History

Random memory: 5th grade, having just learned about Tiananmen Square, asking my mom why Communism still exists in China when "everyone knows that it's bad."

Mom's response: "It's not that simple..."
[I don't actually remember the rest of the sentence lol. Probably something about how it's really difficult to just change a government like that, because some people actually saw it as a good thing. Or maybe that's how I'd try to answer my 10-year-old self.]

I don't know how long it took me to grasp what she really meant, but looking back on it now... It's weird to be able to distinctly recall a time when you thought of things completely differently.

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At the moment I'm currently reading A History of the Modern Middle East by Cleveland. I'll admit that I've read more excitingly narrated nonfiction books in the past, but by history textbook standards it's actually fairly interesting, and doesn't feel as dense as say People's History of the US.

A few thoughts while reading so far, which probably will not be of interest to anyone up-to-date on their history:

- This book glosses over subjects a lot faster than other nonfiction books... which is probably a given for it being a tertiary source, but still. One moment you're reading about the monarchy in Iraq for the first time, and then the next thing you know the royal family gets killed off in a sentence and it's bye-bye monarchy. Not even a word on how they died. But eh, I'm planning to read more books after this one anyway.

- This is a topic that's been addressed by Lies My Teacher Told Me (decent read by the way), but I've been realizing more how inadequate my history classes in the past have been at addressing recent events. The textbooks always tended to taper off somewhere around the Gulf Invasion, but at some point after Watergate I think my mind would just stop retaining anything that we learned... aside from Reagan=trickle-down economics, but I didn't really care by that point lol.

But moreover, I think what I really missed was the ability to make connections between the events we did learn about in class and the current events ongoing at the time. I mean, I was able to see the connections between the events we learned about during class, but take a look at the news on any given day and I'd always experience a disconnect, as if people who really were able to keep up with current events were in on something that I had no idea of... which technically was true in a way.

- Part of the reason why I'm reading about Middle East history now is because I want to get a better understanding of what's been going on in that area today and why, considering how pervasively often it's been in the news for the past decade and then some. I mean, I feel like for as long as I can remember I kinda just assumed things were messed up there... because it's always been that way (see this previous post), but when you actually start to read up on that region's history from a considerably less Western-centric view, it really starts to change how you see things.

- I used to view Islam similar to how I viewed Communism like above, but learning about it now, it's made me realize how much of a stabilizing presence it brought to the Arab peoples of the past (and to some extent presently... well that's another story). That's not to say it isn't without its own issues either, but I can see why people in the Middle East would seek out renewed forms of Islamic governance especially in response to the governments they had to deal with in the 20th century.

- To summarize the last 150 pages read... McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Balfour Declaration, Sykes-Picot (...Britain and France really screwed things up here), skip a few and World War II, and then you have the era of Nasser and the Arab-Israeli Wars up to the June War and Nasser's fall from grace. I just reached the chapter on the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and I have to say it makes a lot more sense now knowing the general background of the decades leading up to it from Iran's perspective rather than having it turn up in the middle of nowhere during American history class. I guess that's a show of the extent of my ignorance of things up to this point.

- I would really like to play a game that simulates 20th century geopolitics. Like with the addictiveness of Civilization, the historical accuracy of Europa Universalis, and for once actually going past the World War II era that a bunch of other games seem to be preoccupied with. Well okay, I realize the caveat of these games is that the longer you play them, the further away from reality they get with all of the alternative "what-if" decisions you end up making, but still.

Or maybe I just want to watch/interact with a computer simulation that shows all of the major world events in history happen via the graphical interface of a 4X Civ/EU style game. Like a universal world replay or something that lets you zoom in on specific countries and events and directly links you to the relevant wikipedia article or whatever if you want to read more. I mean, I'm practically wikiing every major world leader I come across in my book anyway.

- Ryan will probably groan if he ever sees this haha, but some part of me wonders why I never set aside the time to take an actual history class (Race and American Film only half-counted) in college. I'm pretty sure I would've enjoyed it. Screw all those pre-med courses I took... even though I don't really regret those either.

- All of a sudden, I really want to watch Lawrence of Arabia. After I finish this book, probably.