meanwhile, there were a lot of kids in my high school who only took US history and that was it. You may find a similar range of experiences worldwide as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:14 AM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

Whoops - I should correct my above comment to say that my experience in Sweden was in the equivalent of Junior High (7th-9th grade). High School history is much more of an elective in Sweden, but what I learned about the Civil War should have been stuff taught in all schools as a part of the national curriculum, unless I am mistaken in my recollections. (Which I may very well be! I always wanted to forget all about school as soon as I graduated, and it seems as if I've succeeded fairly well.)
posted by harujion at 8:21 AM on October 7, 2013

Even within the US, it is taught differently depending on where you live. Grew up a Yankee and went to college in the south and had to relearn some of it including names of battles.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:22 AM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I took an American history course as an elective in my (Canadian) high school, so we definitely learned about the Civil War. However, it's hard to say how it differed from what a US student would learn, since I never had the experience of taking it from a US perspective. I enjoyed the course a lot... We learned about slavery and Lincoln and states' rights and the economy and Sherman's march to the sea and Gettysburg, etc, etc... there wasn't anything that stuck out as unusual or "Canadian" about the perspective to me. The main thing I remember is that my teacher was a big fan of Robert E. Lee and told us about how both sides wanted him to be their general and, though he was opposed to slavery, he felt he could not take up arms against Virginia.
posted by cider at 8:23 AM on October 7, 2013

In Canada, took a history class that covered a lot of off-the-required-course history, but didn't go much into the US Civil War -- a bit about how Canada dealt with slaves and slavery and mostly that the Civil War was about slavery and state's rights (to have slaves).
posted by jeather at 8:28 AM on October 7, 2013

What's important and terribly significant to your country is of marginal interest to others. The rest only study it insofar as how it's affected them.

I think Americans may have a somewhat skewed perspective because our own history is so short, and our country so derived from other nations, that we do spend a lot of history class on other countries, especially European history. If you look at the British curriculum, the time spent on the US is indeed pretty limited - much more of a specialty study, like studying Canadian history would be for an American (whereas studying European history is pretty normal, since that's our history too).
posted by mdn at 8:30 AM on October 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

I grew up in Germany. I don't think the US Civil War was mentioned in the curriculum. In general, wars were not the focus of history classes anyway, more broad concepts like democracy, industrialization, antisemitism. For instance, very little was said about World War 1, but we spent several months on the political climate of the Weimar Republic. (This was the mid-eighties through mid-nineties.)
posted by tecg at 8:39 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

As an Australian I learnt all I know about the Civil War from US tv shows and movies, we learn very little US history, just like you guys don't learn about Australian history as it has no direct effect on your own history. Pretty much the US in World War II probably got the most mentions and that was in my Modern History classes at High School and that was more in relation to how it effected Europe.

Side note. The book "Roots" was probably my first exposure to US history in any depth, when I was in High School, I found it in the library, lets just say it didn't leave a great first impression.
posted by wwax at 8:43 AM on October 7, 2013

I imagine the US Civil War is taught the same way the US teaches the Second English Civil War, which is to say, not at all.
posted by pwnguin at 8:46 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Former Canadian student here (K-12 + University), and I can't remember any significant mention of any US History, other than as an economic or political influence in ongoing Canadian politics. Frankly, I doubt anyone would have much interest in it unless they were history focused in College. Everything I know I learned from my own reading, and some awesome history podcasts.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:49 AM on October 7, 2013

From my Japanese students I've gotten the impression that to them, the US Civil War = Gone With The Wind.
(However, this is to some degree true for myself, as well.)
posted by Rash at 8:54 AM on October 7, 2013

From a slightly different perspective: I'm from the U.S., and spent my junior year of college in the UK. I was in the English and American Studies program, but the "American" side of it emphasized American literature and culture/cultural history more than traditional American history. I asked a similar question of several friends, who all said there was virtually no mention of the U.S. after 1776 in their history classes (and that was only a blip, apparently -- it's just not a big deal to lose 13 tiny colonies compared with, say, India). They'd all heard of the Civil War from TV and movies, of course, and so had a sense of what it was about, but they all said it was never taught in school.
posted by scody at 9:02 AM on October 7, 2013

We jumped from the tudors etc, maybe a bit on the English Civil War then straight to British social and economic history from 1700-1900 for our O levels.

I think this is the same for my mother (who went to school in the late 60s/early 70s). Though I seem to recall her saying "I don't know, I think we skipped the 1700s" in response to a question at some point.

I grew up in Germany. I don't think the US Civil War was mentioned in the curriculum.

It seems like it's getting a little more coverage for Germans my age (I'm 27). The Germans I was in Georgia with didn't know much beyond that slavery existed, the Civil War happened and that the two had something to do with each other (and this knowledge seemed to come from school, rather than media*). They understood what war the Confederates carved in Stone Mountain were from and that they lost the war, but the Americans had to explain why we were finding the whole Stone Mountain-as-tourist-attraction thing so awkward.

*Other than the Ken Burns documentary that aired when I was like 7, I've consumed very little media to do with the Civil War, by the way.
posted by hoyland at 9:15 AM on October 7, 2013

US Civil war is not taught in France. There was a mention of this war when we learnt the abolition of slavery though.
*I didn't know the existence of the battlefield of Gettysburg before watching Homeland...
posted by mugitusqueboom at 9:21 AM on October 7, 2013

American, and we were taught no virtually no history of any place except the US except for ancient times, and it was all presented as if everything in history was just leading to America, the ultimate best country. Plus it seemed US history barely made it WWI. This was during the 50s and 60s. So I am not surprised the US Civil War is not taught in other countries.
posted by mermayd at 9:30 AM on October 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

It was never mentioned as part of the curriculum. We had enough wars of our own to discuss.
posted by 99percentfake at 10:33 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I imagine the US Civil War is taught the same way the US teaches the Second English Civil War, which is to say, not at all.

