History of the Unites States: Preface
As things now stand
the criticism advanced
no teacher of history will deny this
we have omitted
all descriptions of battles
the time-honored stories of exploration
and the biographies of heroes are left out
First, there is the primary book
civil war
No youth called upon to serve
so useful
in arousing
the interest of the immature
upon negative features
upon constructive features
this condition of affairs
time-honored stories
the addition of forty or fifty thousand words
the historians assume
more facts, more dates, more words
In this condition of affairs
our first contribution is one of omission
pupils know little or nothing
about Columbus
Cortes, Magellan, or
Captain John Smith
it is useless to tell the same stories
It is worse than useless
it is an offense against
those subjects
that are demonstrated to be
progressive
in character
In the field of military
teachers of history are mere novices
The dramatic scene
seems out of place
on the very threshold
of life's
serious responsibilities
we find our justification
in American history
©MMVIII Derek R. Audette
poem by Derek R. Audette
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Related quotes
By Those Interested In War History
By those interested in war history war history is read
But the winners write the war history or so it is said
That is how it is and will always be
What is true to one is not to another that's how it seems to me
Of war and war heroes many stories are written and many poems to recite
And mostly of war winners that war writers stories do write
And readers believe what they want to believe
And the mothers of the war dead for their dead children grieve
In war as in life 'tis the winners who count
And the stories of losers to little amount
For the dead war heroes many a parade
And far too many films of war have been made
And 'tis mostly the winners write the war history
That is how it is and always will be.
poem by Francis Duggan
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History?
Has history taught us nothing
but tales and ancient lies?
All wrapped up in stories
not told us by the wise?
Told by the vicars who consecrated death
Told by the rulers
with power in their breath.
Passed on in written words
in books the masses read,
never questioned, never disputed
in the minds they lead.
Slanted stories still present
right to our present day.
Foes of peace seen as heroes
in ungodly ways
and as we live the history writers
will pen each blazing act
as benificent for these difficult times,
more fiction than true fact.
So those who follow in our steps
will read our history book
and what they read will be fantasy
with a different look.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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The Heroes Of Tureengarriffe
'Tis part of Duhallow and Sliabh Luacra history now how Sean Moylan and his men
Ambushed and inflicted heavy losses on the Black and Tans at Tureengarriffe Glen
Almost three decades before I was even born and all but nine decades ago
Since the heroes of North Cork and East kerry into the status of legends did grow
One thing that can be said of war is that heroes it never does fail to create
And even the victors of the smallest battles we always do see fit to celebrate
The winners write the history of the battles that's how it is and will always be
In the annals of Sliabh Luachra and Duhallow the heroes of Tureengarriffe created their own history
Around the fire-grate when I was a young boy the old men stories of battles told
They took up arms for Irish Independence when they were younger men in days of old
Long past their prime and they had done their fighting but at the end did it matter that much at all
The British left and the civil war then started which gave rise to the birth of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail,
The heroes of Tureengarrife now are resting in their towns and villages in cemeteries far away
Eventually they fell to the scythe of the reaper it can be said of them they had their day.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Multicultural Melbourne
Melbourne Immigration Museum
I stroll,
Past history,
Past lives,
Past stories.
I see for the first time MY nation’s history,
My nations courage,
My nations suffering,
My eyes glaze over
And realisation creeps up on me.
I see stories of the past and present,
Played out before me,
The lives of Australia’s people,
Australia’s history
poem by Katie Anne
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I need to keep my story count high. I'm trying to get as many stories in my hour as is humanly possible. We're telling more stories in our hour than any national newscast has in the history of this business, I think.
quote by Shepard Smith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stories
Through every window, we look out
what we see on the other side
holds many stories waiting to unfold.
Stories of great achievements
within someone’s life.
Stories of gathering love
found with in open arms.
Stories of perusing heartaches
where someone has gone away.
Stories a million fold
that surround every living thing.
Stories we are not aware of,
but happen before our eyes.
Stories to share with all
from those who can see them unfold.
The next time you look out a window
try and see what is really there,
the stories that are everywhere.
26 July 2009
poem by David Harris
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The History of Now
The recording of culture is history;
but our culture is more than that.
It's the world of human action,
and the myths we make of the fact.
The recording of history is culture,
but our history is more than that.
It informs a hidden agenda.
Unconscious of motive we act.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
It's only the present that exists as endowed.
It's the history of now. The moment - KAPOW!
That knocks you right over and muddies your brow.
Through the prism of language, we know what we know.
We carry our baggage and stories of woe.
Victor and vanquished pride cannot budge,
the dead weight of hatred and ancestral grudge.
We fight our good fights with our hand on our heart;
the music is swelling as loved ones depart.
As sheep to the slaughter, the script cannot chart,
a course more ignoble: the propagandist's art.
The recording of history is culture,
but our culture is more than that.
More than the great individuals,
the scholars so love in their tracts.
The recording of culture is history;
but our history is more than that.
Not simple dates or statistics,
the full horror and gore still attracts.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
A strange contradiction that makes sense somehow.
It's the history of now, a mystery and shroud.
The past and the future: best fiction allowed.
poem by David SmithWhite
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Multiple Choice
One answer only, please
1) History is a record of the best in human affairs
2) History is a record of the worst in human affairs
3) History is neither
4) History is both
5) All of the above
poem by Morgan Michaels
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Captured Memories
Captured memories from the past
At the Oklahoma History Center
You’ll be surprised and impressed
The very moment you enter
It’s such a treasured museum
One you will truly enjoy
Early railroad pictures
That has so many stories
A one room school house
Really takes you back
Railroad in the early stages
So different from the Amtrak
Teepees from the past as well
Oil once called Black gold
An oh, the stories and the tales
So many to be told
So take some time and visit
The Oklahoma History Center
You’ll be so glad you did, folks
The very moment that you enter!
poem by Marilyn Lott
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The History Teacher
Woman!
Where exactly
Did you put me
In the women's history?
Am I History?
Or a part of it?
And for how long you are lacking me in;
Between
Your History,
Women's History, and
Your archives?
Does time make sense to you
As a History teacher or
As a History professor?
Cause', History, buying time, and rejuvenation
Are for emperors.
Are you making me
An emperor?
Or a Faeroe?
If so,
How precise your are?
And if you can't feel my present presence
how possibility could you feel me through your archives?
poem by Atef Ayadi
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What did we do?
What did we do?
What did we do?
From History it was all Written,
That man must never live to die,
But dieing to live,
Blinding to see,
Christ said of the man that will get the Key's,
I can never change the World,
What are Humanity doing today?
That what was done is going back to History,
The Genius are asking why Humanity is not getting blessed,
I think all things clearly,
God is Real,
Share love Humanity,
Love and Mercy is Worth the Lord's timing,
Merciless is only the Profanity of bad History,
Think of the Conquer,
Love one another just as Christ love's you,
Why deny the throne?
Heaven is where we all Dwell,
The stories that are Beyond Good and Evil came in Parables,
Whilst we Ignore the Word that was Written,
The BOOK live's forever.
poem by Maxpoet Beauty
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Stories
Every year has its own stories in this life,
Every month has its own stories in this life,
Every week has its own stories in this life,
Every day has its own stories in this life,
Every hour has its own stories in this life,
Every minute has its own stories in this life,
And like the muse of the mind as we grow up;
So, we are all with stories to tell in this world.
As white as snow,
As red as blood,
As balck as charcoal,
As green as the grass,
As blue as the sky;
But everybody has stories to tell in this world!
And like the muse o love in the land of beauty,
For each year has its own story.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Black History Month
In January...
There they are making history.
In February...
There they are making history.
In March...
There they are making history.
In April...
There they are making history.
In May...
There they are making history.
In June...
There they are making history.
In July...
There they are making history.
In August...
There they are making history.
In September...
There they are making history.
In October...
There they are making history.
In November...
There they are making history.
In December...
There they are making history.
But...
It's nice to know
The shortest month of the year
Was chosen to celebrate
The great deeds of African-Americans!
However...
It is those LEAP YEARS,
That really have the blacks jumping for joy!
Note: 'Black History Month' along with other
works of interest can be found in...
*'MindPrints from Untouched Places-VOL I'*
~Now available online at a PC near you~
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Montezuma's Anguish
Cortés identified with Quetzalcóatl,
We think we know the story, but don’t know it all.
In writing stories of the people whom we vanquish,
how can we understand king Montezuma’s anguish?
It’s only with unconscionable audacity
that we consider science and sagacity
enable us to understand those we defeat
like open books to which we are the exegete.
Inspired by an article in the TLS, July 31,2009, by J. H. Elliott on the Boston gentleman-scholar William Hickling Prescott, the author of History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) . Criticizing Prescott’s approach, Elliott, former Regius Professor of History at Oxford University, writes:
As part of this process of re-evaluation, historians try to recover “the vision of the vanquished” and to reconstruct the history of “peoples without history”, victims not only of imperial domination but also the lack of written records....
Montezuma’s assumed identification of Cortés with Quetzalcóatl has been a staple element of the story from Prescott’s day to our own, but it has also come to be contested as a post-conquest fabrication. Equally the omens have been shown to have suspicious affinities with the omens and prodigies recorded by classical authors like Plutarch, Lucan and Josephus. If the Quetzalcóatl myth and the story of the omens are no more than retrospective attempts to make sense of the extraordinary succession of events, Prescott’s doom-laden interpretation of Montezuma’s behaviour loses much of its credibility….Was he killed by stones thrown by his own rebellious subjects, as the account commonly goes, or was he put to death by the Spaniards, as one or two alternative sources suggest? Or did he perhaps die “as much under the anguish of a wounded spirit, as under disease”, as Prescott ws inclined to believe?
8/15/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Every age sort of has its own history. History is really the stories that we retell to ourselves to make them relevant to every age. So we put our own values and our own spin on it.
quote by Terry Jones
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Over And Done With
This is the story of our first teacher
Shetland made her jumpers
And the devil made her features
Threw up her hands when my mum said our names
Embroidered all her stories with slanderous claims
it's over and done with
This is the story of losing my virginity
I held my breath and the fey held a trinity
People I'm making no claims to no mystery
But sometimes it feel like
My sex lifes all history
I'm not saying these events didn't
Touch our lives in any way
But, ah, they didn't make the impression
That some people say
This is the story of watching a man dying
The subjects unpopular
But I don't feel like lying
When I think of it now I acted like a sinner
I just washed my hands
Then I went for my dinner.
song performed by by Proclaimers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Golden Book
If life is an endless cycle,
How come it stops?
For there is no stop,
Merely a pause
Because the human mind,
Is an endless cycle of stories
Stories which are forgotten,
Remembered only when one reaches the light
The light being a golden book,
Of ones history of happiness
Within this book of eternity,
Lies a deeper truth
Life is forever
Life is endless
Life is eternal
Life is worth living
But life is limited, possibilities are endless
For life is short,
Merely a chapter in the golden book
(written by me and Andy Klenk)
poem by Paul Celano
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History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting.
quote by Sarah Vowell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stories About Home
I lived once in the North
And for a while, way in the South
I have some stories... that'll
Tear a man's heart out
These are the one's
I numbered ten... eleven...and twelve...
They moved so fast...
I ended living... in living Hell
But those that I numbered one thru nine...
They let the world see...why... my eyes..
My heart...
Will never again shine
I know It's hard sometimes to live
Where you can't see the sun...
Because of all that... endless rain...
I look to see.. how too... help others
Because I have lived...every kind of pain
So I write the stories...
Some are good
But often... some are very bad
They often leave hearts torn....
Spilling eyes... so sad...
And sometimes... I'll talk about the incredibly bad
But can you see the purpose...of writing
These stories... these poems...
Through the tears.... the weeping... and crying...
It's just my heart....
Trying to find a way...to move back home...
So to anyone whom read these stories. They're what I write.
They're the words of what I feel. They're the stories about wounds,
about that life, my family, about souls that never seem to heal.
They're the words of truth, they help with what I feel. For these stories
are the cause of tears...that just wont end...they're the stories that are
impossibe to bear.
They are the stoires of my family, abuse, of damage
and how love was not spared....
So many stories that'll never disappear
A soul covered with scars
Of sadness that fills a heart
That burns each time those hate words...
And abuse that breaks it apart
Clyde Grant Bryson
poem by Clyde Bryson
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Over & Done With
This is the story of our first teacher
Shetland made her jumpers
And the devil made her features
Threw up her hands when my mum said our names
Embroidered all her stories with slanderous claims
Its over and done with
This is the story of losing my virginity
I held my breath and the bed held a trinity
People Im making no claims to no mystery
But sometimes it feel like
My sex lifes all history
Im not saying these events didnt
Touch our lives in any way
But, ah, they didnt make the impression
That some people say
This is the story of watching a man dying
The subjects unpopular
But I dont feel like lying
When I think of it now I acted like a sinner
I just washed my hands
Then I went for my dinner.
song performed by by Proclaimers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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