Why Do Historians Only Care About Rich People? - How History Works
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- Опубліковано 5 лип 2024
- Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you lived at a different time in history?
I am sure all of us have at one point or another, but it can be quiet hard to imagine.
How would you live as a regular person? What would your house look like, what would your job be, what food would you eat, what would you do for fun, would you be educated and would your life be more or less stressful than the one you lead today?
The answer to all of these questions can be quite hard to work out. Historians have done much less work researching and reporting on the lives of common people than they have on the lives of a handful of wealthy and powerful individuals.
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I recall there is this saying that I think goes something like, "Its tragic there are important stories we will never know. It's also tragic there are important stories we could know but simply do not care for. "
Why didn't you write the script for me?
Lol he ghosted u
@@HowHistoryWorksI know, right 😮
...
Only Jesus Christ blood can cleanse us of are sins come to Jesus Christ today
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Come to Jesus Christ today
Jesus Christ is only way to heaven
Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void.
The Holy Spirit can lead you guide and confort you through it all
Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today
Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
That´s why Pompey being fully preserved by the Vesubius eruption is so cool. There were even graffiti preserved in a tavern and the messages scribed in those walls are not much different from the things you see in the doors of bathrooms in a pub (and are direct messages from these people, not things reported by authors or historians of the period)....reminds you people are gonna be people no matter the time and language we speak.
I was born into a blue collar family and attended a University of California campus in the 2000s/2010s. I wasn’t as class conscious back then as I am now. But I remember being assigned only one non-fiction book to read that I felt reflected the life experiences of my family and myself: Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
The book is written from her perspective as an undercover journalist working minimum wage jobs around America, and sets out to investigate the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on the working poor in the United States.
I mean think about this; white collar Americans are so sheltered from the hardships of blue collar Americans that they have to send undercover writers to experience blue collar life and write about it in a way that is palatable to white collar audiences. Yikes.
Saw a police chase video other day that really hit that one home.
"They appear to be signaling to the cops, come have a lookie loo down here"
No you WASP Karen news commentator, they are throwing crip signs and brandishing guns in their belts daring the cops to do something while they are pursuing a guy into their hood.
Inb4 someone come in with
“TRADES ARE BETTER THQN COLLEGE”
This is why the economy is so rigid. Everyone is just doing what they know. And nothing else
..
Do you know Jesus Christ can set you free from sins and save you from hell today
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven
There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today
Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell
Come to Jesus Christ today
Jesus Christ is only way to heaven
Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void
Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today
Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today
Romans 6.23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
I wouldn't call what she did blue-collar. Blue-collar can include any number of skilled trade positions that make high salaries. Einreich was working unskilled, minimum wage jobs.
this is why i love invicita's "everyday moment in history“ series so much, it's much more interesting and helpful in building a perspective of history when we learn about how roman citizen eats and lives.
As I guy with a degree in history (and an interest in psychology), it's hard to disagree.
For one, people are more interested in things that don't happen a lot. There's a saying that news is called news because only things out of the ordinary would be worth writing about.
While history tends to favor the victor (or those who can write), the tendency to favor the rich and powerful doesn't really reflect the individual historian. Many historians do want to document and write about common folk, but can't because there is too few sources, they're not getting enough funding, and people straight up not caring anyway. I know some people personally who are getting into "microhistory", where they look into stories about common individuals to extrapolate the life of the common people (e.g. Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms), but currently it's too niche.
The thing about where the money and attention goes is also true to some extent. I'm from Southeast Asia which has very little attention in the west. I went to my school library which is separated into geographical regions, and most of the shelves for Southeast Asia are half-full. The only one with multiple shelves is Vietnam, and of course it is mostly about that thing you all know about.
Btw, I sort of hope you can do video on historian jobs, where the demand and thus supply is unfortunately declining with no signs of recovery. Even I as a trained historian (not to mention a non-western one) see little future in pursuing that career.
One of the things I've learned already making this channel is the importance of preserving history, and of as many things/people/events as possible. The more data points, the better
The poor matter because they create incentive structures. Lefty "historians" don't like to point that out because they are averse to a realist biological view of humanity in favor of constructivist nonsense that gets them status
In that sense maybe this is the first time in history that people can get an accurate view into the lives of common people thanks to the internet.
We now have an unlimited repository of information, stories and opinions from normal people.
