So I'm really starting to become aware of how ignorant I am about general world history that seems like everyone else here has a general grasp of. Is it my failure to listen or seek it out? Is it a failure of the educational institutions I've attended? Both?
We've been studying the criminal tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo (yes, there was a Tokyo, did you know?) in my International Criminal Law class, and I'm constantly surprised at stuff I just don't even have a general knowledge of.
Example: Tomorrow we're doing a section on Henry Kissinger. Before I started the reading, I vaguely knew his name, and that's pretty much it. What I'm learning is fascinating and disturbing. If you've got some spare time (a fair bit of it), you should peruse these excerpts from the book The Trial of Henry Kissinger and compare them to what the Wikipedia entry says about him. If even one thing Hitchins alleges is true, we should all be ashamed.
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