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A History of the Past:
'Life Reeked With Joy'
Possibly as an act of vengeance, a history professor--compiling, verbatim, several decades' worth of freshman papers--offers some of his students’ more striking insights into European history from the Middle Ages to the present.
History, as we know, is always bias, because human beings have to be studied by other human beings, not by independent observers of another species.
During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle aged. Church and state were co-operatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords, and surfs. It is unfortunate that we do not have a medivel European laid out on a table before us, ready for dissection. After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeped into Europe, merchants appeared. Some were sitters and some were drifters. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organized big fairies in the countryside. Mideval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone. England fought numerously for land in France and ended up wining and losing. The Crusades were a series of military expaditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the “Home Town” of Christ) from the Islams.
In the 1400 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of yeowls arose. Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other etceteras. It was spread from port to port by inffected rats. Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. The plague also helped the emergance of the English language as the national language of England, France and Italy.
The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renasence bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being. Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world, thanks to northern Europe. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Art was on a more associated level. Europe was full of incredable churches with great art bulging out their doors. Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike.
The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man’s quest for ressurection above thenot-just-social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.
After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. If the Spanish could gain the Netherlands they would have a stronghold throughout northern Europe which would include their posetions in Italy, Burgangy, central Europe and India thus serrounding France. The German Emperor’s lower passage was blocked by the French for years and years.
Louis XIV became King of the Sun. He gave the people food and artillery. If he didn’t like someone, he sent them to the gallows to row for the rest of their lives. Vauban was the royal minister of flirtation. In Russia the 17th century was known as the time of the bounding of the serfs. Russian nobles wore clothes only to humour Peter the Great. Peter filled his government with accidental people and built a new capital near the European boarder. Orthodox priests became government antennae.
The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great. Philosophers were unknown yet, and the fundamental stake was one of religious toleration slightly confused with defeatism. France was in a very serious state. Taxation was a great drain on the state budget. The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The revolution evolved through monarchial, republican and tolarian phases until it catapulted into Napolean. Napoleon was ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained.
History, a record of things left behind by past generations, started in 1815. Throughout the comparatively radical years 1815–1870 the western European continent was undergoing a Rampant period of economic modification. Industrialization was precipitating in England. Problems were so complexicated that in Paris, out of a city population of one million people, two million able bodies were on the loose.
Great Brittian, the USA and other European countrys had demicratic leanings. The middle class was tired and needed a rest. The old order could see the lid holding down new ideas beginning to shake. Among the goals of the chartists were universal suferage and an anal parliment. Voting was done by ballad.
A new time zone of national unification roared over the horizon. Founder of the new Italy was Cavour, an intelligent Sardine from the north. Nationalism aided Itally because nationalism is the growth of an army. We can see that nationalism succeeded for Itally because of France’s big army. NapoleonIII-IV mounted the French thrown. One thinks of Napoleon III as a live extension of the late, but great, Napoleon. Here too was the new Germany: loud, bold, vulgar and full of reality.
Culture fomented from Europe’s tip to its top. Richard Strauss, who was violent but methodical like his wife made him, plunged into vicious and perverse plays. Dramatized were adventures in seduction and abortion. Music reeked with reality. Wagner was master of music, and people did not forget his contribution. When he died they labled his seat “historical.” Other countries had their own artists. France had Chekhov.
World War I broke out around 1912–1914. Germany was on one side of France and Russia was on the other. At war people get killed, and then they aren’t people any more, but friends. Peace was proclaimed at Versigh, which was attended by George Loid, Primal Minister of England. President Wilson arrived with 14 pointers. In 1937 Lenin revolted Russia. Communism raged among the peasants, and the civil war “team colours” were red and white.
Germany was displaced after WWI. This gave rise to Hitler. Germany was morbidly overexcited and unbalanced. Berlin became the decadent capital, where all forms of sexual deprivations were practised. A hugeanti-semantic movement arose. Attractive slogans like”death to all Jews” were used by governmental groups. Hitler remilitarized the Rineland over a squirmish between Germany and France. The appeasers were blinded by the great red of the Soviets. Moosealini rested his foundations on eight million bayonets and invaded Hi Lee Salasy. Germany invaded Poland, France invaded Belgium, and Russia invaded everybody. War screeched to an end when a nukuleer explosion was dropped on Heroshima. A whole generation had been wipe out in two world wars, and their forlorne families were left to pick up the peaces.
