For years and years history’s development have been so great, that its amounts never made it complete. Opinions, viewpoints and thoughts expressed by different peoples were never together as one. Politicians, Immigrants, Indians, Women, Farmers, etc. have always had their side of the story, and it has always been either one or the other, either poor or rich, either the winner or the loser. Yet it should be that of both.
The world should aim for the completion of the history. Should aim for understanding the truths from both sides of the story. Alas so far, it hasn’t been accomplished. By reading the first chapter of John Garraty and the first chapter of Howard Zinn’s texts, which deal with the conquest of the Americas and Native Americans, prove the validity of the theme that the history is not complete. From the reading of John Garraty’s text, there is more stated about the history of Europe at that time and its relationship with the development in the Americas.
There is a mentioning of the major goals why people ever went for the discoveries of the new land. It talks about the Protestant Reformation, the Bubonic plague, the settlements of the Europeans in the new lands, yet it doesn’t really concentrate on the topic of Native Americans while Howard Zinn points it out in his work. While reading Zinn’s first chapter, he mentions different tribes like Arawaks, who are not mentioned in the Garraty’s text, Cherokees, Powhatan, and the League of the Iroquois, how they were affected, how they affected the settlements and how the settlements affected them. He also mentions the Aztec and the Inca civilization, and how they were treated with the arrival of the Spaniards. Therefore, while reading Garraty’s chapter, and not finding this history in the text, it feels like there is a missing page, a ripped piece of history, which makes the history of the conquest of the Americas more complete, alas it doesn’t exist. Yet even thought there is such a critique of John Garraty’s book because of its missing history, same critique can be stated towards Howard Zinn’s book for its missing parts.
The Review on Hap Prelims – Counter Factual History (Key Readings)
Martin Bunzl, ‘Counterfactual History: A User’s Guide’, at: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.3/bunzl.html plus the online discussion of this article John Keegan, ‘How Hitler could have won the war’, in Robert Cowley (ed.), What if? Military historians imagine what might have been (1999), pp. 295-309, and ‘Introduction’ Niall Ferguson, ‘One among many’, in Times Literary ...
The criticism of both books is coming from their lack of concentration on all parts of the history. Both authors mainly concentrate on one side with John Garraty’s being that of the side of the Europeans, and with Howard Zinn’s that of Native Americans. It also doesn’t mean that by combining the two the result would be a complete history, but it will definitely fill some of the empty spaces of each. Therefore, it is important that people know both. By reading about the same topic from different points of view, one can fully understand it’s history, and that is the only way to make the history complete in one’s head, which may then go in writing for the purpose of others.
And so the conclusive fact is that no history so far has been fully naked. It is still covered with myths and lies. It didn’t fully show its true face, its true color, its weakness within its strength, which leaves no doubt and worry, just sooths of the world throughout the ages, sooths of peace, death, life, and war.
