The Ways We Write History

Thanks to Mr. Edson for sending me the following link on Wikipedia Historiography. How fascinating to see the range of edits that were included on Wikipedia about the Iraq War:

"This particular book—or rather, set of books—is every edit made to a single Wikipedia article, The Iraq War, during the five years between the article’s inception in December 2004 and November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages. "

James Bridle decided to make a book of all those edits and ultimately created a 12-volume encyclopedia. Fascinating to see the many perspectives on history and how challenging it can be to write history; this project is a good way to see how many versions of history were written in just under five years.

In-Class Writing Prompts

Questions for King Leopold's Ghost:

Select two of the following questions to which you will respond using a thesis statement and support from the text, which can be quoted or paraphrased. Use pages 1-60 as your support. Write at least a long paragraph for each response using multiple pieces of evidence from the text.

If you have another question that you would like to consider further based on this reading, please write down your question and then answer it. Follow your curiosity. You may do this for one of the questions you answer.

To what extent were Leopold and Stanley similar?

How effective was King Leopold II as a leader?

How did Leopold's colonial desires compare to colonial pursuits by others during this time period?

Was it a good decision for Stanley to explore with men who had no experience as travelers? Why or why not?

What role do women seem to play in this history?

White Man's Burden - Pears' Soap Ad

The above ad for Pears’ Soap reads:

The first step towards lightening The White Man’s Burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness. Pears’ Soap is a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilization advances while amongst the cultured of all nations it holds the highest place — it is the ideal toilet soap.