Is British history boring to British people?

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ninjomat@reddit

I think you’d find plenty of Brits who aren’t into history at all.

But of the Brits who are into history I don’t think many of them would say they find British history boring or less interesting than that of other countries.

After the found the Roman Amphitheatre in London they put on some mock roman games where it stood. was a cool day.

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resil30@reddit

I personally don’t think it’s boring. But some people may just think there is so much of it that it can either be

Overwhelming
They find their favourite parts of it and focus on that

There was a stone age .... Some Romans happened ... Plague

Tudors & Great fire of London ... Maybe Industrial revolution if you were lucky (+ workers rights) ... World wars

Maybe some "modern history" covering middle east

And it's rarely static either. Ww1 and ww2 history have had some pretty big revisions over time. Though part of that is more scrutiny over time and getting further away from the politics of the event in question.

Depending on your region and your education I think people can be bored of some things because it gets taught to them to death.

I live near Chester and I'm still super fascinated with the cities history and the roman occupation of England, and the Welsh history from around the time. I feel like when you grow up surrounded by it you just stop taking interest or notice it, or the polar opposite and become heavily invested in it. The thing with British history is there's so much of it, you can find out historical stories of a area you ha e been to a researched dozens of times and still find something new that happened wya earlier/later than the stuff you do know.

Apparently, there was a local leader in northwhales who had a coat made of his slain enemies beards. So random but in all my years it was the first time I had heard it.

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References_Paramore@reddit

I think in general Britons love their cultural history, even if they don’t quite realise it. Specific stuff like Tudor/Stuarts is complicated and we’re forced to learn about it in school so I can imagine people being less excited about that

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ramma88@reddit

It depends. Like with most places there's obviously people who don't care that much about history but most people interested in history will be interested in British history as well

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MiddleEnglishMaffler@reddit

It's only boring if the teacher teaching it doesn't have a clue how to teach.

Kids need interesting details to get their attention, especially with Henry's lot. I'm hobby history nerd but even I found Henry VIII boring at school and never learned anulything. The. i watched a six part documentary by Susanah Libscombe, where she delved into the details of each queen, accessorising around it with all th days and boring stuff that we were supposed to learn at school. And I got it.

No hand wringing or guilt required, just knowledge.

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Iain365@reddit

Exactly.

When the war of independence gets brought up by a yank, most British will just shrug their shoulders.

For us now, its such a small blip in a long history and it really isn't that important to our history.

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TrivialBanal@reddit

And why would we be using American English?

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FeelingDegree8@reddit

You did, I didn't.

Learned in British English (pronounced ler - ned) means being educated.

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TrivialBanal@reddit

Sorry but no.

Lollygagger105@reddit

Yeah. What did the Romans ever do for us?

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Infamous-Sherbert-32@reddit

I do see what you mean, but at the same time I find it remarkable that some of the engineering of the Romans still makes its mark today. I often drive on the A15 in Lincolnshire. It started life as Ermine Street, built by the Romans and stretching from London to Lincoln and then on to York. I think there are other such examples of Roman roads elsewhere in the country, such the Fosse Way, the section of which between Lincoln and Leicester has now become the A46.

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freshmaggots@reddit (OP)

Thank you so much! Same here

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Maximum_Scientist_85@reddit

I went to an open day for a museum that’s going to open next year (Stori Brymbo) that was absolutely amazing. Beautifully charted everything starting from a huge fossilised forest that you can see & touch fossils from, which predates the dinosaurs by 70m years - then takes you through the dinosaurs and on to very early Iron Age settlements in the area including Brymbo Man (full human skeleton found in the 1950s which is of national importance), then how the iron that produced that settlement went on to become a key factor in the development of the early Industrial Revolution (1760s) which in turn brought about “Iron Mad” Wilkinson, a key figure in early iron & steel production whose guns & cannons amongst other things armed the French and American revolutions.

Stepping a bit back again, locally in Chester (or even closer, Rossett which is less than 5 miles from Brymbo) you can go and see and touch Roman ruins, and (in Chester) the sites of important battles in the English civil war. And then back in Brymo, just behind the museum, you can see a lovely, long stretch of Offa’s Dyke - the ~1200 year old border between England and Wales.

