I was having a discussion with two friends about the premise of Gerald Horne's book The Counter-Revolution of 1776. Particularly speaking, we brought up the notion that British economic aspirations for colonies in the Americas (especially mainland North America) conflicted with those of settlers in the Thirteen Colonies themselves. But it dawned on me - the British didn't just control what would become the United States. British people and their descendants occupied territories all over North America, the Caribbean, some of Central America and some of South America. In fact, Canada and the United States form what could be called a contiguous Northern bloc.
I wanted to comment further, but then I remembered that I didn't really know all that much about Canada apart from what I found out myself outside of the (US) classroom setting. Additionally, what knowledge I do have of Canada and the settlers' history there is a set of facts rather than a coherent narrative, with events and underlying dynamics and phenomena.
Both Canada and the United States are former British colonial territory. Both of them are settler regimes. Both of them contain major populations descendant from settlers of other colonial powers (Spain and France). Given the similarities, why does the US compartmentalise the history of both countries so much?
Other related questions:
Is this separation characteristic of US academia/historiography in the US?
Do people in Canada learn/study more about the US than vice versa?
What is the historiography in the UK like? Do British historians think of the colonies as one expanse, two, or more?
Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.
Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even within different states of the same country. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.
Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experience but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.
Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", considering asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" - the latter question is often closer to what to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.
Thank you!