@@thequestion3953ut admittedly many of is eiÞer straight up lie or really too much repetitive story. which is something you can hope actually.
when you talk about ðat. I Þought not only ðe commoner ðat didn't get attention from ðe west. but also "not-western" community too. souÞeast asian have rich of culture and diversity? Non! we don't care duh. but we only care if ðey're ðat one who kicked my ass out.
(honestly not too surprised by ðat. just how many superpower are from ðe west.)
Something I appreciate about my courses on England from The Great Courses is that they go deliberately out of their way to take breaks from the big personalities and events, and focus on the common people. What was life like for them, what might they have thought about these big events, how much do we know about them and why? They're admittedly not my favorite lectures to revisit -- the narrative of kings, queens, wars, and rebellions is very compelling. But they're super important for establishing the background, and what someone like me would experience back then, since I'm more likely to have been in the ranks of commoners not the upper echelons. Not a lot of history courses bother, but I'm glad professors Paxton and Bucholz did so.
Do you know of any books that focus on the common people,,I am an economist who is really interested in Behavioral Economics, the experiences of the poor go a long way when we are making predictive models, the reason is that humans evolve very slowly and a peasant in the 15th century will think the same as a modern peasant
@@davianoinglesias5030 Professor Robert Bucholz has written many books, and the common people were an emphasis of his lectures so I'll bet it'd be worth looking him up.
There's a lecture the Great Courses offers literally called "The Other Side of History" that's all about the history of the poor, forgotten, and erased throughout history.
@@davianoinglesias5030Why would a peasants world view remain the same over so many centuries? They live in different worlds and have different expectations and life experiences. The Tudors were far more religious and far less liberal for one thing.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing, I'm just curious as to why their world view would be the same. Your opinion is based upon an education on subjects I never studied which is why I don't fully comprehend what it is you're saying.
Probably the tribalism is the same (Dem vs Republican probably adequate equivalence to Protestant vs Republican).
Being sycophantic is the same (probably).
Less disposable income, but probably equal desire to spend on stupid shit to stay in style.
Probably similar brainwashing/cultish beliefs that we (nation, language, religious sect, etc.) are the good guys, they are the bad guys, and because our “leaders” (feudal lord, pope, president, corporate c suite, etc) share our background, they must care about us.
Just some thoughts.
Hi, historian here, and I don't know if this video is incredibly focused on an american perspective or just ignorant of the last century of historical research. Yes, for most of history the focus have been on the upper classes, but a lot of that has change since the 20th century. Just one example is the fact that historical materialism (marxism) has had a lot impact in academia since last century, which focuses on studying the conflict between the classes. The question you posed, how did regular people lived, what jobs they had, how where there houses... There is a lot written about this topics. Specially if you look at archaeology (which works together with historians despite being different disciplines) it can tell you incredible mundane stuff like what type of entertainment the people of a city preferred based on stuff like when the swears where abandone. We may not have chronicles written about the regular farmer, but we do have a lot of bureaucracy. There are records of when someone sold something or for trials for stuff like "when can the sheep walk through x field".
The idea that life for the regular classes "just suck" is also very reductionist and coming from a very presentist perspective.
If these video was made at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th I guess it would be fine, but I feel like today is ignoring a lot of the progress that the historical field has gone through in more than a century. (Sorry, for the long comment)
What rich people do affects everyone; what poor people don't even affect other poor people.
@TrainedACE they can. The limelight will still be on the rich person.
There are artists who are poor and afected the world
Thats why they are documented
They have impact @@leonardochaves5720
There’s a journal by a common mercenary in the 30 years war but only a tiny portion of it has been translated into English, I was really shocked that nobody was interested enough
Which language was it written in and what was it's title?
@@anonymmc2764 Peter Hagendorf, it was written in German
@@pizzacheeseman2854 Thanks a lot!
Wow, you sound just like this how money works guy!
Wow! I do don’t I?
Imagine if this wasn’t actually the same guy but just his identical twin.
Its not even necessarily rich people, more so influential people.
Whether rich, skilled, intelligent, lucky, etc its all the same story; there are those who did important/heavily impactful things that we see as more interesting to hear and learn about than the commoner's situation.
The poor folk's situation are mentioned when necessary or where its relevant. If a King is overthrown, we hear of what his people were going through. But its a story still surrounding HIS fall and how it impacted the nation in questions' future.
It’s also a bandwidth issue, most people don’t care really about history or know very little, and those who do already have a lot in their plate already just with the big events. So it’s kinda hard to record everything and the commons. It’s also just more fun to learn about the big figures and battles, like would you rather trudge through the common life of a peasant/slave, or know about the epics of Roman emperors and battles.
