Chapter 3: Seeing History Through English Eyes

People often say, “History is written by the victors.” But this saying can be misleading. History—what actually happened—simply happened. But the story of history—what we learn, what shapes our view of the past and present—depends heavily on who has the power to tell it. Today, that power often lies with English-speaking countries (like the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The history they teach, show in movies, and report in the news often becomes the accepted “world history.” This shapes how everyone, including those outside these countries, sees the past.

This chapter looks at how English-speaking views can color, twist, or even rewrite history, making it harder to get a true, balanced picture of the world.

The English Timeline and “Discovery”

Think about the standard timeline taught in many schools. Important dates often focus on Europe and English-speaking nations: Rome’s rise and fall, the European “Age of Discovery,” the founding of English-speaking colonies, the World Wars (told mainly from a European or American view). Even the way we number years (BC/AD or BCE/CE) comes from a Christian European tradition.

This way of telling history often pushes aside the long, rich stories of people in Asia, Africa, the Americas before Europeans arrived, and Oceania. Their histories, successes, and viewpoints become footnotes. They seem important only when Europeans arrive. Think about the idea of Europeans “discovering” lands where people had lived for thousands of years. This suggests these places were empty or dark until Europeans showed up.

[TODO: Contrast this with a brief sketch of a more neutral global history, highlighting concurrent major civilizations and events outside the European sphere during key “Anglo-centric” periods.]

Loaded Words and How History is Framed

The words used to talk about history are rarely neutral. English historical accounts often use biased words:

• “Discovery”: Suggests finding something unknown or empty, ignoring the people already living there.
• “Contact”: Often used for the first meetings with native peoples, making them seem like they just waited for things to happen, instead of having their own history.
• “Civilizing Mission”: The condescending and racist excuse for taking over lands. It suggested local cultures were backward and needed fixing by English-speakers. This story ignores the harm and theft that colonization caused (like saying the British “brought railways” to India but forgetting they were built to take resources out).
• “The Known World”: A term used from a European view, ignoring the great knowledge held by other peoples.

These words quietly suggest that the English-speaking way is the standard, and everyone else is measured against it.

Whitewashing, Downplaying, and Choosing What to Remember

History told from an English-speaking view often downplays or cleans up bad things done by English-speaking powers. At the same time, it might highlight the crimes of enemies or the people they ruled.

• Colonialism and Imperialism: Sometimes described as a necessary step for “progress,” even if unpleasant. This ignores the organized violence, theft of resources, destruction of cultures, and starvation that colonial rule often caused or made worse (like British actions in their empire).
• Genocide and Displacement: The planned killing and removal of Native Americans in the USA, or similar acts by settlers in Australia and New Zealand, are often called sad side effects of growth, not planned actions.
• Slavery: People admit slavery happened, but its cruelty and lasting harm are sometimes downplayed. Or it’s made to sound better than other forced work by using softer terms like “indentured labor.”
• Focus on Others’ Crimes: English accounts often point to Nazi Germany as the main example of evil in the 1900s. Nazi crimes were terrible, but focusing only on them can draw attention away from cruelties committed over centuries by empires like the British. [TODO: Provide specific comparative examples, handled carefully].

Making Heroes and Creating Legends

People like Winston Churchill often appear in popular English history as simple heroes who “saved Western civilization.” This story often ignores troubling parts of their lives, like racist opinions, bad military choices, or actions that hurt people in the colonies (like Churchill’s possible connection to the famine in Bengal). History gets turned into simple good-versus-evil stories that fit how English-speaking cultures like to see themselves.

Gaslighting: Controlling the Past to Control the Future

As George Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Because English speakers control so much global media and information, they can subtly twist history. Stories about the past are shaped to fit today’s political goals.

• Saying “The Soviet Union Fell” sounds like something pushed it over or it just failed on its own. This might hide the complicated reasons inside the country and the role its own people played in breaking it up.
• What happened in the past is constantly retold based on who English-speaking countries are friendly with or opposed to now.

Reclaiming Your History

The history taught in English reflects an English-speaking view. It’s not the only history. It may not be the true history for your people or your part of the world. You need to think carefully about the history you read or hear, especially if it comes from English-speaking sources. Question the language used, the events emphasized or omitted, and the heroes and villains presented.

As people of your own countries and cultures, you should find, support, and even write your own histories. Tell the stories from your viewpoint. Challenge the English-centered view that has been dominant for so long. Stop drinking the Anglo Kool-Aid; their history is written by them, for them. Do not let it define you or your understanding of the world.

The Great Wars’ Great Omission: A World in Name Only

Perhaps no historical event reveals the Anglophone narrative’s racial bias more starkly than the memory of the two World Wars. The dominant narrative, immortalized in film, literature, and public memorials, is one of brave European, Commonwealth (specifically Australian, New Zealander, and Canadian), and American soldiers fighting for global freedom. Yet, this telling of history commits one of the most profound acts of erasure: it silences the millions of soldiers from the colonies, particularly the Indian subcontinent, who were indispensable to the war effort.

In World War I, the British Indian Army contributed over 1.5 million soldiers, and in World War II, it grew to be the largest volunteer army in history with over 2.5 million men. Their contribution was not peripheral; it was central.

The ultimate semantic betrayal, however, lies in the very name given to these conflicts: “World Wars.” The name itself is a claim to global scale, a scale only achievable because vast colonial empires could draw upon millions of subjects from across the globe. The Anglophone narrative thus performs a stunning act of intellectual dishonesty: it leverages the participation of the colonized to grant the conflict its “World” status, while simultaneously writing those very people out of the popular history. They remain the silent, invisible foundation upon which the myth of a purely Western struggle is built. The wars are global in participation, but parochial and racially exclusive in their remembrance.