But get this. Those iron & steel works were fuelled by coal … which was formed by that fossilised forest 350m years ago. And the foundations of iron production 3000+ years ago. All stuff you can just go and see and touch and feel connected to.

And all of that gives some context as to why the place looks like it does, why the settlements are here and not there. It’s great, maybe unlike anywhere I’ve been before you feel so connected to the past - it all seems incredibly relevant.

I love it.

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Recap of my history classes from primary through too high school.

How ww2 started (light)

The blitz

How ww1 started (missing a few decades of context)

A lesson on trench life and a lesson on propaganda posters. (My exam was just a media exam on a propaganda poster and I hated it)

Tuders (Henry viii wives short form, fast forward to Elizabeth where you watch Elizabeth the golden age, and ger a short lesson on the Spanish armada with little to no context beyond slan wanted to make us catholic)

If you have a lesson near to bomb fire night you'll get a lesson on the gunpowder plot.

We had a few lessons on slavery.

That was about it

Missed out thw civil wars, unification of England, Danlaw, 100 years war, 7 years war, Glorious revolution, roman Britain, American revolution, napolionic wars, Britian ending the slave trade, Richard the lion Hart.

Unless you study and collage or university, the school system outsourced history to Horrible History's to fill I'm any blanks.

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Intelligent-Good-966@reddit

History began in 1720 with the Industrial Revolution starting to kick on. Before that, meh.

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TheSecretIsMarmite@reddit

Sometimes it's one of those things that school manages to put you off of, and you only discover as an adult. We also have so much of it recorded over a couple of thousand years that it is overwhelming, especially when your grandparents or parents are of an age where they lived through the second world war - that still seems quite recent due to family history and family stories even though it ended 80 years ago.

sanctum9@reddit

Depends, I hated having to learn lists of kings and queens and the wars and battles between them. I did however enjoy learning about the industrial revolution.

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ObsydianGinx@reddit

I’m English and an archaeologist and yes I find British history boring. It’s also depressing having to constantly learn about all the horrible stuff we did to everyone

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Suspicious_Banana255@reddit

It's very interesting

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weedywet@reddit

All history is tedious.

And invariably used to attempt to justify onerous positions.

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Mundane-Bug-4962@reddit

You feel like American history is more recent? Gee, no kidding.

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AlfonsoTheClown@reddit

There’s just a lot of it. There are some periods which I find super fascinating like the 1700s through to the Napoleonic wars

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dualdee@reddit

Maybe I'm weird but I tend to find everyday-life stuff more interesting than the "big" events.

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pmcfox@reddit

I love our history and am a huge enthusiast, but our education system does not do it justice. Most people will think we have a fantastic history and will know some of the highlights i.e. the Tudors, the Victorians, the world wars but not much else. I would personally love to see medieval history prioritised more but there is only so much can be squeezed in.

Really early history (or comparatively early) - the Iron Age, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and I recently read a really interesting book about Boudica because my kid covered her at school and I realised I didn't know anything about her. That also, of course, included a bit about the Romans, who had never really interested me much before but have started to now.

Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth - because I live near that area, have attended some cool events at the battlefield centre, and my kid started to get really into it and is a big Ricardian haha (we even went metal detecting, and I've now read several books about the battle with various theories on where it really took place!). I'm also from Leicester and was living there when the discovery of his bones took place, so that sparked off my interest.

World Wars I and II, specifically the aircraft - was a special interest of mine since I was a kid and started reading the WWI Biggles books, the stories about him being a fighter pilot that were originally written for adults (the later kids' books where he's a special agent are fun, but the early, grittier ones were what really grabbed me).

Locality-based history - so when I'm at a place, I like to learn about cool things that happened there in the past and historical sights/locations nearby. Northumberland is great for that, as it has so many awesome castles, all with fascinating histories! But as I've been getting middle-aged, I'm starting to see the appeal of 'local history' (which always struck me as dry and boring when I was young, lol). Some of things I remember about my town from my childhood have now passed into 'local history'! I'm discovering that it's actually kinda cool to know historical stuff about where you live, as well as places you visit.