Wealthy people(or those of power) are the ones who have told history or hired people to tell it for them.
Thats why so much is biased and not entirely truthful.
not only history - our culture is mostly about the rich, happy people (imagine the Sims where you cannot buy a house but have to rent a room for years or the TV series where characters mostly work or spend the remaining time in front of the screen)
Maybe this is why the rags to riches stories are the most interesting.
Royal Family?
History is written by the people who write things down
Yes, I totally agree. While there are examples of historical narratives being controlled by certain groups of people, there are a lot of histories written by sore losers.
Statistically, people groups that record more writings advance better and have better lives. One of thr biggest differences berween africa and europe. Even though africa was populated way earlier. Ofcourse theres the djfference kf geography.
@@PolishBehemothHistory doesn't have to be written down to be recorded if there is art, infrastructure, and tools present in the culture... which has all been raided by Europe. And dude just say race instead of "people groups" we all know what you're getting at...
@@sithasamurai8029 Art is not as communicative as writing. And no, i meant people groups not race (skin color). So no, youre race baiting is not going to work i actually meant different people groups including white people groups.
Back on topic, the most writing recorded civilisations going the furthest back were egypt, greece, syria and mesopotamia region, and later into the early AD period theres Rome. THey all had much better advancement histories than the rest of africa, or central asia, or eastern europe, or the native empires of the americas. So how do you get around that fact? All those areas happened before the european colonial conquests of the 1500s- 1900s.
@@PolishBehemoth 1. Half those "most writing" empires you listed aren't even located in Europe...
2. Archeologist use ancient art and tools to study how advanced past civilizations are all time, and especially since languages can change drastically ex. Old English and Middle English. It can be easier observe the foundations and design of a culture through it's past technology and architecture rather than deciphering a language from a long dead empire that you don't speak.
3. It's hard to even do that since a lot of important writings were either burned in events such as The Burning of The Library of Alexandria or i.e stolen and shipped to British.
4. Statistically you didn't bring up any actual statistics .
It's not just historians, it's everyone.
actually, A lot of poor people's lives were documented: Genghis Khan(had nothing in early life), Diocletian(born to freed slaves), Nicola Tesla(died penniless), Zhu YuanZhang(beggar), Abraham Lincoln(born to poor family), Adolf Hitler(starving artist), John D. Rockefeller(born to poor family with unstable finances, so John D Rockefeller's family historian is going to be real helpful in understanding the lives of a poor person in the era of his childhood). these individuals were all poor at some point in their life.
History is mostly a "documentation of large scale change", so for the most part, historians are interested on when things takes a large scale turn. a Ruler or a scientist or a tycoon's life can have and create a lot of these turns, while if you are a peasant, you farm, unless one day you stop farming and became a ruler or scientist or tycoon. of course, even if we want to find things unrelated to any large scale changes, we can't because most people don't write how things "don't change"(do you write all your daily routine every day?). I guess the big takeaway is....."poor people" do make history, it's just that when they do, it often involves a change of status, wether from poor to wealthy or wealthy to poor.
George Orwell, as a journalist and author, was clearly ahead of his time by every measure. He used to sleep in Hyde Park in the summertime and go hop-picking in the autumn. It is likely he caught TB (which killed him near the end of WWII) from all his interaction with the poor and working classes as an early gonzo journalist. His commitment to authenticity and to the highest journalistic standards is still celebrated by those in his field. ❤❤❤
99% of people weren’t around to see 99% of history just as the 1% of people were only able to see 1% of history. 100% of people are in both categories
This kind of makes me think how they word things in our history books in school.
Uncle Kurt, once again more true than ever,
"To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register."
these reasons are why the jewish historical record is a bit more complete compared to the historical records of commoners of other groups over history as jews have generally been more literate than the general populations of the lands they lived in over time and therefore were able to write about their experiences
Didn't they have a long oral tradition before anyone bothered writing it down?
No, it was intelligence and ethnocentrism. People weren't literate unless they needed to be
Is that why the most popular "holy" books are jewish? Or at least centered around them?
@@xunqianbaidu6917 that's true, however there are jews all over the world & each group has thier own set of religious practice.
the reason is diplomatics: the study of written documents (written documents that managed to not get lost/destroyed until our time). Although other methods of historiography do exist (archeology, genetics, oral history, etc.), written documents (diploma) are so cozy to work with: no digging, no dirt, no leaving the office. The stone of Rosetta is an amazing object, and the history of deciphering hieroglyphes even more, but in itself it is rather boring: a bureaucratic decree how to worship the Greek ruler of Egypt like he would be one of the old pharaos.
