“History is the memory of states.”
-H. Kissinger
What does the state What does the state remember and how?remember and how?
•Remembering is intentional•Memories must be reinforced/aroused
•Social institutions (families, schools, religious traditions) are vehicles for reinforcing
memory
Who do we remember, who do we forget?
“We must not accept the memories of states as our
own” – H. Zinn• “The historian’s distortion is more
than technical, it is ideological…” (7).
• “Nations are not communities and never have been”(8).
• “It is the job of thinking people… not to be on the side of the executioner”(8).
Pre-Pre-contact contact Cultural Cultural AreasAreas
The The Pueblo Pueblo PeoplePeople
Cahokia Cahokia (Mississippi River (Mississippi River
Valley)Valley)
Aztec EmpireAztec Empire
Haudenosaunee (Iroqouis)
Colonial AmericaColonial America
Colonists did Colonists did not call not call themselves themselves Americans Americans until the mid until the mid 1818thth century. century.
European contact with European contact with the Americasthe Americas
With Europeans With Europeans came slaughter, came slaughter, slavery, and slavery, and diseases lethal diseases lethal to Native to Native Americans.Americans.
How did the Indian How did the Indian nations survive?nations survive?
Why did they come?Why did they come?
The Protestant Reformation
Capitalism
Increased Religious Persecution
1400s-1600s
Italian Renaissance
and
“The Age of Discovery”
Europe was divided -- Europe was divided -- 15601560
The The Transatlantic Transatlantic Slave TradeSlave Trade
The English ColoniesThe English Colonies
Pilgrims and Pilgrims and PuritansPuritans
What did they believe?What did they believe?
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