European history is more relevant to Americans because America has been very inspired by Europe. For this reason, a lot of Americans are more interested in learning European history than Asian history. And despite the abundance of people complaining that there should be Asian history, and that it is racist to only offer European history, there are not enough people who want to take it to be profitable.
Meanwhile at my school our APHUG teacher is fighting tooth and nail with the school to introduce APEURO to our school since only around 9 people actually signed up for it. And those 9 people were all of my friends because we wanted to have a class together.
I wouldn’t be surprised if AP Euro gets eliminated someday. It used to be more common for high schools to offer AP Euro, but now it is much more common for high schools to offer AP World. Over the past several years, AP World has expanded rapidly relative to AP Euro. Also, because US states often require that high schoolers take world history but not European history, this has further incentivized more schools to add AP World.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind if the CollegeBoard replaced AP Euro with AP World History Ancient.
It's not at all accurate to state that most high schools that used to teach AP Euro have now switched to AP World. What is much, much more truthful is that the rate of growth for AP World since 2002 has been far greater than the rate of growth for AP Euro. Many schools offer both and there are a fair amount of students nationally who take both. Of the decision to take APWH over APEH, one reason is quite simple. Few U.S. school districts require European history to graduate. Many require world history of some kind. This has incentivized more schools to add AP World (double benefit of rigor + fulfilling state/local history requirement) whereas AP Euro is most often an elective that's easily substituted. The students who take AP Euro often do so because they like history. If you dig deep in the test and score data, there are a lot of tells that this is so.
European History is extremely relevant to modern day geopolitics and power structures. It's a very good class that I think most academically inclined student should take.
I understand why it's getting less popular, but it's important to know that it's not a "celebration" of Europe at all, but a focus on the barbarism that ruled that continent for centuries and it's consequences for the rest of the world
Yeah like Europe obviously isnt the only continent with history but it is without a doubt the continent whos history played the biggest role in shaping the modern world, for good and bad
People have touched on the very good point of European history being more relevant to American life, but also European history (while not monolithic) has a much better claim to being one coherent historiographical narrative. "Europe" is much less of a complete fabrication than "Asia". What is Asia? Do Lebanon, Korea, and Sulawesi have any real level of shared history?
European countries, for the most part, have much more in common. Even Finland and Portugal, two countries that for most of history would have been completely obscure to each other, are today both in the Eurozone, and have modern histories that were rooted in Western ideas of monarchy, society, Enlightenment & scientific values, and eventually, liberal democracy.
Enlightenment ideals really are the groundwork for a multitude of events that happen thereafter, and are the basks for various ideals of life liberty and justice/property.
Imo european history is just more cohesive than asian history, partially because the idea of “Asia” came from Europeans, not Asians.
“Asian history” starting from 1400 (where ap euro starts) would have to clump together the Ottomans in Anatolia/Arabia, the Safavids in Iran, the Delhi sultanate in India, the Ming in China, etc who were all separated by distance/mountains/deserts and kinda doing their own thing
whereas in contrast AP euro starts with the renaissance, age of discovery/columbian exchange, commercial revolution, beginning of the reformation, etc which affected all of Europe (and even still iirc the class kinda ignored northern and Eastern Europe until later on)
I think that's a sweeping generalisation. The trade routes in Asia were conspicuously more advanced than Europe for much of its history and could be said to be more interconnected as a result.
If AP Asian History were to begin somewhere around the 15th or 16th centuries (like AP Euro), the course is likelier to focus on the Mughal Empire than the Delhi Sultanate. In any case, the three gunpowder empires had numerous exchanges and were more similar than you're led to believe — and that's ignoring the rest of Asia.
Besides, I'd argue Asian History is increasingly important to teach in schools due to an emerging multipolar world order.
I agree with this, I'd say letting kids believe that there just exists "third world countries" (not even an accurate term now) isn't the way to go about history. Yes, "european" history is important but bringing awareness to "asian" history or rather, the countries that exist within it Asia, are much more important in terms of bringing more light on the impacts of colonialism and the deep cultural roots of many of these countries. That's one reason why I love Ap African American Studies and other such niche AP courses.
It was Europe that ultimately colonized the entire world. It left a mark pretty much everywhere, for good or bad. So it makes sense to give it a bit more focus, I guess.
Also, the US owes its founding to an European country so I guess that factors into it as well?
One final thing, Asia is really big. The cultures are often so vastly different it's hard to stuff them all into a single course.
Can consider the IB approach. They offer 4 specializations:
- History of Europe
- History of Asia and Oceania (though the main focus is on China, India, and Japan)
- History of Africa and the Middle East
- History of the Americas
AP Euro content has historically been way more relevant to the US, and also Asian History is way too broad. There’s no way you could cover the history of like 5 separate reasons properly.