I wonder how well preserved our time will be. Like we capture as much as never before but in ways that don't keep up for long if not looked after
I suspect it will be like background noise for the real interesting stuff.
We are one solar flare from losing most of it
Because the only time the poor make history is when theres a LOT of them
I think this is viewpoint is very limited to your environment. I come from a small european country that historically had a majority of rural population (farmers, peasants), some urban population in the larger cities and relatively little nobility. Since the nobility was almost exclusively of foreign descend, our national literary history mostly contains works depicting rural and urban environments from authors that lived in them. Our museums mostly represent the lives of those people as well, for the same reasons.
Slovakia?
Nah, as an epileptic, I've always been pretty sure what my life would be like.
On a more serious note: Your video is well made and reasoned. Nice work.
To be honest I'm actually happy with being born in 1988. I don't really think about what life would be like if I was born at a different time. I got to see a lot change throughout the 1990s and later on. Especially as someone into video games getting to see them evolve from 16 bit 2D with the SNES and the Sega Genesis and then see them go to 3D for the first time with the PS1 and the N64 and see them improve upon it more and then eventually see them all connected to the internet Although ironically it turns out that I was already able to play PC games on the internet before consoles started doing so, But still it was really fascinating to see how things just kept improving. That goes with the variety of different entertainment medias as well like TV and movies. I don't miss having cable although I enjoyed what I watched on Cable growing up. I'm happy that we are on streaming sites where we can watch whatever we want whenever we want that's available on said streaming sites that is.
There was a fascination with using VHS back in the '90s. Not just with recording stuff and keeping it forever on one but even just using one to watch a movie or some cartoons on it. But DVD is so much better.
When I was a kid I hated history class and I just thought I hated history. It wasn't til my late teens I realized that I was way more interested in the daily lives of the average person of the past and not the royal families or summaries of who conquered who
Rich people create laws and policies - and are, for the most part, those best able to make major changes. That’s because they don’t need to worry about making a living, no matter the era of history - the average worker (even intellectual worker) doesn’t have the time or means to guide society. That means their name gets out there, whereas the average person only engages in proportionally insignificant pursuits. Hence, it’s the biographies of rich people, who are well documented, that historians have to work with - and they’re the names that show up in most of the archives. That’s why rich people are the ones historians study, because are most likely, by far, to be in a position to actually shape history:
I'm so excited u created another channel!
Binging all of the videos and I am loving the content.
Curious how you found this channel. Have yet to do the big announcement on How Money Works
@@HowHistoryWorks I Just found one of the channel videos in my recommendations while watching your video about Why Game Companies Stopped Making Games.
I've always been fascinated by what life was like for the common person. Unfortunately, it's inevitable that people focus on those with influence and wealth. Those are the individuals who were responsible for shaping history, but celebrity worship is also a factor. Even today, with our modern sensibilities, nobody cares about some random laborer. That divide only grows the further back in history we look.
Secondly, the reason why Europe has enjoyed a disproportionate amount of attention is because of the outsize impact they've had on the world, both good and bad. And of course, growing up in the West means history class will inevitably have a certain focus. It's no different my significant other learning primarily about Chinese history because of where she grew up. That said, I agree that history education in the US is too narrowly focused and repetitive. The problem is what do we cut to make way for a broader focus?
>Unfortunately
Lol
@@TheThreatenedSwanhe's right
@@alsparkproductions7849 Past narrative history has its problems, but contemporary narrative history is utter garbage. I'm assuming that's what he means rather than say history through data like the fact that the economic top of society demographically replaced the bottom portion multiple times over across time thus proliferating their genes much more eventually leading to the massive accomplishments later
The problem is where and what to cut. The problem is bigots.
Love your new channel! I always enjoyed your content on your "How Money Works" channel ..I just subscribed
How much of this can be boiled down to "We just don't care much about poor people to want to know about them?"
I got cynical with one of my friends who sticks by the claim that Jesus was poor and I sorta mouthed off a bit and said "If He was born, lived, and died poor, then we wouldn't know about Him at all thousands of years later." But realistically how wrong is that in light of why people's history isn't such a big deal?
