What i learnt new in IB History?

Three things I never knew before coming to BD:

A lot of things changed for me when I came to BD. I was forced to change my opinion and point of view on many things, in particular, HISTORY. In my previous school, we learnt about various things such as the First and Second World War and we had almost eight chapters on Gandhiji and the good that he brought and did for the Indian society. But when I came here I learnt that things were very different. The knowledge gained from my textbook was on the basis of one of the points of view on history. Today I learn various perspectives on the past and understand the concept of a counter argument.

For example in the First World War we had learnt that the immediate cause of war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But we never individually looked at how the countries had a role to play in the war. Germany would have never involved France and Britain had it not executed the Schlieffen Plan and invaded Belgium. We learnt the intricacies of the causes of the First World War. I learnt that Russia had to play a major role in the World War. I always thought that Russia was a communist country and it was bad for the people and was a bad type of government. But the capitalist government was also harmful in its own way. Russia had to divert its domestic tensions away and its only hope to maintain peace was the war and the aftermath of the war resulted in socialism.

Another example is Gandhiji. All my life I have heard Gandhiji as a man who fought the for freedom and today we are free citizens only because of him. But we don’t know that Harijan Upliftment Movement he conducted was a ploy to prevent another uprising from the Harijans and to establish and maintain peace in the country. It was only because of the salvation of the Hindu caste, did the Shudra caste become non – existent. Infact Br. Ambedkar, a prominent harijan leader always fought against Gandhi. How is this possible? The man who fought for freedom of Harijans was rebuked by a Harijan?

Lastly I had this pre misconception that the leader of the Weimer Republic, Gustav Stresemann was a noble, loyal and moralistic figure in history that helped Germany in paying back the loans and rising fro the depression. This was what history textbooks portrayed him to be. The truth behind him however is that while he showed to the US and European nations that Germany was working towards disarmament, in the USSR, German soldiers were being trained with the most modern equipment available.

This information made me change my viewpoint on these three events or figures of history.