All in all, for some reason I tend to find *really* early history more interesting than the more recent stuff. Something about the way human nature hasn't fundamentally changed across the centuries and even millennia is fascinating to me.

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Viva_Veracity1906@reddit

Every year thousands of students, having studied history from grade 1, choose to study history at GCSE and A level and University. The BBC and other channels make historical series from living in a certain time period to deep dives into specific parts of history. Historical drama is our jam. We don’t find it boring, we find it bloody useful. Currently we spend a goodly time comparing current events to Hitler’s playbook.

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evelynsmee@reddit

Our history isn't boring but it's often boring talking about it to Americans. No offence intended but appreciate that's a pretty offensive statement, but the frequency of obsessing over random stuff, pretending to be of whatever nationality because a great great grandparent emigrated into your country of immigrants (aka you're almost entirely immigrants we get it you're still not Irish), and DO YOU CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY dude which one a country has an independence from the UK on average every 4 days.

The loud, relentless enthusiasm is jarring. The joy is also jarring (outside of the far right that have an invented history) given much of the history of fecking ruthless, exploitative, and genocidal. Like....how do you think you all reckon you're Irish, they didn't leave for fun. The Scots didn't leave for fun. My grandma was caned at school for speaking Welsh.

Entire_Winner5892@reddit

When we're little we WANT to hear about Celts and Knights and Richard the Lionheart.

But instead, aged 12, The curriculum just gives us endless Tudors and Stuarts and guys in codpieces passing acts of union. And at that age it's SO BORING.

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oldie349@reddit

No it’s fascinating, and so is the overlap with the rest of Europe

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PadraigPower@reddit

Maybe to some it might be boring but I find British history very interesting it is my favourite topic in history. Specifically Celtic Britons are my favourite thing to learn about but pretty much all time periods in Britain interest me. Ever since I was a kid I loved British history.

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Buddie_15775@reddit

No.

We didn’t do the Tudor’s because that was English history.

We did the Scottish wars of independence (Wallace, Robert the Bruce and all that) and it was certainly not boring.

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GharlieConCarne@reddit

There’s no way it can really be considered boring, unless you’re a person who finds all history boring in general. The nations of Britain have long and complicated histories, filled with drama, which are relatively well documented too - making it somewhat an outlier when compared to other countries.

The wealth of information from even 1000 years ago makes it truly very interesting

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winobeaver@reddit

nah man we love history. You should check out the Horrible Histories series; they're targeted at kids but I'd still happily read 'em. They were top-tier books when I was a kiddo

Im currently reading "A history of Britain in ten enemies" - it's by Terry Deary, who wrote the horrible histories books. Its more in depth and grown up, but with lots of the silliness.

A particular line that had me in stitches was describing Boudicas defeat to the Romans as "the end of the woad"

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Own_Blueberry_33@reddit

I am british and I find our history extremely uninteresting. I have no idea why I find the history of many other countries much more fascinating.

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butt3rflycaught@reddit

Desperate-Ad-5109@reddit

No- equally fascinated. Especially the centuries when we owned France’s ass.

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irish88888888@reddit

I think they intentionally exclude the colonisation and atrocities around the world in their education system and instead teach about the world wars and England's part in it

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AuroraDF@reddit

No it's not boring. But there is a lot of it. And sometimes the stuff taught in schools is boring so then people think all history is boring. Personally, I'm not all that keen on royal history and battles etc. I like to know the history of the ordinary people in each period and how they lived. Or of the things that were invented at different times and how that influenced the culture of the time. Kings and Queens deaths really never did it for me. (Especially since I was at school in Scotland, and the only history we did was royal history of England, before the UK existed. Which was a bit insulting. I dropped it as soon as I could. I believe they learned about WWII next.

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Serious_Shopping_262@reddit

As an adult, I find it interesting.

