This is an introduction to a series of post-types, Hi.Story, with short historical anecdotes and lessons.
One of my more creative friends, prior to becoming a father, accidentally encapsulated my love of history and its root in the form of a parody product — the history box.
We had a mock commercial in mind, shadows danced across a dimly lit parlor, an engulfing wing-back chair backlit by a roaring fire, sitting wherein with brandy in-hand, I would read history to, or otherwise regale, an adjacent but cardboard box enclosed child.
We never quite determined if it it would function purely as an educational opportunity or a thinly veiled disciplinary tool, perhaps both.
I suppose… it’s subjective, depending on who was within earshot.
I can sympathize.
In all things, what we come to love or loathe, or later become enthralled by are dependent on or at least influenced by our initial encounters with them, how they’re framed.
For many, history is synonymous with rote memorization of dates or relearning the same tired and shallow curriculum on the Pilgrims, Lincoln, etc. year over year.
I’ve had my share of those undermining moments. Highlights:
5th Grade: A teacher, with a mullet, insistent to the end that Columbus and his crew, not the vikings were the first Europeans to land on North American Soil.
6th Grade: Though for other reasons I deserved many more, I received my one and only detention for reading a book about Napoleon during recess instead of playing or chasing a friend with a stick.
But sophomore year in my high-school’s World Cultures class? That deserves special enshrinement in the halls of infamy and annals of shoddy teaching…
Our teacher jumbled the names of Japan’s two most eminent shoguns on the board, a fact I corrected prior to class’ start. That gesture was of little use though, as we subsequently attached an anime special, sailor moon, next.
For Africa? We watched the live action George of the Jungle movie in class, twice.
Returning from an absence and apparently having heard from a substitute, said teacher stood me up and chewed me out in front of the class, for what she framed as the crime of preaching satanism! Threatening escalation and suspension in the process. I was and remain, pettily, pleased to report that I had, in fact, been talking to a classmate about “The Devils Horsemen”, a book about the mongols. One, I’d been reading of my own accord.
I’d name that teacher as a public service, but since she later went to prison for embezzling our homecoming committee’s funds, I’ll assume she’s not interacting with or influencing school children much these days.
Suffice it to say, any one of those experiences could have grenaded my interest in history. But, there was a time where none of that mattered anyway.
As a child newly arrived in the country, I was obsessed with harpy eagles and dinosaurs, at some point I ran out of books on those and “graduated” to comics and their imaginary heroics.
But that initial affair, like so many – more interesting ones – came to an early and tragic end when… my parents stepped in.
Standards of discipline and what constitutes respect or the lack thereof differ in certain cultures. South Africa’s at the time was a bit more rigid. The Simpsons were verboten as Bart was too disrespectful, DnD was banned outright, even Mario would prove a bit much…
With the reasoning that they were making me disrespectful, and perhaps even volatile, my comic books, collector’s cards, and Nintendo were rounded up and put under lock and key.
In retrospect, I was just an early adolescent, a mercurial one with a penchant for bad poetry at that!
Sometimes a singular love or interest needs to be shelved too.
I was soon a regular at two local libraries, somehow allowed unsupervised to haunt an isle that called to me… history.
The contents within were far more captivating and… disturbing than what I’d been exposed to earlier, worse yet they were real!
From the power struggles of the Second World War to Mongol dealings with duplicitous Syrian officials and beyond, the real tale is almost always far more intriguing and insidious than any illustrated and fantastical offering.
So, what do Spider-Man and Subutai have in common? Why did the absence of the one so readily transfer to an interest in the other?
Serious historians and dour academics of the worst sort will scoff or grumble about over simplification or the erosion of the field’s gravitas, but its storytelling.
Here lie countless heroes, villains, and lessons of another sort. Ones we can readily reference and find patterns in if we’re willing to excavate, that’s how the subject should be approached, that’s where the common failings and insights can be best mined, taken to heart.
So somewhere in a dusty box, a marvelous bunch of misfits are gathering dust, but the stories and lessons from history?
Those still resonate with and shape how we interact with the world around us.
I’ll share a few notable examples in the months to come.
P.S. One day, we may have to make the ad on principle, even if only for an excuse to follow up with a faux-tech event spoof for its replacement, the history box mini.
Bonus(es)
George of the Jungle Trailer
I can only recall making one friend in high-school by blathering on about Byzantium, don’t be this guy (language warning), for a number of reasons…