[Lawtan]

I can honestly say that US History (the class) is much less interesting than US History (the overall thing)...but it depends on what part of it for me.

How people lived - their thoughts, tools, beliefs - is interesting. As is trying to understand how the progression of events. And if you care about groups of people other than your own, it is important to know what their ancestors and culture have went through.

Understanding Native American history is necessary both for rebuilding cultures erased and fractured by America, and understanding the crimes America has and continues to perpetuate. In and around Virginia during the early to mid 1900's, there were laws based on the beliefs of ones like Walter Plecker to essentially declare that Amerindians were "mongrelized", had no culture, and black (subject to Jim Crow)...excepting the wealthy Rolfe family. Many tribal lands are only preserved by state recognition of treaties. The annual hunting & gifting of a turkey to leaders from tribes being one of them.

Most Republicans don't seem to understand that there was a political realignment during the Nixon to Reagan years, which resulted in the start of polarized partisanship of the parties. Or that much of the South is raised in a "Culture of Honor"...that has been ideal for growing radicalism, Jim Crow, violence, and easy manipulation. Or that much of the South in the mid-1900's lived the same as they did in the late 1800's, and can look like a feudal society. (If you want to break the Republican voting block in the South...buy rural land and move to the South in groups)

If you're just starting US History, then are you up to the Revolutionary War? If so, you come up to the end of the Age of Piracy as is romanticized - from Privateer William Kidd meeting his family in New York City to Jean Lafitte American ships against Britain.

American colonial history sort of explains why American Christianity is so different from the rest of the world (and much more hypocritical). I mean, the pilgrims were such that they would fine or jail folk for celebrating holidays like Christmas. (And the American Santa Claus sort of came from writers like L. Frank Baum's "Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.")

It also is in some theories (Fischer's theory) to explain the cultures in America - each coming from a different early large immigration groups - Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers, and Scots-Irish. (Alternatively, the Dutch, Germans, Pensioners, Calvinists/Puritans, and businessmen)

Then there are the writers of the time, and how the philosophy of ones like Thomas Paine shaped the minds of our founding fathers...

Sorry if I rambled.