But History class in school is very much about kings and queens and as a kid it was quite boring.

Although I remember doing a school trip to a Victorian manor where we cosplayed as little Victorian kids. We ate Victorian food (some kind of broth), took Victorian classes where we had to write with ink pens and did certain activities that Victorian children did. It was a cool experience

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strangercheeze@reddit

All history can be boring… or it can be very interesting. It depends on the presentation.

Unfortunately History as a subject taught in British schools is dull and turns most people off it for life. Better, more engaging presentation helps; many history documentaries on TV are fascinating, but most won’t watch because high school taught them that history is boring 🤷🏻‍♂️

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Clean-Noise8197@reddit

Fuck no, take it in small chunks so as not to be overwhelmed. Currently I'm focusing on Londinium

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Didymograptus2@reddit

The problem with British history is that it is really English history and ignores major events in Scotland and Wales. It is also biased to be favourable to the ruling class especially royalty who only got to be monarchs because they were better at murder than everyone else.

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No, I find it pretty interesting.

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Fun-Cheesecake-5621@reddit

Love our British history, it’s so fascinating.

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Phaedo@reddit

The Tudors and Stuarts are taught in schools, and the subject of many TV programmes. What this comes down to is clearly some people love it, but honestly we hear about it all the damn time. Also the version we’re taught is weirdly slanted.

Watch “Gunpowder, Treason and Plot” by Jimmy McGovern for a treatment that I felt was good enough to watch.

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volunteerplumber@reddit

I love it. I listen to the British History Podcast which is made by a British guy who lives in the USA.

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Idontdanceever@reddit

I think US history often feels like one big story, the narrative of the idea that is the USA. British history on the other hand, feels more like a bunch of stuff that happened, so is told less as a cohesive story, and more like a pick'n'mix of facts.

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On a technicality, British history does not begin until 1707.

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CaveJohnson82@reddit

Elements can be boring. I'm not a fan of Tudors and Stuart's, partly because I think I did something about them every year in primary school, and partly because in general I find most eras pre-20th century not as interesting as 20th century history (my particular interest being ww2).

History as taught is so incredibly varied. If you’re into it you tend to have bits you get obsessed with, for me it’s pre 1066 stuff, and bits you find boring. The biggest difference isn’t really it being taught though, is that it’s around you, everywhere and every day.

My home city has Roman walls reinforced by Saxon kings and maintained for hundreds of years until they became pretty much pointless.

And they’re just there. Next to a 700 year old church, a 950 year old cathedral, and a pub with 600 years under its belt. History isn’t just the past it’s that it’s continuous, the people change and most forgotten, but they were there.

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GrandDukeOfNowhere@reddit

America has just as much history as anywhere else, it's just for some reason you don't count the native history, imagine if every country only counted it's history as far back as the last conquest/regime change

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RRC_driver@reddit

There’s a classic humorous book

1066 and all that

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_and_All_That

Which sums up the old style of British history

I would say that modern Britain loves history, judging by the amount of period dramas, archeological shows and the number of museums

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StillJustJones@reddit

I live in Colchester, England’s oldest recorded city. You can’t move for history round here.

I genuinely tripped over a sodding Roman era wall on my way to work this morning.

The problem is that so much of it is rammed down our throats in school and we either don’t have the time to appreciate it at our own pace or are not mature enough to recognise the wider context.

When I was in high school in the 90s the history curriculum was still very much driven by the “willy, willy, harry, steve” parade of monarchs since 1066. And the 20th century stuff which tended to grab most people.

I think we could do more to recognise the shit things we did as colonists, and the lessons we need to learn to move forward. Britain did a lot of shit things (as did others) to other nations as well as to its own people, and by not teaching it in schools we risk not actually learning lessons from history as a society. It is not “unpatriotic” to recognise your mistakes.

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EUskeptik@reddit

Well said. 👍

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freshmaggots@reddit (OP)

Yes I agree! I will say, the only time in school we really learned about you guys was about the American revolution and the tea and stuff, which I will say, kinda mad. Idk why they wasted such good tea!