According to Fromm, individuation began historically in medieval times. This was a period of small childhood. There is increasing experience as adolescence experiences its life development. The last stage is us.
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Anders Henriksson is assistant Professor of history at Shepherd College. Born in Rochester, New York, he received a B.A. from the University of Rochester (1971), and an M.A.(1972) and a Ph.D. (1978) from the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Tsar’s Loyal Germans: The Riga German Community, Social Change, and the Nationality Question, 1855–1905 (1983).
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and in no way represent the views or opinions of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. This section is moderated by Wilson Quarterly staff.
Hysterical History
Not much to say really, except that this is the best laugh I've had in yonks!
Posted by: madeleine | 1/4/09
lol
you rock! totally sweet!
Posted by: jc123 | 3/18/09
Brilliant!
This is inspired brilliance. Truly a term paper for the ages.
Posted by: Dog George | 4/27/09
Very Droll
There real question: how many graduated, and were elected to Congress or found other work in D.C.? My guess: many, judging by the idiocy I hear from there.
Posted by: donald w | 6/17/09
Decline and Fall of Western Civilization
A unique point a few :-)
Posted by: Helen Highwater | 7/3/09
Hysterical History
Another screed in the tradition of "The Dumbest Generation". Is it possible that students construct this kind of stuff in large part because of lousy teaching by career obsessed History professors? Cf. "La trahison des clercs".
Posted by: Manfred | 7/27/09
A+
Hey, I don't remember giving anyone permission to reprint my term paper!!!
Posted by: Shawn W | 9/9/09
Very funny ... and sad.
Who knew?
Posted by: Beck | 9/10/09
DC (not AD) and it's environment
And there you have it: 'In a Nut Shell' Only these nuts have no shell and rule inside the Beltway.
Posted by: Peter B Wolf | 9/14/09
Ah, the good old days...
...when students were ONLY that ignorant. This is from 1983, apparently. Good thing for us that society has grown far more intelligent in the last quarter century...*sigh* Today's term papers are far, far worse than these.
Posted by: Huston | 9/14/09
you were expecting?
You were expecting a history prof to teach basic spelling and vocabulary maybe?
Posted by: Al | 9/15/09
Not too far off
This wasn't too far off; particularly the guy who quipped, "Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll!" Too true.
Posted by: William Briggs | 9/15/09
loud, bold, vulgar and full of reality?
oh my god. this is hilarious yo
Posted by: counterview | 9/16/09
Mojo Rising
Jim Morrison ahoy,This boy is poetic !
Posted by: TeaM | 9/16/09
into this house we're born
a class of yeowls, a medieval European laid out on the table, ready for dissection. monks went right on seeing themselves as worms, inflected rats, ninety-five theocrats nailed to a church door the last stage is us, dramatized adventures in seduction and abortion, culture fomented
Posted by: jim morrison, indeed | 9/16/09
state of the nation
This might have been written by Glenn Beck fans.
Posted by: prospector | 9/25/09
A Spaniard in the Works
Reminds me of John Lennon's "A Spaniard in the Works." How many of these lines came from foreign students for whom English is a second language?
Posted by: Laura Lee | 10/6/09
History for historians
I just love it! What genius! This is a great example of how young students develop from mediocrities to literary powerhouses. Doesn’t this article remind us all of our youthful innocence? This article is indeed joy to read. This is a recommended reading for people with no sense of humor.
Posted by: Carlos Borjal | 12/9/09
Hell to the yes!
This was presented as an assembly at school and I have NEVER heard a teacher cackle before or since. So thank you, so so much.
Posted by: Alyss | 12/15/09
Career-obsessed history profs?
I highly doubt that the professors can be blamed. Considering what I've seen lately, they have an uphill battle, however concerned with their careers they might be. I think that we're looking at a generation that is completely absorbed with the everything else in their lives. How many kids are texting during class? Playing games on their laptop while supposedly taking notes? Writing papers with what they find on Google, or worse- Wikipedia? Skating through thinking they'll be passed because they bothered to show up for class with clothes on (mind you, some of what passes for clothes...), because that's how they got through high school?... Frankly, I think that many history profs these days would be pleased to hear that there was history before 1815. It's a start.
