Societies often have a reputation, but they don’t always necessarily deserve it. Societies can get a reputation when they are talked about by other societies. However, if those people don’t agree with what the other society does, they might portray them differently than how they actually are because of their biased beliefs. For example, lots of our information about the Vikings comes from other societies who might perceive them as violent and cruel, but they might not have been as bad as their reputations said they were. Societies can also create a reputation for themselves. Unfortunately, this could lead us to misinformation because they might exaggerate that they were a great civilization without giving us the whole picture of what they were really like. When Charlemagne’s biographer described him, he might have exaggerated the great things he did rather than telling us about him from a neutral point of view. However, that doesn’t mean that their reputations are not true. Sometimes societies do deserve their reputations, whether they are good or bad. I believe that, for these reasons, societies do not always necessarily deserve the reputations they are given.

In my social studies 8 class we just started our blogs. This year I’m very excited to learn about and explore different civilizations from different parts of the world and different times in history! In this blog, I will share what I’ve learned and discovered about these various civilizations. Hope you enjoy!