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Low_Snow411@reddit

Did they teach you about the French involvement in the American revolution???? Without La Fayette's soldiers and the French navy the revolution would have been lost.

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PenaltyNo3221@reddit

“Or we are not mature enough to recognise the wider context.” This!!

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Psyk60@reddit

When I was in high school in the 90s the history curriculum was still very much driven by the “willy, willy, harry, steve” parade of monarchs since 1066.

And we didn't even have the song back then.

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EUskeptik@reddit

You don’t find it boring because it is something you don’t have as much of. The history of countries of people who emigrated to the US over the last few centuries is also your history.

Personally, I don’t take much interest in history prior to WW2. That war and what has happened since have had a colossal effect on Britain, its institutions and its people. The loss of Empire, the damage done to the fabric of Britain, the huge loss of life and the colossal debt that took so many years to pay off have together impoverished Britain and most of its people.

The rich have suffered far less, indeed many have prospered beyond their wildest dreams. Meanwhile, the poor have gotten relentlessly poorer and for many millions, the prospect of owning their own home has become an unrealisable dream. There are now around 15 million British people, around 20% of the population, living in relative poverty including 1.5 million children.

So please forgive me for taking little or no interest in my country’s history prior to the 20th century. Knowing what the Tudors and Stuarts got up to has no real bearing on my country’s current situation. I know just a few British people who are fascinated by history, and for them their interest represents escapism, a way of escaping the reality of the present.

-xx-

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PresidentPopcorn@reddit

But also because of the amount of history, the bits of it that are covered and often more summaries that talk about one or two major events. It's not boring by any stretch of the imagination but it's very difficult to get an idea of the entirety of the history (like you might do for American history) so people often pick a particular period and stick with that.

I personally gravitate towards the Anglo-Saxons but that's mainly because I live 15 miles from the site of the Sutton Hoo burial (one of the single most significant Anglo-Saxon sites ever found).

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PsychologySpecific16@reddit

The Romans, the industrial revolution and ww2 interest me quite a bit.

Speaking of ww2, "We have ways of making you talk" is anything excellent podcast going into granular detail. Featuring a ww2 historian (James Holland)

I highly recommend it.

I find anything history when laid out like that particularly interesting to be honest. Also, debunking any common myths or accepted events that don't align with the evidence.

Things like that can pass you by unless you're actively learning about whatever period in history that is.

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Hamsternoir@reddit

More recent?

WWII was a foreign war for you apart from one attack and even that wasn't mainland US.

For us it was much closer to home, literally.

We've got so much history there's plenty for everyone.

Yours is a lot more boring to me as there's so little.

For example the geological strands across the UK end up paralleling different settlement patterns and thence house constructions and thence local material usage in such era from Celtic to Saxon, Viking and Norman and beyond up until transit systems such as canals and railways or bricks were generated more modern times.

All reflected due to geological patterns and equally impact on tree species and wood usage for example. Which were impacted by ice ages as you mention. Albeit your focus is more on these larger background processes eg succession after the ice ages. Which is the right approach given how much history there is, pick what is meaningful and interesting to yourself!

How about those Mountain Hares in Derbyshire just hanging on for example?

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Another_Random_Chap@reddit

It gets more significant as you get older I think. When you're young it just doesn't matter, especially as there's so much of it.

My wife is American, and absolutely loves the Tudor era, reads and watches everything about it, gets questions right on quiz shows that the competitors get wrong etc. I could barely tell you anything about that time, other than the various castles and the like that we've visited that relate to it.

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TomatoChomper7@reddit

I think British history gets boring a little while before cameras were invented/started being used - or about the point of American independence, actually. Older stuff, with frilly clothes and Viking invasions, that stuff is all great. But when it gets to the world wars and men in suits writing treaties, boring.

I’ll take American history in the 1800s and 1900s over British. You had settling the frontier, you had cowboys and Indians. We had basically what we have now, but with more smog and worse roads.

But yes, all of the history before they started filming and photographing it feels more interesting and exotic to me.

