Mostly related to #2, that's what most annoyed me about school-taught history. Sure, the Japanese, just for the hell of it, spend a bunch of money sending planes to Hawaii and that's how poor ol' innocent United States ended up in WWII. C'mon, why did the Japanese do it? It wasn't until years later that I learned anything about a blockade in the Pacific. I mean I can understand a little "America: fuck yeah!" attitude, but no one thought to mention that little tidbit?

The entire planet gets into a war in the early 1900s because some two-bit archduke of something-or-other got shot? WTF? Woah, back up there, Teach; you've got some explaining to do. (And when I read the explanation years later, I still go "WTF?")

Point is, if the cliche is correct then we're doomed to repeat history again and again because there seems to be little effort to explain why things happened. What the hell was the U. S. doing in some dot on the map in Southeast Asia in the 60s? Domino theory? C'mon, I doubt anyone believed that even at the time if a ten-year old version of myself is saying, "how dumb do you think I am?"

But, as you mention, it would seem that there's little enough time to teach the timeline, let alone explain the treaty situation of early 1900s Europe such that WWI makes sense.

I guess we had a pretty good history teacher. She drilled into our minds that any important historical event usually had an underlying cause, a corroborating cause and a triggering cause (and often more than one of each category). So for instance on WWI, we learnt not only about Archduke Ferdinand and the Serbian "Black Hand" movement, but also about the geopolitical frictions that already existed between Austria-Hungary and Russia over the Balkan situation, etc.

That's brilliant! How much more useful than arguing over the 'great man' theory etc. Just lay out the causes and understand how they contribute.

Btw I was at the WWI memorial in Kansas City (created just a few years after the war) and they list Darwin as a cause of the war! The leaders of the world had read his "Origin of the Species". It was variously interpreted politically to mean 'the strongest culture will win' and used by the German leadership to justify war. War was natural, it would winnow the nations down to just those worthy of survival, and Germany was the most worthy.

Eugenics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

from wikipedia: "The attack on Pearl Harbor was intended to neutralize the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and hence protect Japan's advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, where it sought access to natural resources such as oil and rubber."

The cause of war is not usually taught. It's the events that led up to war that is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_on...