How Johnny Harris Rewrites History

Update: since the release of this video Johnny has contacted me and he has started citing sources. I fact checked his part two and wrote part 3 of this series with him. Go check it out here: https://youtu.be/LjieOlWXwTw HI everyone! This got a bit out of hand 😮. This video has the same viewcount as the original. Insane. A lot of you have commented on the points I made and so I thought it’s time for some housekeeping. Mistakes Even though I actually have been educated as a historian and do my research, I can and will make mistakes. I don’t have team to check every word I say. So don't take the word of a youtube historian as the absolute end-all truth. You probably shouldn't do that with any (internet) person. If you spot an error, please include the source that backs your claim. - The graphic showing European population 1300 - 1450 is not right. The script is correct. Graphic should say 1000 – 1340. - I said slavery was forbidden in Europe. This not entirely true. In the 17th century 10% of Lisbon’s population consisted of enslaved peoples. Generally seen white slavery was not accepted in Medieval Europe however. Some people talked about slavery in Roman times. That is a different time period. Some mentioned slave trade by the Kievan Rus. Rus is an interesting one. But most enslaved people were sold to Muslim rulers. A lot of people have said Isabella was responsible for giving the gig to Colombus. The source I used says the King Fernando stepped in at the end. archive.org/details/worldsofchristop0000phil/page/…. If you have a different source do share it with me. Omissions/nuance I didn’t mention some things because the video had to be viewable. Some extra pointers: - Yes the Portuguese were expanding along Africa in the 1400s. But they hadn’t made it to India. My point was you can’t alter the dates for storytelling. - Iberian colonial expansion has certainly been influenced by Spanish and Portuguese experience in the Reconquista. Both in colonizing land as in how to rule this land. - One reason Spanish colonialism got such a bad rep is because of the Black Legend. The low countries fighting Spain from 1568 found a text from Bartholomeus de Las Casas describing atrocities in the New World. They and others spread it religiously. Casas his work was overly negative and propaganda for reform. Initial lawlessness in the first 30 years had by then been replaced by a more stable colonial administration. The Spanish did not deliberately cause the catastrophic loss to the population. They wanted a work force. This does not mean Spain should have colonized it in the first place or that no atrocities happened. - Some commenters pointed out how local factions that helped Spanish got titles and lands awarded, so it did work out for them in the end. I’d say that is a small consolation for seeing your entire society disrupted. - Some people thought I was not critical enough of JH and have said some nasty things. Making content is hard and shouting from the sidelines is easy. I still think JH has the best intentions. And I think being critical can be done in a civilized manner. - The flag of Spain doesn't show Aragon. But I think that might've been just a mistake. I do think you can say Spain instead of 'Union of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon' to make the topic more accessible. - Europe is too big of a term. Eastern Europe was mostly colonised instead of a coloniser. But I understand the decision to say this. When discussing these things please keep it civil

Great video. I really appreciate the way you approached this and appreciate the amount of work that went into creating this discourse. I'll just say it right away: I accept your points here, and to be candid, the response to this video was a pretty big wake up call for me. The research on this was overly biased towards a simplistic narrative to which most of the facts bent. My hope with this series was to give an highly simplified almost “story book” version of a vastly complicated 500-year history so that those who are not usually interested in history could access the broad arc of European imperialism. I still believe in that goal but missed the mark with this one. So thank you for the compelling dissent. I’ll do some soul searching on how I’ll address this in the channel and series itself. Again. I appreciate the way you approached this critique. Also REALLY great job on the production. new sub here. Oh the Irving analogy at the end was pretty 🔥

This is like a YouTube peer review. I can see this having positive effects for the reliability of the platform, especially when it’s responded to with such professionalism as it has been.

Love that YouTubers are peer reviewing like this. I love Johnny Harris’ content. It keeps YouTube educators in check. It’s important to know whether the information you’re reading is unbiased, and truly just for the purpose of education!

This guy does buzzfeed style content. It’s so chimey and easy to digest while only covering one aspect or viewpoint.

As a viewer of Johnny Harris' channel I am happy to see that this video calls him out and receives great attention for it. This is how discussion on this platform should be.

Excellent video. As an English/History teacher-in-training, this video inspired me to create an assignment where students criticize popular YouTube history videos, finding the perspective of the video, their mistakes and falsehoods, their lack of nuance or oversimplification, as well as their merit. I think it's a great starting point to explore the complicated concept of historical narratives, interpretation, myth and contemporary issues connected to popular retellings of history.

man, Jonny Harris's responce would almost be respectable, if he still wasnt doing everything the video accused him of lmao

Glad Johnny came and commented with humility. That’s the way society can thrive. Thanks for constructive criticism. I wouldn’t put it better, I used to be annoyed with him.

this is how it should be. you peer reviewed his work and he had the humility to take it to heart. misinformation (intentional or not) is one of the the biggest dangers to society today and we need everyone working together to fight it.

Sad to see Johnny Harris forgot the number 1 rule in making a history video: fact checking and source citations

Whenever I know something about a topic Johnny covers, his videos strike me as those of a not-very-well-read person reading some headlines about a topic and making a video.

I loved this rebuttal. It was so respectful and thought out. Johnny Harris sounds so intelligent and his videos are so slick and fast paced, I had never really questioned the accuracy of them before. I will still love he's videos but I'll definitely try to be more critical. I'm also really happy he saw and responded to this video in the comments. He seems like a really principled man who accepts criticism 😊

The Johnny Harris debunk hat 🤣Great video man! :)

You both do well teaching subjects. When I watch a Johnny video I keep in mind he has about 1 hour in topics you would take a semester of, or study for years

One historical note. When you mention the propaganda in Johnny Harris not depicting the political division within South America being part of the strategy for Spain taking over vast swaths of the Americas I had a slight epiphany. The fact that when Rome was conquering England they used the same strategy as Spain, yet I doubt people like Johnny Harris would depict Rome’s conquest of England as one sided as they do the conquest of the America’s.

This is great. I told youtube a long time ago to stop recommending Johnny Harris to me because his videos were very attractive at surface level, but empty and unsatisfying underneath. But real history is so interesting, and it's great that you're able to fill in these gaps.

The citing their sources bit is so important. French history video makers get torn appart by the public if the sources are lacking, but for some reason English speaking content creators almost never mention those

To be a historian needs a great humility. Well respected, folks!

A big reason Renaissance happened was the scholars that came from the Byzantine Empire at that time and they brought much knowledge and texts that they actually were aware off. And in general there is a very frequent tendency for historians and people discussing history to refer to Europe and just completely forget about the Eastern Roman Empire and also the Middle East which was actually still very close to the rest of Europe even after Arabs and then Turks conquered these areas. The continent groupings and categorisation are sometimes very wrong.