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Barbz182@reddit

I really hate these hive mind questions. Yes we all think the exact same because we are British!

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72dk72@reddit

No it's not. Though clearly there are people that have no interest in history.

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Inner-Conference-644@reddit

I love our history. I am a coin-collector so the hobby & history go hand-in-hand.

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TaffWaffler@reddit

If any British people are interested in British history, they probably won’t have the same interests as someone else with the same interests. There are so many facets of British history, and it’s so long and storied, we have information going back to the Celtic times, that what you have an interest in probably won’t be same as most others.

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WeeklySyllabub6148@reddit

Try reading the series of Shardlake novels by CJ Sansom. They are fiction, but the novels incorporate actual significant events and real people in Henry VIII's reign from a brilliantly observed, almost eye-witness perspective. They are also superbly well-told stories that evoke the period really well.

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GreatBigBagOfNope@reddit

I absolutely fucking despise the version of British history that used to be taught back in the day which essentially starts with 1066 (or Alfred if you're lucky) and then just goes through monarchs and battles. Kings and generals are a lens through which to view history, but it also means that really important parts of peoples' history, everything from enclosure to the realities of the Luddites to Peel to press-ganging to the economic realities of the working class in the imperial core to the cultural artefacts of the common folk and so on gets relegated to background information at best.

Wild_Wolverine9526@reddit

I don’t think it’s an issue of boring or exciting. I personally think you have people who are into history, and those who are not.

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mr-dirtybassist@reddit

Nope. I love it!

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sjplep@reddit

British history is fascinating to a lot of British people, but some people tend to focus on the bits they are most interested in (the World Wars, the Tudors, Roman Britain, the Vikings etc are all popular among different sections).

But historical TV series - both fictional and non-fictional - tend to be very popular. E.g. the series 'Time Team' which was basically about archaeological digs and presented by Tony Robinson (Baldrick of Blackadder) was very popular for a long time, running for 20 years.

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Englishbirdy@reddit

No. It’s fascinating.

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Fit-Fault338@reddit

No I don’t think it is.I did a degree in History, but really I love all History.

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WashEcstatic6831@reddit

The history here is so fascinating I moved from Canada to study it and be surrounded by it! Funny enough I find the Tudor period totally overdone and boring, whereas the Neolithic/Bronze Age, Early Historic period, (previously "Dark Ages"), Viking invasions, and the transformation of communities and landscapes in the 18th-19th centuries fascinate me endlessly. The fact that within an hour's drive of my home I can visit a Roman fort, multiple standing stones and cairns, medieval harbours, Iron Age hillforts, castles, and cleared settlements means I never stop exploring.

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beeurd@reddit

No, I wouldn't say people find it boring (well I'm sure some do), but there is just so much of it that interest is spread out and diluted across the eras.

Throughout school we covered topics spread over like 6,000 years - some eras get more attention than others of course, but it'd be literally impossible to cover everything.

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

I think schoolkids find stuff boring as it is a bit of a blur. So many Kings and Queens with similar names. Henry this, James the whatever. Probably school memories of being dragged around boring country manors and derelict castles, battle sites, dusty museums and all the rest. Hundreds of years of it. I think kids find eras like the Romans and Vikings more interesting. We don't do enough 20th century history tbh.

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Forest_Ancestor_7@reddit

I love our history! It’s fascinating.

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InsaneInTheCrane79@reddit

As a History teacher I would say no, but I find it frustrating how much of the curriculum is whitewashed and/or sanitised.

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EitherChannel4874@reddit

I find it all fascinating.

We have a lot of really old historic buildings across the UK as a constant reminder of our long history.

There is so much I find large chunks of it boring as hell. Where I live had the ruins of industry dating back to Stephenson's Rocket train and I love that with a sprinkle of the Northern England conquests of the Romans, the Danes and the Scottish.

I have almost no interest in the whole Royal history thing.

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monkeyjuggler@reddit

From my experience, a lot of people only have a passing interest in history. It's not that they're not interested in British history specifically.

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Orange_Codex@reddit

Not even remotely. However, our school curriculum has a knack for making it boring.

