I do feel, though, in listening to the constant fluctuations in fortune, that this is a history that would be useful in teaching kids in our present society about life. Sometimes tyrants win. Sometimes they lose. Quite often one tyrant is replaced by another. War hurts and impoverishes everyone. Sometimes taxes are punitive, sometimes they are low. Sometimes you can do and say as you please, but most of the time saying the wrong thing will get you killed or imprisoned. This is most of humanity, for most of history.
Christianity is replete with violence. I was reading about some poor woman, a virgin who taught math, who somehow fell afoul of, if memory serves, the man who became St. Cyril. They grabbed her in the street, stripped her naked, hacked her to death in a Christian church, scraped the skin off her bones, and threw her bones in a fire, in what amounted to a human sacrifice.
I read about a revolt of the Samaritans, in which 20,000 were killed, and 20,000 sold into slavery.
I read about a Persian king who invaded Jerusalem and Palestine and either killed or allowed to be killed 90,000 Christians.
It is a monstrous and absurd fact of modern American history that our children are led into believing that the fate of the slaves in the South was something other than what was done to other human beings in virtually every country on Earth 150 years ago, and for recorded history all the way back before that. They are led to believe that our wars are somehow different than the wars going back through time. To the extent they are, it is because they are notable for lack of atrocities, absence of rapine, and for no notable effort at gorging our coffers with the fortunes of others.
Soviet era propaganda, and that is what we are dealing with, only works with historically ignorant, and damnably stupid and complacent people. But that is most Americans.
I would add this book to those I believe should be read by ALL Americans. Kids could read 10 pages a week throughout high school, until done. I don’t think even the most feeble minds could escape learning some obvious lessons, and it would force them to encounter and learn to process actually skillful and rich prose.