Posted by: Lainie | 1/9/10
I can add to the essay
I teach European History at a university, so I can attest to the fact that most kids get their information online, the night before the paper is due. Then they don't run spell check and hand it in. Since the advent of turnitin.com, I've found at least 2 papers where over 60% was direct copy and paste from wikipedia (I guess since we tell them "no wikipedia" that we don't read it and would never recognize if something was copied and pasted from that site) or once, some blog on religion. I could probably write this essay myself with only 4 years of teaching. I could at least add some: perhaps the part from an essay I got from a kid about how Columbus sailed and landed in Hawaii and then Tahiti on a second voyage. He was upset that he failed the essay and said, well I used some really old books in the library, so maybe the information has changed since then....
Posted by: Jessica | 4/22/10
Good Read
I laugh, I cry... brilliant!
Posted by: Ulwin | 7/23/10
Institutionalized Learning Behavior
Higher eduction should be the preserved for those who have achieved higher education. This is why our great schools of learning have been "watered down" to the point that they have become "Day Care" centers for those waiting for a government job.
Posted by: Don Lowrance | 8/5/10
Excellent
I can't wait for Sarah Palin to come out with her sequel.
Posted by: Army | 12/3/10
A History
I have to agree with one of the above comments, "an interesting point of view". Guess students are still into plagiarizing as much as when I was in school. However, we didn't have Wikipedia. You know it's too bad that students take this stance because the knowledge that they miss out on could so help them in the future. Thanks for the article, I do enjoy European History.
Posted by: delay timer | 2/9/11
my favourites
On the early medieval period: There were three Old English dialects: British, West Saxon and Celtic. English is a German language. French was the most foreign language of the time.
Posted by: ck | 2/17/11
Since the advent of turnitin.com, I've found at least 2 papers where over 60% was direct copy and paste from wikipedia (I guess since we tell them "no wikipedia" that we don't read it and would never recognize if something was copied and pasted from that site) or once, some blog on religion. I could probably write this essay myself with only 4 years of teaching.
Posted by: Kids In The Way | 2/28/11
Celtic
Fabulous article, I laughed till I cried. Though to correct CK, Celtic is not a dialect of Old English, it is a family of languages in its own right. Modern Irish, Scots Gaelic, Breton, Welsh, Cornish and Manx are all Celtic languages. British, or Brittonic, is a Celtic language, from which the modern language of Welsh formed, not an English or Germanic language. French wouldn't have been that foreign as the learned class would have read and spoke Latin, and French is a Romance language derived from Latin. Though maybe the pronunciation would have thrown them a little.
Posted by: Pedant | 3/24/11
theology
What I'm dying to know is, which of the Popes weren't Catholic.
Posted by: Suetonius | 4/14/11
Education
I started out very confused, then I caught on and laugh until I cried. To think this is what education has come to.
Posted by: Yellowrose | 4/17/11
High School?
This was hysterically funny when I thought that the students were high school freshmen. Now I am depressed.
Posted by: Lurkinggood | 6/22/11
Not very many sentences read as common ESL mistakes, by the way.
Posted by: Eden | 12/16/11
I feel smart
Please identify which one Michelle Bachmann wrote
Posted by: Hoist | 2/23/12
old
this is quite old. i have a copy that i printed in the early 1980s.
Posted by: johann | 7/11/12
German Emperor
Yes, but you've got to admire the one student's application of modern biological discoveries, tracing the actual cause of World War I to the fact that all that rich French food that Wilhelm II ate resulted in the blockage of his large intestines, engerdering his rage at the Dual Alliance, and thus expiating Gavrilo Princip and his Browning semi-automatic pistol at Sarajevo, which turns out, at best, to have been a minor incident.
Posted by: Ronald | 7/12/12
Copying bad sources
In 1975 my high school history teacher showed us a student's paper on Karl Marx copied from an encyclopedia. In the middle of the paper the student copied several lines about the Marx Brothers, but rather than start again he just went back to copying the Karl Marx entry.