There is some truth, look at his uncle, he was a priest. Another thing, Jesus was literal, where his writes. Where his books and this where and why I do not trust the Catholic Church, lies. His uncle, and if you read the gospels in context, his cousin John the Baptist and Priest son, were best friends and know each other. Why was he able to out smart the rabies at his time, yes he was smart, but do you think visiting his uncle in his younger years played a role in Jesus make the Sadducess and Pharisees, Sanhedrin look dumb. Also reading and writing was a rich man's activity. Most people don't have any idea how much they take this for granted. You don't think that Mary and Joseph weren't going to send Jesus to his uncles house for education, this guy was highly educated at his time and Jesus spent time with John at that time. If you knew how to read and write at that time you were set for life. This is why the Catholic Church hated Luther, his connection to the people inventing of printing press and telling them to print the bible, was a massive disaster for the Catholic Church and there angry and for him was results of lose a lot of power.
Yeah, the lower classes can complain about the lack of attention on them but isn't that also because they themselves like to indulge in the lives of the rich and famous?
I really enjoy your videos. The subjects are sufficiently engaging and have even come to like your voice and speech cadence. There is also amusement to be had in your repeated grammatical errors. It takes real effort to ignore the rules of prepositions and the subjunctive mood. I find entertainment wherever I can, so thank you. Subscribed.
there is another point, that when someone transited out of the working class, they usually took shame and looked down upon their own background, often becoming class traitors. the people who most often transited out, were also people who received some form of charity to find their way out, someone else worked very hard to prop them up that is. This has some psychological implications.
Of course it's harder, but you could still get a lot of reference points. Through the items they used, you can learn about their daily life, what they (had to) eat, what they valued. Even simple handcrafted objects often have ornaments/art on them. Tools can tell you how they worked, clothing too.
In the end, it's also not a strict divide between rich and poor. Rich people influenced the lives of poor people, and even "second-hand" accounts can be close to the truth, depending on the situation.
Would have been interesting to hear more about that, but I still enjoyed this video, so thanks! Take care
Yeah I disagree with the point of this video. I think society is interested in historical rich "persons" but is just as interested in historical "people". When you visit a historical site, visitors are just as interested in the places and things that the average people did whereas someone like Julius Caesar was one man who was able to make decisions that affected a wide range of people. The sad thing too, is when we are all dead and gone, historians would be able to make general assumptions about us, and be mostly right.
We should all write a boring book about all the common things we do. Like the toothpaste we use; I use colgate.
No who would read that thing
@@ohbhai4102 Lol, someone would. A boring person, probably.
I love using Elmex. Even though it is more expensive than most others. I like the flavour of it. I always buy it on a discounted price like 2+2 deal.
The most interesting people the are the ones that go from poor to rich like Napoleon.
As a poor person, I can corroborate your statement that I am uninteresting.
Love the new sub
Idk about other college, but my college use Annales system which focus more on common folk and how they live. Why? Because a lot of books already record famous people and its not interesting anymore
Interesting video
There's always anthropology. If it works for preliterate societies, it'll work for unwritten societies.
This is why I watch Time Team. Archaeologists’ jobs make them more likely to uncover and document the lives of common people. I had to laugh about the string quartet vs county music dichotomy you presented. I don’t think it quite fits because I have seen so many strings in country music. I get that the scores are different, but the instruments can be very similar.
Yeah the titan search and coverage reminded us of this
“It’s like taking a string quartet to a country concert.” Weird analogy considering a lot of country bands use those instruments
I figured that traditional history, at least in UK/Europe, was largely the genealogy of the ruling class, as they recorded and passed down what was relevant to them.
Aside from that, there are whatever documents were recorded for a variety of reasons, and they may or may not survive. e.g. in England a lot of books were unfortunately destroyed during the "Dissolution of the Monasteries" in the 16th C. (source: The History of English podcast)
The comment about the rich having the time and resources reminds me of Bourdieu
“Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs” - Frank Harte.
There are simply too many stories for The Human Race to tell, if we told about all of them, we would have enough stories to last until the end of time, probably. Rich people's stories are more compelling, because they're the one's shaping the world and the path that it will take.
You should promote this channel more on your main channel. Link all your channels on your channels page is a good start.
Also, why is the channel logo red. Like for money, green makes sense, but red for history? Should have gone with blue or something a little more neutral.
Fascinating
Well another point of why historians care only for rich people is because they were the ones to shape our world. Poor people just followed them, therefore what an old farmer did or how he lived is less important than what the kings, emperors or rulers did. However when the common folk actually made something important for our society, historians did them the favor. Like the french revolution, that changed the world and was made by the poor people.
