Given in Milton, Ontario, Canada on September 23, 2017
When we learn about history, the emphasis is often placed on things we find hilarious or shocking, and pretty much everything we take in afterwards confirms that negative impression. We watch movies and TV shows the emphasize brutality and bad decisions, and we tell ourselves stories about how people were primitive and superstitious – how they never bothered to get clean, how they were unscientific and unreasonable – and we pass along this information without actually wondering if were looking at the whole picture. We carry around this notion that because we are the latest models of humankind, and because we have a lot of access to information, that means we are smarter than the people who lived before us. We like to think of history as a story of continuous forward progress, from left to right, and at the pinnacle: us!
Danièle Cybulskie, also known as The Five-Minute Medievalist, has been researching and writing about the Middle Ages for over a decade. A featured writer at Medievalists.net for the past four years, you can also read her first book, conveniently entitled The Five-Minute Medievalist.
History in Three Dimensions
TedX talk by Danièle Cybulskie
Given in Milton, Ontario, Canada on September 23, 2017
When we learn about history, the emphasis is often placed on things we find hilarious or shocking, and pretty much everything we take in afterwards confirms that negative impression. We watch movies and TV shows the emphasize brutality and bad decisions, and we tell ourselves stories about how people were primitive and superstitious – how they never bothered to get clean, how they were unscientific and unreasonable – and we pass along this information without actually wondering if were looking at the whole picture. We carry around this notion that because we are the latest models of humankind, and because we have a lot of access to information, that means we are smarter than the people who lived before us. We like to think of history as a story of continuous forward progress, from left to right, and at the pinnacle: us!
Her latest book is Life in Medieval Europe: Fact and Fiction, published by Pen and Sword Books.
Visit her website at www.danielecybulskie.com, follow her on Twitter and Facebook, and read her posts on Medievalists.net
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