Posted by: dm10003 | 8/12/12
Snobs!
I like that the Holy Land was Jesus's home town.
Posted by: jmundstuk | 8/12/12
Culture fomented from Europe’s tip to its top
"...and the French had Chekhov." Too funny, and so very, very sad.
Posted by: Suzana | 8/13/12
Great Stuff
I am certainly in favor of voting by ballad.
Posted by: Napoleon IV | 8/13/12
History? This isn't even English!
Pathetic. I'm so thrilled I educated my children at home. All have received compliments from their college profs as to how well they write.
Posted by: Whoathere | 8/13/12
From an Art History final exam ...
I read this one at 3 AM about 20 years ago; the student is describing the Piazza of St. Peter's in Rome: "Bernini put an Egyptian Odalisque in the center of the piazza, to welcome visitors into the church." So literate, and so imaginative! If only it were true!
Posted by: Michael R | 8/13/12
Funny
I also teach history. I gave an essay prompt about John Locke's "Two Treatises On Government" I asked my students to tell we what these works said about man and government. One of my students wrote an entire essay on the "Two Testies on Government". I kid you not! Another student (different prompt) wrote an entire essay on the pheasants of Europe. Yet, another told me in an essay that people really like to go to church during the Middle Ages because they like getting excited by all the nude statues! Never a dull moment in the classroom and some genuine belly laughts!
Posted by: Lorraine Buchbinder | 8/13/12
Too awesome
Why isn't voting still done by ballad? We could change it to voting done by rap battles to stay "with the times."
Posted by: Natalia | 8/14/12
Enough said
"At war people get killed, and then they aren’t people any more, but friends."
Posted by: Sean | 8/14/12
A suitable addition
This one should be added to the list. Its origins kind of have to do with European history...both in terms of social contract and socialism. "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Seriously. And yes, I have read the whole speech for context, and this line still angers me.
Posted by: JeffersonDiningAlone | 8/14/12
Heaven Help Us
And these people are not only allowed to vote, they are allowed to breed! As I have told my children frequently, the is NO shortage of stupid people.
Posted by: ptgandw | 8/14/12
I got gypped on my education!
How else could I not have known victims of the Black Plague grew boobs on their necks?
Posted by: Ysmay | 8/15/12
History Term Paper
If these guys are voters, Obama is a shoo-in!
Posted by: Dr. G | 8/16/12
Thank you.
That's all. Just thank you. I had to put this aside for a second to catch my breath, I was laughing so hard.
Posted by: Christine@QuasiAgitato | 8/17/12
The student who had Luther nailing the theocrats to the door got it exactly right! A*!
Posted by: Korhomme | 8/18/12
What Really Happened
"Germany invaded Poland, France invaded Belgium, and Russia invaded everybody." Bloody secrecy laws - we're never told the truth!
Posted by: VJ | 8/20/12
History Term Paper
Tell me - all these came from the new Christian madrassas founded by Governor Jingal's vouchers in Louisiana?
Posted by: Richard Thomas | 8/20/12
Really?
Did so many of you have to defile this with jabs at government and politicians? Can't something simply be entertaining without you people injecting your toxic cynicism into the discussion? Give it a rest.
Posted by: YoBimbo | 8/20/12
New Job??
How does one go about applying for the post of royal minister of flirtation?
Posted by: Beaups | 11/28/12
reply
As an online professor for many universities, what you see here is just the icing on the cake. It can actually get much worse; YES much worse and even in doctorate level programs. This "quality" work is now being submitted by perhaps 25% of the student population. Interestingly enough in our entitlement world the expectation is that this merits A work.
Posted by: Professor | 2/7/13
A History of the Past
LOL = Lutherans on Line? Thanks to Garrison Keillor for this lovely addition to the LOL universe. Poor Martin Luther! Your rendition of history made my day!
Posted by: Mme C | 2/9/13
History of the Past
This article does a disservice to the subjects it covers, but that pales before the fact that it is an example of terrible writing. I expect better from The Wilson Quarterly. "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written." - Oscar Wilde
Posted by: Bill Pai | 2/16/13