The french revloution did not change the world and it wasn't by poor people it was 99% against 0.1, there was rich people like bankers who hated the monrach that wanted them gone too
Why would bankers hate the monarch if they get & handle most of the wealth that circulated in the country? Unless the monarch just kept thier currency locked in a vault in thier palace somewhere.
Almost forgot, were the bankers public or private? Because that would make thier hatred understandable.
@@elijahhernandez906 The Bankers, landowners, and Merchants where still at the bottom of the social pyramid in France. Anyone that wasn't part of the clergy or nobility had to pay taxes. In France your birth mattered a lot, if you where born a peasant you most likely would die a peasant.
As me in the past... no not at all, as someone else maybe, life would have been pretty rough for me at any time prior to the Civil Rights movment
Perhaps this will change in the modern era. Because we have literate people and social media, there is much more material to study about the lives of everyday people.
So basically the reason why Kardashians are popular. They are different than us
Charles bukowski is a great author
I love your videos, both in here and in how money works. What confuses me us that I can't seem to understand your take on society, if you are more of a socialist or more of a liberal
As a uni-trained historian: you’re in part right, but your view seems to be somewhat outdated. Let me explain:
History is based on sources, written sources often provide us with the most detailed information and thus, for a long time, were considered the best sources.
For a written source to be preserved, it needs to be written down by a literate person, sure, but it also needs to be preserved, and copied and preserved and copied, sometimes for centuries to survive into the current era. The reason we know so much about Caesar and Alexander the great is that wealthy people and rulers in the centuries after them looked up to them and ordered works on their lives to be collected, preserved and copied. This needs to go on in an almost 2000-year chain to survive to the present day.
Secondly, there is a lot of interest in working class history right now, but it doesn’t show yet:
Two-hundred years ago, with the start of academic/scientific history, the university was populated almost exclusively by rich people and great-man history and national history were considered of greatest importance. It’s only in the late 19th century, with the growing marxist and feminist movements that explicit attention is given to female and working class figures in history. Even back then the movement was small.
In my country, larger efforts to allow gifted working class students and girls in University only got off the ground in the 1920’s. It was only in the ‘60s that female and working class students could enter University at a comparable rate. It was in that same era that attention for working class history, social- and economic history and feminist history really took off. There is some truth to the idea of universities being left-wing bastions: they became so because of mass enrollment of women and working class people.
Many (sub-)fields still needed to be developed in the ‘60s due to the little attention it was previously given. Imagine a current day professor: aged 60, entered university himself about 40 years ago, that was in 1980 when the field of working class history was only just been getting proper attention (remember: the students who were massively interested in it had only come in 20 yrs earlier and hadn’t entered proffesor-positions yet).
My professors always made sure to pay attention to working-class and female perspectives and to minority and illiterate perspectives that are often underreported, but it takes time, maybe decades, until this re-evaluation of perspectives truly seeps through into popular history.
Without even watching the video i am going to guess it is because rich people throughout most of history where the only ones with the education necessary to write stuff down, and/or rich enough to pay Someone to write it down for them
That and for many centuries the rich think they’re wealth is from merit and because they deserve to not be NPC’s who work to barely survive. When the masses rebelled we got the French Revolution. Spain had a revolution in the early 1800’s as well. For the same reasons.
I think you left out the part about power dynamics. In the medieval days, if a rich man had multiple sons, it went like this: first son is the heir to the estate, the second son went to command the military forces, and the third went to seminary to learn to lead the religion. With that, medieval lords controlled the state, the military, and the church. And since the church was also the center for academia back then, the rich also controlled the academic institutions.
The powerful weren’t about to publish books about how bad life was for the poor people. They might revolt. And so, the rich (and their siblings in the church/academia) wrote books about the exploits of the nobility in order to turn them into heroes for the people. People don’t revolt against their heroes.
I doubt it’s so simple today, but I still think there’s something to be said about this historical precedent in academia.
I think there were two guys who wrote a book that said all of that was written in 1848.
Hey, I resent the assumption that a string quartet would not do well in a country Concert. Have you actually heard fiddle music? It can be just as complex and impressively performed as anything considered classical.