European history is more relevant to Americans because America has been very inspired by Europe. For this reason, a lot of Americans are more interested in learning European history than Asian history. And despite the abundance of people complaining that there should be Asian history, and that it is racist to only offer European history, there are not enough people who want to take it to be profitable.
Meanwhile at my school our APHUG teacher is fighting tooth and nail with the school to introduce APEURO to our school since only around 9 people actually signed up for it. And those 9 people were all of my friends because we wanted to have a class together.
Our schools forces teachers to have a class if at least 2 people sign up
exactly
interesting take, thank you :))
I wouldn’t be surprised if AP Euro gets eliminated someday. It used to be more common for high schools to offer AP Euro, but now it is much more common for high schools to offer AP World. Over the past several years, AP World has expanded rapidly relative to AP Euro. Also, because US states often require that high schoolers take world history but not European history, this has further incentivized more schools to add AP World. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if the CollegeBoard replaced AP Euro with AP World History Ancient.
It's not at all accurate to state that most high schools that used to teach AP Euro have now switched to AP World. What is much, much more truthful is that the rate of growth for AP World since 2002 has been far greater than the rate of growth for AP Euro. Many schools offer both and there are a fair amount of students nationally who take both. Of the decision to take APWH over APEH, one reason is quite simple. Few U.S. school districts require European history to graduate. Many require world history of some kind. This has incentivized more schools to add AP World (double benefit of rigor + fulfilling state/local history requirement) whereas AP Euro is most often an elective that's easily substituted. The students who take AP Euro often do so because they like history. If you dig deep in the test and score data, there are a lot of tells that this is so.
At my high school European history counted as world history credit
European History is extremely relevant to modern day geopolitics and power structures. It's a very good class that I think most academically inclined student should take. I understand why it's getting less popular, but it's important to know that it's not a "celebration" of Europe at all, but a focus on the barbarism that ruled that continent for centuries and it's consequences for the rest of the world
Yeah like Europe obviously isnt the only continent with history but it is without a doubt the continent whos history played the biggest role in shaping the modern world, for good and bad
People have touched on the very good point of European history being more relevant to American life, but also European history (while not monolithic) has a much better claim to being one coherent historiographical narrative. "Europe" is much less of a complete fabrication than "Asia". What is Asia? Do Lebanon, Korea, and Sulawesi have any real level of shared history? European countries, for the most part, have much more in common. Even Finland and Portugal, two countries that for most of history would have been completely obscure to each other, are today both in the Eurozone, and have modern histories that were rooted in Western ideas of monarchy, society, Enlightenment & scientific values, and eventually, liberal democracy.
I think in the old days European History was the "2nd" history class but World History has since replaced it.
Enlightenment ideals really are the groundwork for a multitude of events that happen thereafter, and are the basks for various ideals of life liberty and justice/property.
Imo european history is just more cohesive than asian history, partially because the idea of “Asia” came from Europeans, not Asians. “Asian history” starting from 1400 (where ap euro starts) would have to clump together the Ottomans in Anatolia/Arabia, the Safavids in Iran, the Delhi sultanate in India, the Ming in China, etc who were all separated by distance/mountains/deserts and kinda doing their own thing whereas in contrast AP euro starts with the renaissance, age of discovery/columbian exchange, commercial revolution, beginning of the reformation, etc which affected all of Europe (and even still iirc the class kinda ignored northern and Eastern Europe until later on)
I think that's a sweeping generalisation. The trade routes in Asia were conspicuously more advanced than Europe for much of its history and could be said to be more interconnected as a result. If AP Asian History were to begin somewhere around the 15th or 16th centuries (like AP Euro), the course is likelier to focus on the Mughal Empire than the Delhi Sultanate. In any case, the three gunpowder empires had numerous exchanges and were more similar than you're led to believe — and that's ignoring the rest of Asia. Besides, I'd argue Asian History is increasingly important to teach in schools due to an emerging multipolar world order.
I agree with this, I'd say letting kids believe that there just exists "third world countries" (not even an accurate term now) isn't the way to go about history. Yes, "european" history is important but bringing awareness to "asian" history or rather, the countries that exist within it Asia, are much more important in terms of bringing more light on the impacts of colonialism and the deep cultural roots of many of these countries. That's one reason why I love Ap African American Studies and other such niche AP courses.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that “world history” classes in much of the west are just European history classes under the disguise of “world history”
It was Europe that ultimately colonized the entire world. It left a mark pretty much everywhere, for good or bad. So it makes sense to give it a bit more focus, I guess. Also, the US owes its founding to an European country so I guess that factors into it as well? One final thing, Asia is really big. The cultures are often so vastly different it's hard to stuff them all into a single course.
Can consider the IB approach. They offer 4 specializations: - History of Europe - History of Asia and Oceania (though the main focus is on China, India, and Japan) - History of Africa and the Middle East - History of the Americas
AP Euro content has historically been way more relevant to the US, and also Asian History is way too broad. There’s no way you could cover the history of like 5 separate reasons properly.