I remember hearing, when I was young, a grumbly objection to the growing prevalence of “world history” in higher secondary and undergraduate education curricula that went something like this: “They don’t even know their own history; we should teach them that before we teach them ‘world history’.” Now that I’m a pro historian with a pile of work under my belt, as opposed to a grad student/teaching assistant for a freshman-level World Civ class, I can answer that objection with some confidence.