Find the historical records and analyze them yourself.AP World History - Stearns Chapter Notes/Outlines AP World History Read several books of different perspectives. My opinions have always been: do not just belief everything the history book says, even if it is a text book. It gave me a good reason to talk to my daughter about the objectiveness of history. And when did genocide become a legitimate method to peace? The Yuan rulers did not have the basic respect of human life, they killed people as if they were animals, and you think they would respect people's religion and tolerate their beliefs? They did not care what religion people believed, but that is NOT tolerance. I do wish the authors of this chapter someday enjoy the same religious freedom and global interactions they sang such high praises in the book, which probably is the only way to help they to see the unspeakable cruelty that these conquers brought upon ordinary people. It is like saying, for every 100 Chinese lived there, the Yuan rulers came in and killed 91% of them, bringing peace and "tolerating" the religious believes of the remaining 9 people, who were probably too busy trying to survive the genocide than worrying about their religious freedom. Again, using an example from Chinese history, this book talked about how the Yuan Dynasty brought peace to Asia, and how tolerant the Yuan rulers were to the religious beliefs after they conquered China and other regions - totally BS (!!!) considering how many people they killed. I cannot find a politically correct word to describe it politely. (2) The political correctness of this book is. For example, Chinggis Khan's great-grandfather could not possibly win glory by defeating the army of the Qin kingdom (page 316), at least without time-traveling! It is very confusing, and sometimes amusing, to see Qin incorrectly mentioned in many places in chapters related to Korean, Japan, and Yuan Dynasty. There are several Qin empires/kingdoms in Chinese history, but the only two related to the Jurchens are either Jin (which took down Liao Dyansty and drove Song Dynasty to south), or the Qing empire (which was the empire after Ming Dynasty). (b) The kingdom the Jurchens established is not Qin, as the book said so many times in Asia chapters. By the same logic, there are more than one Wendi in Chinese history, so it is not appropriate to call Yang, Jian simply by "Wendi" (especially when he was only a noble family member before becoming the emperor, as stated on page 264), he's the Wendi for the Sui Dynasty, so the appropriate temple name is Sui Wen'di, and his real name is Yang, Jian. Taizu simply means the beginner ruler of a dynasty, which Zhao Kuang'yin was for the Song Dynasty. Instead of making him a deity (as the Romans did), Chinese Emperor was given a temple name/title based on his virtue or achievements as a ruler. Zhao Kuang'yin was not renamed Emperor Taizu (as the book says on page 272) - he never changed his name, Taizu is the temple title he got after he died. (a) Don't mix the names of the Chinese Emperors with their temple names/titles that they got after their death. Just to give a couple examples in Chinese history, since this is where the class is at for the end of the first quarter. Two things in this book bothered me the most: I can understand why some kids who loved history hate this book. As much as I love history and reading, I did not enjoy reading this particular history book. Teachers who expect HS students to read the book and get most of it are kidding themselves. The reading level is a bit over a high school sophomore, especially for a class that finishes a chapter (20-30 pages) within a week, in about two sessions, with all the quiz and testing time included. Reading it because my daughter complaints about her APWH teacher does not teach.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |