It took me a long time to understand and accept that people from different background/various countries have their own particular educational system which is naturally focused on local perspective. There is no such thing as common knowledge, what I had learnt in my own school has just a passing resemblance to what my friends from other countries had learnt - one of the surprises I faced during my life in foreign countries was the fact that suddenly I found out that (for example) my friends had no clue about geography, foreign languages, history, cinema, music or anything that was outside their language area - where I knew a little bit about everything and could name at least capitols of European countries, my friends did not even know where these places are. Even now I meet passengers on my ships who have only vague idea where Croatia is. On the other hand, my own knowledge is probably very spotty if you ask me about something they were taught in schools.
When it comes to history, this is subject that had long fascinated me - the curiosity was always there, though it never showed in my school grades because what our high school history teacher wanted more than anything was the dates. That plump, sweet lady was obsessed with the dates and it was all she talked about, which naturally made extremely boring history classes, where everybody basically just switched out and either gazed trough the window or meditated until end of the class. It is really pity because teacher can truly light the flame of lifelong passion for any subject if he/she only show excitement instead going trough tedious routine as this lady did - she probably counted the minutes herself, however we always dreaded her classes because she would just rattle important dates and expect us to remember them. One particular day, almost towards the end of my high school I realised that my history grades were always lousy and decided to correct it, not that it would change anything in my life but I wanted to prove it to myself that I can do it - specially because I always loved history anyway. So I got prepared, memorised whatever the subject was and when the next time when this lady asked my comatose class is there anybody who volunteers for exam, dear reader, I stood up, floored everybody (including history teacher) and was the star of the day. It didn't help with final grades but it showed that I could have done much better if only I woke up earlier.
"Don't know much about history" are of course lyrics of wonderful old song by my beloved Sam Cooke and historian Kenneth C.Davis used it wittily for title of this book, focused on American history. His goal was to present history not as a boring, dry subject but as a exciting story that has all ingredients of great drama - sorrows, danger, happiness, heroes, traitors, winners, losers, lesser known facts and descriptions of long-gone scandals or different perspective people had back than. Because my own education was focused on my geographical area, I could talk about WW2 if you wake me up in the middle of the night but honestly I am not so familiar with other worlds. This is where Kenneth C. Davis comes handy because he wrote book that is that rare kind, educative and entertaining at the same time. He starts with discovery of America, Jamestown, Pocahontas and Pilgrims and from here off he goes to American Revolution, Tea Party and many other fascinating stories from American history that most of the people know just vaguely from the movies. Not only foreigners but even Americans themselves need to be reminded, according to author who had a personal mission to create something interesting out of potentially dry subject. It sold in millions, created a publishing sensation and in fact, started the whole "Don't Know Much About... " series, which I intend to check later. What I loved the most about this book was the sheer passion and excitement of author who wrote it as the best thriller, so I actually couldn't put it down and read it with greatest pleasure. The ancient history was fascinating but what interested me the most was XX century where I only realised how ignorant actually I was until now. Davis is also surprisingly clear-eyed and objective historian (if there is such a thing) which is very important because the past eventually gets re-told from different perspectives and official story could be different from what we remember, in this case author is informative but consciously detached and not hiding from dark corners in American history - every chapter comes with the list of useful literature so this is something I truly loved.
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