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winobeaver@reddit

if you want to criticise the school curriculum, try learning French on Duolingo. Guaranteed you'll be at GCSE level within a couple of months (rather than five years).

Thatchers-Gold@reddit

I definitely took it for granted, as a young person you don’t really have all the tools to appreciate it or put it into perspective.

It’s funny looking back at my young self, rolling my eyes when the subject matter was like:

Epic galleon battle

Literally Game Of Thrones

How they used to put castles under siege

Vikings

Roman Legions

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SuburbanBushwacker@reddit

the problem is they way it’s taught and the narrow focus. tudors, ww2, and if your school is ultra progressive Mary Seacol. we could do so much better

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sossighead@reddit

It is to some and it isn’t to others.

Some thoughts:

British history covers a relatively long period as modern nations / collections of nations go. Where to start can be daunting I suppose.
The way it’s taught in our schools can often feel dry and uninspiring.
For a few decades there’s been an establishment position that British history = bad and that may have seeped through into attitudes to actually engaging with and learning about it.
Huge amounts of time in state schools are devoted to learning about major international events of the (relatively) recent past - notably the world wars, interwar Germany, Soviet Union, even the American civil rights movement. All great topics but barely scratch the surface of British history. I recall primary school being more interesting and focusing on all sorts of things from the Roman occupation of Britain onwards, but the depth there is quite superficial.
It feels like most average British adults are struggling to get by and make ends meet at the moment with our cost of living crisis. I’m trying to think how many average working parents actually have an hour spare at the end of the day to sit, breathe and read a history book.

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johnnycarrotheid@reddit

Felt like that with "British" History tbh, with being in Scotland.

Not boring but there are large parts of British history that isn't taught or shown much on TV

Like the starvation of the Irish in the 1840 which led to millions fleeing, which is why you find the Irish everywhere these days...it's population has never recovered, some 180 yrs later

What we did in south Africa....India...the colonials

So while the kings and queens bit are interesting, which illustrates why we are still linked to the monarchy and we think someone with a posh voice who can spout Latin is out superior (but actually isn't)

And some will argue Britain gave a lot to the world, we also pillage a lot of resources which is why for a small island nation, we punched way above what we ought to have

Twas our naval might that have her this advantage

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Delicious-Cut-7911@reddit

I love social history. I am not a fan of learning about the dates of battles. I'm more interested in how they lived, what the wore and ate. This kind of history is far from boring.

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LloydCole@reddit

I find the Tudor period boring af.

The most exciting period of British history by far is the Napoleonic Age. Being the puppet master in a continent wide struggle against one of the greatest military genius in history under the guise of being anti-bloodthirsty conquest, conquering the hinterlands of India in what definitely isn't bloodthirsty conquest, taking on the newly formed USA, colonising Australia, and undergoing the greatest economic and technological revolutionary in human history all at the same time.

It's close enough to us that at times it can feel within touching distance with its recognisable city names, landmarks, modern institutions and vast documentation; but far enough away it can feel like another world with its Emperors on horseback conquering the world and ships sailing to the ends of the earth.

Henry 8th being a fat cunt having a tiff with the pope doesn't compare.

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MovingTarget2112@reddit

I actually know more about the American Civil war than the War of Three Kingdoms.

PixelTeapot@reddit

No but there is a lot of it to try to keep abreast of.

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I'm reminded of the saying that Americans think 100 years is a long time and Brits think 100 miles is a long way :-)

I imagine many British people's views of their own history are shaped by which particular periods of history they were exposed to during school history lessons and the associated monarchs of the time.

Some periods seem to carry more weight and are probably more interesting/notable, like the Norman conquest; early Medieval period; Tudors (especially Henry the 8th and Elizabeth); the Industrial Revolution leading to the Victorian era and Empire and then World War 1 and 2 in the 20th century.

For a relatively small country we've had a large amount of interesting and influential history.

Also, I get the impression that British students are exposed to more history from other parts of the world compared to Americans. Do you agree? We learn a lot at school about Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire and the Vikings for example.

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