Stoped in the second 0:40. And I think the reason is because life of regular people not long ago was terrifying. And there’s very few writing about the details of their lives. Now I live in the US, but back 200 years ago, in Brazil, where I was born, the closest you had to written stories of regular people was… newspapers registers. News Stories and novels stories (those novels were written in chapters, just like soap operas today), and some church documents. And their lives were terrifying. At some point, we, regular middle class (now I’m middle class in North America), have a way better life than rich people not long ago. Maybe we don’t have servants to wash our floors, but we have not only vacuum cleaners, which makes cleaning easier and faster, but also robotic vacuum cleaners. If… it’s still better to have someone 24/7 sweeping your house for you? Wait until you got a bacterial infection from a very simple home accident. Again… the lives of a middle class class in the developed and middle income worlds are way better than the lives of a rich… not long ago.
This video made me wanna get rich even more, great vid
Is this the same guy from how money works? Or is this just a stock voice?? I will sub if it's him fosho. Please let me know guys
It is
What of the history of resistance and struggle? Emancipation makes for fascinating history, even if the attempt fails. The Tolpuddle Martyrs have a museum being one of the first unionisation efforts in the area, if not the UK.
But no, emancipation does not get the same attention because a thorough, honest, and decent look would prove the need for more emancipation. It would be an inconvenient history to study.
This exists in the modern-day too,
I am from India and you will never hear anything about the 99% of the people in our CURRENT WORLD, the lives of the rich and the poor are totally different and they don't even know about the lives of each other, especially in the age of internet in which you need internet, a phone, and English to even have access, whatever you have told in this video also applies to the modern day, With 'news', the thing is that no one wants to hear about the 99% who can't even buy your newspaper, they focus on the issues of the top 1% becaus they are the ones who can pay for the news, it's the same problem with our film culture and our TV shows, everything is made for the rich, for the average subsistence farmers who don't even know in what country they live, there's nothing, they are totally ignored, there are no proletarian students in the universities, none of them are in politics, they are invisible
Well dude it's not rich people 's fault someone is born into poverty besides those guys probably have a chill life and are okay with being invisible
"Generation that got addicted to tictok." Imao
It's true!
Facts
You want to know a poor but literate American colonist that we know a lot about? Alexander Hamilton. We know a lot about his entire life. Caesar's death is probably the most well-known of the ancient world; one of the most infamous and influential assassinations of all time. Few can compare.
One of the only humans as influential as Caesar, whose assasination was as infamous as Caesar's, was born as poor as any freeman in history. Abraham Lincoln was born pretty fricken poor. We know all about his life before he became influential. He was never wealthy. Not really.
It's impossible to say who was more influential tjam whom. I've read that Alexander was probably the most influential single person in history (but they probably meant western history, but come on, considering how the previous 500 yrs have gone, the West has ended up the most globally influential). Caesar was near the top of that list, but his incredibly impactful legacy is partly due to the success of his successors and bc his chosen heir was able to elevate himself to Emperor and be accepted as such, rather than declare himself dictator for life. So when we discuss Caesar's influence, it's really the combined influience of several critical ancient figures, not just Augustus and Caesar, but Marc Antony, Pompey, Agrippa, and Cleopatra.
No Greek Empire, probably no Roman Republic, which means no Empire, which means Europe is totally different, meaning the British rise is totally different and since we were a british colony afterall... and since Lincoln was born not long after we formally broke from that empire and his admin was smack dab in the middle of the height of the british empire under Queen Vicky, one can connect Alex to Abe without much leaping.
All those people I've just mentioned, and the ones left unmentioned like the founding fathers (other than Hamilton) were all born and raised wealthy and/or powerful except for Agrippa. Agrippa, Lincoln, and Hamilton were each entirely self-made.
Other people might say hey, aren't you forgetting a rather important influential historical figure of the ancient world that was born even more humbly than Lincoln? that lived contemporaneously with Augustus? That being Christ? That's a good point. He lived AND died a peasant. But Agrippa, Christ, Hamilton, and Lincoln are the exceptions.
It is Not specifically the Rich which is the focus of historians. They are really most interested in the Influential. (Those who "make" history.)
Influence is very often correlated to having wealth. NOT just because wealth buys power. But also because in America, honest wealth COMES FROM serving / selling to / impacting / influencing a large number of people.
Honest wealth? 🤣 You live in a fantasy! Exploiting labor is never honest.
@@evangrey4737YES, Earning HONEST Wealth. By Win/Win. My heritage of our Founding Fathers. Let me guess: You are bitter because you never had any wealth, power, and influence.
This is America. Where even ignorant immigrants and despised minorities have an immense opportunity.
