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human
CMV: US high schools put focus on the wrong countries when teaching European History.

N.B.: This class is talking about Renaissance forward since that is the scope of most high school history classes.

I have taken and heard about several courses in European history in the US. These all seem to focus mainly on England and France except till the world wars when Germany is partially included. The central narrative of these classes is that European History is a story of Britain rise to dominance and their struggles with France. This narrative leads to a disproportianate amount of time being spent on Britain and to a lesser degree France. A better narrative would be one that talks more about the importance of the Dutch and Germans. This leads to students having aggregious ideas of how the world was.

The main issues I see with students perspectives are:

1. Failure to see when ww1's causes started.
2. Lack of understanding how Germany unified.
3. Lack of understanding how the Nazi party came to power and how ww2 was inevitable.
4. Lack of understanding of Germany's strength before ww1.
5. Failure to understand how strong the Dutch Republic was.

What needs to be changed:

1. Most students and teachers peg the cause of ww1 on the Franco-Prussian war. This ignores the causes of the Franco-Prussian war which are normaly chalked up to Bismarck's unification. Alliance networks is a common response too although that explanation is not talking about the change that occured. Both these explanation ares lazy and don't give a full picture.
2. Mostly they say nationalism. That doesn't explain anything though. A cause for nationalism should be given and the war of German Liberation is what should be thought of as the begining of the build up to ww1.
3. Mostly it is just the depression. That again doesn't tell the full story; it is also the rampant nationalism of the time which was only enhanced by Versailles.
4. In most classes Britain is talked of as the strongest power in the world from Napoleon till the end of ww1. This ignores the fact that the intelectual and cultural capital of Europe was Berlin. The best thought was in Berlin along with many influential people from around the world. Germany was also the vastly superior military which many students I have talked to don't think is true.
5. The Dutch republic should be something of great importance to these classes, but is normally just a few days if even that. Many people will answer England as the dominant commercial power during the 17th century when that is simply not the case.

History education needs to be reshaped to give a coherent narrative for the history of Europe till now.
gpt
The reason England gets so much coverage between napolean and ww1 is Canada, south Africa, Palestine, India, Australia... the British empire was the pinnacle of colonialism and we want to understand the transition from c oppo colonialism to whatever post ww2 world. Also you can understand the impact GB had globally.  Germany never got into the colonial game like that. The story of Germany is less global and more euro centric.