Haunted America By Patricia Nelson Limerick

Why acknowledge history? The solution is because we essentially must to achieve access to the laboratory of human involvement. In the essay “Haunted America”, Patricia Nelson takes a truly various and remarkably gallant stance on United States history. Through the recounting of the White/Modoc war in “Haunted America,” she brings to light the complexity and confusion of the White/Indian conflicts that is often missing in much of the history we read. Her account of the war, with the faults of both Whites and Indians revealed, is an unusual alternative to the stereotypical “Whites were good; Indians were bad” or the reverse stand point that “Indians were good; Whites were bad” conclusions that many historians reach. Limerick argues that a very brutal and bloody era has been simplified and romanticized, reducing the lives and deaths of hundreds to the telling of an uncomplicated story of “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys”.

The world is full of rich culture, diversity and experiences unique to each individual. When determining the validity of historic accounts we must factor in that particular historian’s point of view, which should be characterized by ethnicity, idealogy, theoretical or methodological preference. With these factors views of the past often vary from person to person. In this essay I will be discussing the four different stages that shaped the writing of American history over the last 400 years.

1-) The Civil war was one of the top most important thing in our history. This was our nation splitting into two parts. The South wanted to keep the slaves for work and the voting benefit, while the North did not think that the slaves should be treated in that way. President Abraham Lincoln at the time was the 16th person to hold office believed in the Declaration of Independence, because he wanted everyone to have a choice to be free. Due to the war both sides lost a great amount of soldiers, it is said to believe that the war lasted four long years. The North won because eventually the South lost all ammunition and was not able to keep on fighting. Although the slavery finally ended the racism did not stop. This is a big step towards peoples voice being heard.

Looking back at American History, we can see many instances where bravery and courage combined with a leap of faith changed the course of our country's history. The declaration of independence was perhaps the most significant of all those actions. In the late 1700's Britain began abusing their colonies in America, this did not sit well with the colonists, and soon people could no longer endure such unfairness and hardship. The founding fathers were more than justified to declare independence from Britain, liberating the people of America from the tyranny and abuse of the British crown.

Reading Assignment #2 The topic of this excerpt, Haunted America, by Patricia Nelson Limerick, is about how brutal the Indian-White war was and the various patterns that she found that started this prolonged war. Limerick conveys the chain of events that led to the Indian-White war to let the readers be more knowledgeable about this cruel war that occurred to create the United States of America. The author uses the story of the Modocs that corresponds to the patterns that she writes about. For example she writes, “The Modoc’s War’s most distressing examples of the breakdown of white solidarity came in a few episodes in which uninjured soldiers refused to help the wounded during retreats” (P.49).

Over the past few weeks of class, we have covered the first five chapters of our textbook, written by George Brown Tindell and David Emory Shi called, “America, A Narrative History.” Each chapter told the reader a narration of the history of America, as opposed to an expository version of America’s history. Each chapter had its own main idea over a portion of history, along with many details that cover the importance of the main idea. As a reader, one may obtain a deeper appreciation for the country 's history, prior to entering the class on the first day. The most important aspect of history, besides the battles that are fought, is the different cultures that make up today’s modern America.

Storytelling does not tell the total truth from every memory. Memories do not last forever like stories do. As the soldiers in The Things They Carried tell war stories, they have to twist their memory while retelling stories because otherwise their audience may not believe them. The author Tim O’Brien says, “You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (O’Brien 65) because war is not the best thing ever to happen to people. Storytelling does not always come from the total truth but the experience of the

     Will racism ever come to an end or will its path go on infinitely? For the most part, the majority of people respect those who are different either in color, race, and/or heritage; however, there are those few that hold bigoted views towards people who are different than they are. The movie American History X by Tony Kaye displays an example of people who hold bigoted views. Derek, a Neo-Nazi leader, must contend with his actions relating to his past racist views and actions. This powerful movie explores its characters thoroughly and gives reasons why people become so callous and turn towards a racist group. It also exposes insight to problems that plague America when it comes to racism in

     Although the federal governments attitudes and actions towards blacks and Native Americans civil rights in the 19th century were very different they also had lots of similarities. Both blacks and Native Americans were treated poorly and did not have many rights. Blacks were slaves and Indians (Native Americans) were fighting to stay alive. All these negative actions were a bad look for a country that was growing bigger and bigger by the day to someday reach what the United States is today.

“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.”

History also helps prepare one to face the future, so one does not repeat the same mistakes. The quote “History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future” explains that history is not something one can program and plan out. History is information of events of what happened such as, how one’s background and places came to be, so one does not have to question life and the world. History also helps one by revealing important information that can be used to help improve the future. For example, 9/11 was a terrible event that had happened in 2001. People use that piece of information and make a better future. After the event, the security of airports and the military was improved drastically to prevent the mistakes from happening again. If the same mistake were to happened again, money and time would be wasted to recover the damages and many people will lose their lives. The quote means one cannot program and plan out history for the future, but history can be used as information to understand the world and improve the

Americas history is what defines us and who we are as a country. We were built on hard work, sacrifice, wanting to be free and independent to be who we want to. Now a-days, we seem to have fallen away from this. Everything is given to us so easily on our computer and through technology that we have no need to work hard anymore. This is the downfall in humanity because as we keep going, life will continue to get easier and we won’t want to do anything. History is our hope so that we can learn from what we did in our past and how things were done then.For starters, we can see what mistakes we did and make sure we don’t do them again. If we continue to the same thing over and over again, there’s no way for our society to improve from this. Our

American society is known for having the highest standard of living across the globe; this is solely due to the consumerist culture that is brought forth by capitalism. Americans in the U.S. take pride in these standards and in the freedoms that this democratic nation has established. The 20th century will always be remembered in American history as a century of radical changes on the social and political fronts of the nation. Literature, too, evolved quickly from specific, compartmentalized fields which fit into categories, to works which had no set definition—nobody knew what to do with them. These changes also took place in poetry; artistic expression began to change across the arts and so did the mediums. Poets across the nation

United States, 2006: a nation with a history of a mere 230 years, yet it stands as one of the most powerful nations in the world. Yet many of us know little about the history and cultural changes that led to the birth of this nation. We only know the bits and pieces that are taught as we sit daydreaming in our fifth grade classroom. The Puritans, the Pilgrims, Christopher Columbus, the Mayflower, we know about these people and things, yet what aspects of their lives created the change in America? The answer to this question can be found by observing the changes in religion, women's role, and colonial law as it brought about the change in the Puritan's cultural values.

History is an area of study that relies heavily on memory and language. The events that have governed the past are carefully analyzed to evaluate their patterns. The purpose of studying the past is to learn from mistakes in order to not repeat them again. This process evokes a gain in knowledge which helps one make decisions regarding the present and the future. However, if knowledge gained from studying history is not applied in the right manner, is it essentially losing value?