Grandfather Russo was a piss-poor "WOP". A derrogatory term for Italians. But it really and simply means "without papers". (No "pedigree"; low class.) He came over on the boat, just before WW-1.
Both my Mom and Dad were children of the Great Depression. Living just below the borderline between Low and Middle class. BUT, by the time I entered High School, they worked their way UP into the upper half of Middle class. By being self-employed.
I am now 66, and in my 45th year of owning my own business. Built my own custom house, on 1.1 acre. Launched the career or business of dozens of "Apprentices". I never "exploited" their labor. On the contrary, I gave them a company-paid education, and red carpet path to their own career or business success. So, I have NO Sympathy or respect for people who remain wage slaves.
May I brazenly suggest you read Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich". Originally published in 1937, still in print, having sold 100,000,000 copies. Then Stop Bitching.
An old Italian proverb: "Evil to those who think evil." Napoleon Hill used science to confirm and explain Why this is True. And how this cycle of personal negativity, poverty, and bitterness can be ended, under our American system.
This is why I became an archaeologist.
i would hv enjoy some examples of individuals lower class but oke--
Chris chan might be the exception here, but that's because his life is intresting as well
So basically, we can't blame historians for not thinking that the common man's experience has value.
I really dislike how the human mind works when it comes to how we find more interest in the people that probably caused most of our ancestors great suffering, along with other things.
Yeah I don't get it either
@@HowHistoryWorksJust because you like the taste of boots doesn’t mean everyone else does. « Human mind » give me a break. I’ll never worship murderers thieves slave owners and rapists.
You have it terrible wrong. It is not the rich that they care about, it is the influential that they care about. and influential often coincides with sweaty or powerful. I thought this was going to cover history in general only to find it is merely specific to the the US.
Facts
❤️❤️❤️
❤️ ❤️
Because they are the one that move the world forward.
The rich, powerful and influential people change things. There are huge numbers of the rich and powerful we know nothing about. At best you may find them in forgotten books we never read. For the vast majority of us born, worked, married, had kids, died isn't much of a read. Strangely we know a great deal about the life of the common people through out timeb we just don't find it that interesting. The stories aren't much different than our own. There is a book called Common Lives. How many have ever read it compared to books about the pharaohs? History is written by the victors and rewritten by every generation thereafter because no one reads 'what they said is 100% accurate'.
History is written by the literate and few working-class people were literate.
TLDR: because for most of history rich people were the only ones who could read and write and leave knowledge for historians
There are so many more of us… we could just eat them.
Why
We know how originally people live in most of the times. But this is not what interesting about history is a decision making of the leaders and how this impacted the country . He still is one of the most complicated subject to understand and study because it don't view stuff how we view it today. If you view history I know more than positive you will not understand nothing you need to understand how safe use a history and yes most of the history people are f****** suffering because living standard I'll be poor before the 20th century. We have a lot of information how oddly people live but we don't show it to people because it's not interesting you easily can read a book about the lifestyle of a villager of England in the 12th century. And you can know everything they eat to wear or do in the lifetime but it's not interesting to anyone because he's doing a deadly task to survive
Why do historical records favor a small group of people with extream amounts of power and influence over the societies of the past?
Most people don't like their own life that's why they live through reading about celebrities life. This is the same.
Was pleased to see a shoutout to @coffeezilla
Was pleased to see this comment
ah yes, me who is a peasant living in 2023 era 😂
Why so much avoidance in acknowledging slavery in the US? Most people here were slaves, not indentured servants
Even today nobody care or interest in common people. They rather write about the the rich and famous.
Statistically most us would have died in childhood in the past. Without moder
medication I would have died at 22 when I developed hypothyroidism.
youtube wont let me view the vid
Life sucked. The end. Thanks for making my depression even worse lmao
Growing up in the Weimar Republic? Honestly, I do Not See that working out so well…
To be fair today we use these figures as no more than clowns in our fictional story telling, these tale’s historian provide are still just an idea whom the true figure were. Much like Uncle Walt or the internet’s political savior Musk subject to side characters in some ultra futuristic assassins creed installment.
It makes for interesting stories. Go outside and tell me if the 30 people in the same public transport as you have incredibly amazing stories, or yourself for that matter.
Not you as in HowHistoryWorks, but one of those in the transport.
This isn't a "Money" thing, it's not a "success" thing - and what a revealing bias that is btw - it's a story thing.
How many Onfims can you care about once you know there's more than ten of them?
It's not historians, it's us.