History in the Making by Historian Kyle Ward

NPR Morning Edition did a weeklong series about how the understanding of American history changes over the course of time. One of these stories involved an interview with Historian Kyle Ward, the author of History in the Making.

History in the Making chronicles the way american history books have changed over time in their portrayal of events. You can listen to the interview here.

In this interview, the author talks about how America once went to war. What the author has come to believe from all his research is that history books are often socially agreed upon stories based on the current social, political and economic issues going on during that point in history. As such, they changed as these beliefs change.

In this book, Kyle Ward talks about the Mexican-American war and the Spanish-American war. In his research he reviewed history books written from 1849 to 1995 to find our what those history books had to say about different world events, including these wars.


How history has evolved:

In the 1849 history books, the historical point of view by most Americans was that Mexico attacked Texas and America had to rush to defend ourselves.

Then in the history books of 1880 he found a sweeping change to where history books describe this as a racial conflict between the superior white race and the inferior spanish race.

In 1911 history again changes to where history books describe Mexico as preparing for war against the United States, how Mexico is building up their military superiority and how America had to pre-emptively attack Mexico before Mexico became to powerful for America to defend against.

In 1966, the history books start to reveal how the war was politically motivated and how America may have been bullying Mexico and using American troops to show superiority over US policies.

Finally in 1995, history books now show that America started the Mexican-American war, that President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to send massive amounts of troops to the Mexican-American board knowing that these actions would spark a war with Mexico. Historians now conclude that President Polk wanted this war in order to claim more land from Mexico.


What caused history to evolve:

What i found interesting is how the circumstances and actions of the war remained the same. But, the social motivations behind those actions and the understanding of these actions has changed dramatically.

As i surfed the internet, i drew similiar conclusions to the others research.

In 1848 history books were strongly influenced on the need to justify the war with Mexico and play the helpless victim which was how many americans and newspapers of the time portrayed it.

In 1888 as the Spanish-American was building up, history books (which back then would have been read by young college men who would eventually serve in the military) changed again to encourage these americans to take up arms. In short, the history books helped recruit young men as soldiers and helped gain the support of american citizens.

In 1911, as World War One was taking place, these history books were changing again. At that point in time America was not involved with WWI. The history books portrayed the Mexico-american and Spanish-american wars (the last major conflicts involving america) as a pre-emptive necessity. It painted the picture that if we dont attack first then we will be slaughtered. And thus america enters into WWI.

In 1966 as people begin to question the Vietnam war, they also start to question other past american wars and this leads to history books starting to show that these wars were in fact politically motivated.

Then lastly in 1995 the true nature and history of these wars is revealed. That in fact, America started the wars.