Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the United States"

I was just about to start a thread about this show.

It REALLY has me wondering about what the actual truth is. And whether or not I want to know.

 

What I've read in this thread about the content of the Untold History makes me think people should have better high school history classes.

I also think it's probably dangerous to provide a packaged interpretation of history to a bunch of people who are passively consuming the information instead of actively investigating it. That's more propaganda than it is history, even if the interpretation is sound. The consumer doesn't know the other arguments they're imlpicitly rejecting.

One of the greatest history books I've ever read was a slim little thing on Stalinism (it might have even been called On Stalinism). All it did was outline the umpteen different arguments on what Stalinism is. Historians all know all the academic arguments that run back in forth in their journals because they're in the biz, and that one book condensed the whole discourse into 100 pages. So useful for an undergrad who don't know ****.

 

These shows are great history overviews, I recommend casting your Oliver Stone preconceptions aside and watch them.

 

Hell yes, ditch the local, state or regional stuff; get a lot more global powers and especially European (Western) history in by elementary and junior high.

 

Condense slavery and civil rights to about 50 pages too while we're at it

 

Well, Mathloon, I decided to play along and watch Episode 3. Just will note beforehand that your statement of "internal Japanese government statements" sets off massive alarm bells in my BS-meter, because if it's what I think it is, it displays a complete inability to understand how government works, how Japan works, and how the Imperial Japanese government worked.

 

Thinking about watching it, though Oliver Stone is a sensationalist hack of a director (still can't forgive him for The Doors)

 

The Dresden part, and the Hiroshima part, I could tolerate. Misguided, obvious flaws to pick out even without sources ("internal Japanese government statements" were in fact, either complete bull**** from the director or merely a misguided failure to understand just how fragmented and at the same time bug**** insane the Imperial Japanese cabinet really was). I'm also going to point out that even if what Stone claims about the influence of the Soviet invasion is completely true, there is absolutely no way that the Americans could have known that that would be the case at the time they dropped the bomb.

The whole "The atom bomb caused the Cold War because it made the Soviets not trust us", however, was bull**** and infuriating, and of COURSE I should have realized that Stone would somehow go into moralizing that somehow the Cold War is America's fault. That was actually infuriating than the rest of it.

 

I haven't watched a second of it, so maybe I don't have the context, but I agree that does sound like a dumb argument.

 

Good one, *******. Try to find something better to do than trolling black posters out of context.

 

He seemed to be a lot nicer to Stalin, who I think might've killed as many Russians as Hitler, than he was to Truman.

 

I've watched most of them. Pretty informative. It's hard to know where the truth begins and ends on this stuff.

Also watched most of Michael Moore's "Capitalism- A Love Story" last night. Quite sure he is onto a lot of truth in that documentary. Loved it when he pulled the armored car onto Wall Street and started trying to make citizen's arrests and re-claiming tax dollars!

 

These kind of accusation should not start with "think" or 'might' .

Why not just keep up with your propaganda---------"Stalin was so bad that he killed millions of his own people, who also happen to be our enemy. How pity"

 

I need you to explain how my pointing out Stalin's cold-blooded savagery is propaganda, while Stone failing to do so even once in his historical documentary isn't.