Round Heads vs. Cavaliers, three wars in the 17th C. - yes, we were taught it, and not at a particularly advanced level (I was a slacker in highschool, and did not go to the same classes as the AP kids). As well as the Crimean War, the Franco-Prussian War, 30 Years War &c. You'd think the Civil War would rate a mention as the first large scale mechanized war (first to use railroads, mass produced weapons, ironclads, steamboats, etc), a presage to the horrors that would come to Europe 50 years later.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:36 AM on October 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

As a graduate of overseas American schools I can say that in the most technical of definitions, yes the US Civil War is taught in other countries. At American schools. By American teachers. To mostly Americans. There are certainly many other nationalities in these schools but I don't think this is a real strong answer to your question. More a unique outlier.

We were also taught many lessons on more local events like the Japanese invasion of Singapore and the Battle of the Java Sea, both campaigns and battles that wouldn't probably be covered in a typical American school. It was certainly a good mix of local and American history.
posted by lstanley at 10:54 AM on October 7, 2013

New Zealand: not taught at all.

We covered the road to WW2, including the Great Depression, so obviously some of that focused on the US, though it was mainly Germany. We also covered the 60s Civil Rights movement, alongside the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa (this was in the mid-late 1980s).

We were much more focused on UK and New Zealand history. Mainly the former.
posted by Infinite Jest at 11:32 AM on October 7, 2013

pwnguin: "I imagine the US Civil War is taught the same way the US teaches the Second English Civil War, which is to say, not at all."

Dude, we learn the second English Civil War freshman year in my state. We even memorized the list of monarchs from Elizabeth I through George III because the various transitions among them and the resulting dynastic, political, and religious upheavals had a very large impact on Europe, Britain, the development of modern democracy, and the colonial settlements and later independence movement in the U.S. You can't graduate high school without knowing why Charles I lost his head, why William & Mary were preferable to James II's offspring, and so forth.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:15 PM on October 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

I went to international schools in Finland and Denmark, and a Jamaican school in Jamaica, and as far as I recall it never came up. It's possible it was taught at any one of those schools after I left, of course.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:16 PM on October 7, 2013

Finished school a couple of years ago in the UK: in compulsory classes (up to age 14) there was no mention, however I chose to continue studying history, and for A level (18-19) we studied two topics in considerable depth, one topic of British history and one topic that in my school happened to in fact be the American Civil War (and particularly the events leading up to it). This I believe was one option the school had - students from different schoold did The Russian Revolution or Nazi Germany for example.
posted by an opinicus at 1:05 PM on October 7, 2013

Eyebrows, things may have changed or maybe its a regional thing, but I took all AP/nerd history classes when I was in school (California, high school class of '98) and we never learned the various English monarchs or read about any English Civil Wars. The only way I'd guess William and Mary were preferable to James II's offspring is that the former had a large school named after them.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 1:24 PM on October 7, 2013

We covered the Industrial Revolution when looking at that time period in England (90s). The slave trade was covered and it's abolition in Britain and worldwide. I think possibly the impact of lack of cotton in mill towns? In English we read Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird so we looked at race in the American South. But I wouldn't have described the American Civil War as important from a British perspective.
posted by plonkee at 1:46 PM on October 7, 2013

It's not taught in South-East Asia, Taiwan and China, unless you include American international schools perhaps.
posted by peripathetic at 2:15 PM on October 7, 2013

Australian here: never touched it. US only came up in relation to entering WWII, and Vietnam War. This was the nineties.
posted by smoke at 2:42 PM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

UK-ite here: I am pretty certain we covered it in a couple of 45 min periods.
posted by blue_wardrobe at 4:24 PM on October 7, 2013

Brazilian here — surprisingly, there was quite a bit of US history when we studied colonialism. A big question was "how come we are poor and the United States are rich?", and the answer was the different kinds of colonization, the Portuguese came to extract the maximum amount of wealth possible and go back, while the colonists that went to North America were looking to estabilish themselves there.

In the American Civil War the Northern side was presented as progressive, industrialist and abolitionist, while the South was shown as being "just like Brazil", with plantations and slavery — after the war, there were even Confederate refugees settling here.
posted by Tom-B at 4:39 PM on October 7, 2013 [5 favorites]

The US Civil War is not even taught consistently within the US (or at least the parts of the US that still consider themselves parts of the Confederacy). A friend of mine from college had never heard it called "The Civil War," until hearing it in college. Her school always referred to it as "The War of Northern Aggression" or "War Between the States."
posted by jraenar at 5:45 PM on October 7, 2013

Doing the absolute most history I could, in high school in Australia in the 90's - the US Civil War was not mentioned at all. (We studied early 20th century USA, and touched on the role of the US in the World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Great Depression, international relations between WWI and WWII, and I guess a little in the links between revolutionary France and revolutionary USA).

I think what mdn says of the USA is true of Australia as well: "because our own history is so short, and our country so derived from other nations, that we do spend a lot of history class on other countries, especially European history." So I suspect that in the same way that we learnt nothing about the US Civil War, Americans would know very little about the First Fleet or the Australian Gold Rush of the 1850s, which I managed to cop in both my 2 primary schools and then again in high school!
posted by Cheese Monster at 3:55 AM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]