History books are what they are. When I look back at some of my old books from college (early 70's) it's a little scary. Most will accept what they read or just ignore it. If a few wish to study further; the job has been done. I talk to many people whom I consider intelligent but have no concept of history ( actually most of them can't string three written words together that make sense but that's a whole different area) Not sure if this is bad; tend to agree with areich, it's been this way forever and will continue so. Do what you can, but don't lose sleep over it.
When I look back at my
history lessons and associated books, from
Ireland four decades ago, I'm struck now by how appallingly biased they were, entirely nationalistic in tone, and considering all actions by
United Kingdom politicians (
Ireland was
part of the UK from 1800 until 1922, and was a British province from about 1200 to 1800) solely from the perspective of how they impacted
Ireland. Thus Oliver Cromwell (an English
Republican politician whose actions greatly strengthened the role of Parliament in ways that
still affect us today) was considered the devil incarnate because of
his treatment of a specific Irish rebellion. And so on. I realised quite early in life, even before leaving secondary school, that my
history lessons
had all been portrayed through green-tinged lenses. By my early years in college I'd woken up abruptly, and was capable of making independent historical assessments for myself, that were informed by wider selections of sources, and by authors from a wider range of countries (some of whom, of course,
had their own inept biases). Three decades later, and from the top to the bottom of my historical experience database (including on thorny issues such as colonisation) I've come to my own views on rights and wrongs, despite attempts to spoon-feed me conventional views by dumbed-down television programmes or well-paid popular historians.
So, don't despair of the kids. A teen who is fed
poor quality, condescending, simplistic or moralistic
Roman history, supplemented by television-historians with an added dose of Antiques Roadshow, can
still use
his superb intelligence, as yet unfuddled by alcohol, to seek and consume wider intelligent sources and make up
his own mind on, for example, the relative blame to be attached to
Julius Caesar, Pompey and
Cicero for the beginnings of the
Roman Civil Wars.