Why should I like Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson?

Clay County Histories

Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC

No, this is not an article about the Founding Fathers, King George III, and 1776. This is a rant about how, because I am an American, when I think of the Middle Ages, I think from the perspective of an Englishman. And it kinda bugs me, because I’m not English.
I have nothing against England. In fact, I’m a bit of an Anglophile. I love reading about English history and I would fare pretty well on a British monarch trivia quiz. Yet I can hardly name any French kings. Okay, I actually know the names of several French kings, but that’s just because sixteen of them are named Louis. But my point is, I know comparatively little about French history because most French historians write their books in French, and I don’t read French. Or Chinese. Or Hindi.
It’s embarrassing how little I know about the lives of my own ancestors in Scandinavia and Germany. There’s just not that many English language books about Germany in the 1600s or Finland in the 1200s.
Reading too many English authors can skew our understanding of history. We are in danger of seeing the Opium Wars of the 1830-40s from London’s perspective rather than the Chinese perspective. We too often start paying attention to Indian and African history only after the British Empire shows up. Because the books that I read on the Napoleonic Wars are written by English authors, I cheer for Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson to beat Napoleon’s fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, even though that same Horatio Nelson fought against the USA and our French allies in the American Revolution. From England’s perspective, Napoleon was one of history’s greatest villains. Maybe he was, but I wonder what French people think about him.
In 1898, a journalist asked German leader Otto von Bismarck what he thought would be the most important factor shaping modern history. Bismarck replied, “the fact that North Americans speak English.” He knew England and Canada and America’s common language and shared history create a natural bond between our countries. Within half a century of Bismarck’s comment, Americans joined England and Canada in two wars against Germany. The USA and UK’s so-called “Special Relationship” kept going through the Cold War, the War on Terror, and may it long continue. Again, I like the United Kingdom.
Our popular culture also has a British bias. British, Canadian, Australian, and American music is intertwined to the point of being inseparable. English-speaking Hollywood makes plenty of movies about Queen Elizabeth and King Arthur, but none about Frederick the Great of Prussia, Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolpus, or Chinese Emperess Wu. I expect Hollywood will crank out another thousand remakes of William Shakespeare plays before they make a single movie adaptation of a play by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen.
Each American has as many ancestors as any Englishman, but most of those ancestors never lived in England. They lived in Germany, Mexico, China, Iraq, Nigeria, Russia, the Philippines, Minnesota, Ireland, Korea, Norway…we come from all over the place. But because our country has roots as a former British colony, the common language of our nation of immigrants is English. So in addition to reading books about our own country’s history, we are also able to read history books written by British historians, and those guys naturally tend to write about England from an English point of view. That’s just fine, but we also need to seek out other perspectives if we really want to understand the past.