My interest in History and especially Military history started from building models. The instructions usually contained a brief histories/discriptions of the various vehicles and this sparked my interest and into further reading at the library as a kid and I'm still doing it.
I'm a professional student as well, having taken a few History classes along with political science, sociology, ect. I have an MPA and an MA in Criminal Justice.
I appreciate how so many things throughout history are related to politics, crime and military affairs.

Mark -

Interesting. My interest in model building comes from my interest in History. 180 from your experience and we wind up at the same place. I have degrees in both Civil and Mechanical Engineering. Your right in your assessment that the study of History leads into an interest in most other subjects. The only thing I would add to your list is economics.

In recent years, I have limited my studies to what could be called "modern" history. That period that begins with the Civil War, or the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Some people place that period as the end of the Napoleonic period - about 1815.

Question: Do you feel that History is being taught adequately today? Especially in the secondary schools?

Steve

Hi Steve,

Agreed-Economics is also related to virtually everything we experience. Excellent question,
I believe that history is not taught so well today. As you have pointed out, economics comes in to play-as budgets get cut-social sciences(history, civics, etc) get cut big time. The idea behind this is that essential subjects of reading, writing and math will remain priorities and continue to get full emphasis from teachers.

Unfortunately the teaching of history in elementary and secondary school is quite adversely affected. Many history topics are lightly glossed over and many other topics including the Civil War(let alone Napoleonic history), WWI and WWII as well as other important events such as immigration and the Industrial Revolution are only briefly mentioned if ever really discussed at all, except for a few minutes of lecture.

So no, in my experiences teaching and as a student, history is not adequately taught. We need to change this and emphasize more history/social sciences in todays schools. Budget cuts and an overemphasis on teaching students only what they will be tested/assesed on is creating a loss of crucial knowledge for our young students today.

Thanks for the reply and interesting discussion.

Interesting topic. My interest started with people and what they do. With rare exception, people make war. WW2 was a huge refinement of the art. Billions spent on millions of different facinating pieces of eouipment with which to kill your neighbor. What's not to like?

Agreed again, history unfortunately, is full of war and conflict. As people do what we do and have and always will do, we will as a result exist within or near conflicts. Politics, economics, religion, and other social forces mix and combine to produce war and conflicts. These interactions and conflicts quite often make interesting study.