As you probably know, European Union wants to introduce universal history handook for all students in countries that belong to EU. In may 2007 there was a big debate about it on some meeting and Polish minister of education as the only one, criticized the idea. He is some kind of nationalist but this is not the point. The point is - do you think that it is possible to create the same handbook for all European countries keeping in mind their completely different histories? Do you think that is is possible to make a list of most importan events in European history that could be accepted by all countries? Do you think that, in example, British major historical events are the same that could be applied to, let's say, France?

I willl not tell you my own opinion for a while. At first I'd like to know what you are thinking about it...

Well all of their historys are important to learn from but I don't think some countries will like that fact. Some countries may think their own history is more important than Europe as a whole.
So I don't know but I don't think all countries could agree on it.

The last time I studied history at school, it was clear that all of the original reports on events were contrived to make whatever country they came from look good. The write up in the textbooks wasn't that much better, but it did at least alert you to the fact that what you were reading was probably unreliable and embellished.

There would be arguments about who would write each bit. No country would like professors or experts from another country writing their history for them. This would result in every country writing about themselves and would be no different to the situation now. Plus, there would be quite a few problems with events such as WWI and WWII where Europe was not unified. It would be very difficult to get everyone to agree on exact events, unless it was written by a neutral third party. However, I can't see every nation agreeing to the Swiss writing all of European history.

Also, like you say, British major events are pretty much irrelevant in other countries. The same with French events, Spanish events, or any other country. Unifying the history books would only lead to these events being omitted, and eventually we would lose our own history.

Lol, no I dont think I'd agree in seeing our history written by the Swiss (especially since there are quite a few national tendencies and movements there lately).

Back to topic: what do you think about the quote of Alex Haley (I think, but often used elsewhere too) in that case:
"History is written by the winners."
How to unify the history if you have lost a war in your own countrys history for example? There are still too many past happenings where different countries have a different view at (as an example: the turkish genocide with the kurds... Turkey still dooms the western world's view on it. Well, for God's sake turkey is not in the EU yet...).

Of course it is, obviously, it is more then pssible to create this book.

Obviously too, the book can not be too big, i mean, the book must only contain the most special events of each european country or else it will be a very big book to read!

In my opinion, this can be a very interesting book to read, not only for students but also for anyone that desire to read it, for any age so to speak.

Maybe its interesting. But does it really serve the purpose of the history lesson? If you read and learn about something that never affected your own countries history, never affected your ancestors? The students might ask themselves why they should learn that. And the important things of your own countries history could fade into the background...

I know the European Union doesn't have a long history, but I think it is important for children to learn it. Why? Because it will be a common subject... it will bring us together. It's not a big thing, but it is a start. Even in todays Europe there are still a lot of hate... I'm sure that the Germans, for example, haven't forgot that they lost 2 world wars, even though the Chancellor doesn't comment on that. So anything that tightens the bonds between countries is a good thing. A must would be a common European language; a language that wouldn't belong to a country but would be artificially created to serve this objective... a language similar to Esperanto.
Bottom line is that a European history would be a good thing since it will underline cooperation between countries. And that is something our children should learn.

Adriantc, "the European Union doesn't have a long history", do you care to explain?

If you mean by that that europe does not have a great and very long history, man, you are way wrong! If you mean by that that the proper union of some european countries do not have a long history, obviously it is the truth, still, all countries have long and great history to share, to fill up a part of a book, a book where all countries can add their great achievements or events, and beleave me, if you do not know, any european country has a very big, long and great history behind it, i know for sure, i love to study history, specially from my own country, Portugal, which by the way, has a BIG history, way bigger then most of the world countries.

This post has been edited by Lyon2: Oct 25 2007, 06:48 PM

Sorry me, but you know something wrong about Turkey.
Turkey doesn't genocide with the Kurds. But the Iraq leader Saddam Hussein genocided with the Kurds in 1991s. And Turkey has opened his own borders to save Kurdish people from Iraq.
Kurds are exist today because of TURKEY's helps. But you are saying about genocide. There is no genoci