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The squishy humanities version of this, in America at least, goes as follows:
In grade school you learn that the Civil War was about slavery.
In high school you learn that the Civil War was about a lot of complicated things.
In college you learn that the Civil War was about slavery.
In Alabama you learn it's about Yankee Aggression.
My mom (RIP) was a boomer born and raised in Georgia. In our house, we were taught that General Sherman was in hell right alongside Napoleon and Hitler.
If he is, it's for his handling of the Native Americans and bison and not for how he prosecuted the March to the Sea. The Confederacy was a boil that needed popping.
My general thought on the March is that glorifying a series of war crimes and mass civilian death is never a good thing, and it wasn't the wannabe aristocratic slave owners that suffered the most from it.
But war is hell, which is why you should always try to avoid starting one, especially for a contemptible cause.
The March should be filed under the same general heading as the WW2 bombing campaign, it's one thing to view it as a necessary evil but it's another thing to revel in it.
Apu learned in post-grad glasses that it was complicated again.
That gag is cute, and I'm aware I'm killing the joke here, but it would have been funnier if it weren't for the fact that underpinning the "economic factors, both foreign and domestic" was just more slavery. The South was utterly dependent on it for their economic security and social identity, and it informed every decision their leaders made.
Nah, Apu's PhD is in comp sci. The joke is his extensive education. It sucks that so many very talented and educated folks have to start a business to legally stay in the US.