Then DO NOT watch Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States.
I consider myself reasonably "aware," at least more so than your average [American] monkey. But it turns out that I still hold a number of flat-out bullshit ideas about what America has done in the world since the outbreak of WW2, and what has driven America to its (now faltering) status as the sole "Superpower."
I was unsurprised but frustrated to learn that much of what I was taught in grade school about recent American History is, in fact, completely false. I had gathered through context clues while speaking with non-Americans online that America is not perceived as the "shining city on the hill" that we are told we are, and that we have in fact been behind a number of decidedly awful events on the world stage. But what I did not know was how intentional and callous our government's international (and domestic) behavior has been. It was my naive assumption that "difficult choices had to be made" and that throughout the Cold War we were fighting at least for something we believed in, even if we were misguided and short-sighted in the ways we chose to fight. But it turns out that no, almost nothing we have undertaken really has idealism or charity at its heart. America is, as much as any other empire in the history of the planet, completely and solely preoccupied with gaining and keeping power.
To be fair, the documentary does not really give "untold" history, as all of these facts are verified and easy to find if you are so inclined. And it does tend to lean heavily to the "Left," omitting huge amounts of negative information about the "other side," minimizing Soviet atrocities, and focusing heavily on the blunders and outrageous actions on America's part -- though I'm not sure how much of this is really "leaning Left" and how much of it is just "contradicts the American mythos." But the series does shed light on the backroom deals that shaped the world during and after the Second World War, and spends a lot of time grieving over the loss to our collective consciousness of would-be heroes like Henry Wallace. It effectively narrates America's path from relative international seclusion to almost absolute world domination through the actual decisions made by the actual people involved.
If you want an easy crash-course in What's Really Going On in the world, then watch it. But you'll lose every scrap of patriotism you have left in the process.
I consider myself reasonably "aware," at least more so than your average [American] monkey. But it turns out that I still hold a number of flat-out bullshit ideas about what America has done in the world since the outbreak of WW2, and what has driven America to its (now faltering) status as the sole "Superpower."
I was unsurprised but frustrated to learn that much of what I was taught in grade school about recent American History is, in fact, completely false. I had gathered through context clues while speaking with non-Americans online that America is not perceived as the "shining city on the hill" that we are told we are, and that we have in fact been behind a number of decidedly awful events on the world stage. But what I did not know was how intentional and callous our government's international (and domestic) behavior has been. It was my naive assumption that "difficult choices had to be made" and that throughout the Cold War we were fighting at least for something we believed in, even if we were misguided and short-sighted in the ways we chose to fight. But it turns out that no, almost nothing we have undertaken really has idealism or charity at its heart. America is, as much as any other empire in the history of the planet, completely and solely preoccupied with gaining and keeping power.
To be fair, the documentary does not really give "untold" history, as all of these facts are verified and easy to find if you are so inclined. And it does tend to lean heavily to the "Left," omitting huge amounts of negative information about the "other side," minimizing Soviet atrocities, and focusing heavily on the blunders and outrageous actions on America's part -- though I'm not sure how much of this is really "leaning Left" and how much of it is just "contradicts the American mythos." But the series does shed light on the backroom deals that shaped the world during and after the Second World War, and spends a lot of time grieving over the loss to our collective consciousness of would-be heroes like Henry Wallace. It effectively narrates America's path from relative international seclusion to almost absolute world domination through the actual decisions made by the actual people involved.
If you want an easy crash-course in What's Really Going On in the world, then watch it. But you'll lose every scrap of patriotism you have left in the process.