Historical revisionism

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In a broad sense, revisionism is the rewriting of established theories. It occurs in the natural sciences as well as the social sciences, to which the discipline of history belongs. When it is done from a critical point of view, historical revisionism is a legitimate academic pursuit — however, it is also used colloquially as a pejorative term.

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[edit] Revisionism

It is said that "history is written by the winners." Thus, it is essential that we look at history with a critical eye. As such, it is an accepted and important part of historical endeavour for it serves the dual purpose of constantly re-examining the past while also improving our understanding of it. Indeed, if one accepts that history attempts to help us better understand today by better understanding how we got here, revisionism is essential.

One witty tome that is a broad example of historical revisionism is Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, which examines the 500 years since European arrival in North America from the perspective of ordinary people's lives, rather than the tableaux of wars and "great men" that usually define conventional histories.

In the final analysis, revisionism is an essential part of history — it provides a means to constantly improve our understanding by carefully making sure what we know of our "story" is made more accurate. Only idiots take history wholeheartedly as indisputable facts.

[edit] Examples of legitimate historical revisionists

  • William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, who is even now busily rewriting the history of the United States's glorious successes in the Iraq War
  • Robert Harvey, former assistant editor of the The Economist, author of A Few Bloody Noses, a British based interpretation of the American Revolution, which exaggerates the oppression of Native Americans in the conflict.
  • A.J.P. Taylor, author of Origins of the Second World War. Left wing historian, believed Hitler was a rational statesman like any other European autocrat with whom the allied powers failed to identify as such.
  • Philip Jenkins, left wing historian, author of A History of the United States. Originally British, now claims American citizenship. Focuses on the influence of the far right in his studies; tends to attribute right wing conspiracy theories for much of the American social failures from 1950 onward.
  • William Bennett, author of such works as America: the Last Best Hope, which attempts to tell the story of America from the perspective of strong American exceptionalism.
  • Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, which presents American history from the viewpoint of class conflict and argues that it has been continually a story of the elite oppressing the common people of the nation.
  • G.R. Elton, although the author of the rigidly traditional the Practise of History, Elton had a strong revisionist streak. His Tudor Revolution in Government uncovered the role of Thomas Cromwell in revolutionising government administration. His thesis is largely rejected but he succeeded in increasing Cromwell's importance to subsequent historians.

[edit] Revisionism as a pejorative

Revisionism in the USSR

In some respects, the process of historical revisionism has a poor reputation. Many people feel that established history has legitimacy and doesn't need to be "revised," and hold such attempts to be the fruit of political correctness. Further, there are some revisionists whose motives or conclusions (or both) seem to run contrary not just to the accepted narrative, but also to anything resembling the facts. An example of the latter can be found in the trend of Holocaust denial. Many people will also attempt to redefine history in terms of a modern political group or ideology; portraying one's organization as the inheritor of a noble tradition can be a way to steal legitimacy.

It is often done by selective omission, but it can also be done by severely distorting the facts, or outright lying. This is potentially one of the most deceitful tactics when misused, because you alter history itself to lend a weight of support upon your political view point, rather than using actual information. This is common among those promoting "family values" and "traditional marriage", where they rewrite history by locking the alternative views in the closet, even when the views may have been mainstream in the past under the assumption that our most common form of marriage is the most common form of marriage throughout all of time. The danger here is that they proffer the authority of time and tradition, despite history very vividly painting a different image — where the most common and traditional form of marriage was polygamy.

Determining what revisionism is "real" and not counter-factual is a very subjective call, and many may argue that one or more of the following names actually belongs in the list of legitimate revisionists above.

[edit] Examples of historical revisionists who jumped the shark

  • David Irving, historian and holocaust denier [1]
  • Harry Elmer Barnes, a respected academic and progressive historian before World War II who did much to establish historical revisionism as a legitimate academic field. Later lost his credibility and endorsed Holocaust Denial.
  • James J. Martin, a libertarian historical revisionist. His early books, most notably Men Against the State, were respected works often exploring the influence of anarchism on American political thought. Like his mentor Harry Elmer Barnes, later lost his credibility by endorsing Holocaust Denial.
  • W. Cleon Skousen, the Mormon author of The Five Thousand Year Leap, a revisionist view of the politics of the Founding Fathers of the U.S.
  • Scott Lively, for his book, The Pink Swastika, claiming that homosexuality was legal in Nazi Germany and that the Nazi Party was founded by gays. Even Conservapedia bought into this! [2]
  • David Barton, a religious right and Dominionist, author of several books presenting a revisionist view holding that the founding of the United States was as a fundamentalist Christian nation.
  • Conservapedia, an exercise on extreme revisionism.
  • Fascists and other totalitarians — for example, in the USSR "history" was constantly edited to reflect the current Party line.
  • During the early 2000s, the Japanese government approved several history textbooks that downplayed Japan's own war crimes prior to and during World War II. It's no surprise that the Chinese and the Koreans (from both North and South) reacted strongly to this. [3][4] Apparently, that doesn't stop the Chinese Communist government from doing the very exact same thing when it comes to fessing up to their own atrocities [5].
  • In a more recent (March 2010) example, extreme wingnuts won the vote to revise Texan history and social studies textbooks to promote American superiority, capitalism the free enterprise system,[6] and Christian values. Considering Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks in United States, this will have a big impact on history classes in schools across the country, if only the "Texas version" is available to smaller school systems.[7][8]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4733820.stm
  2. ↑ Like this article
  3. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1257835.stm
  4. ↑ http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/10/china.japan.protest.media/index.html?iref=newssearch
  5. ↑ Good luck trying to learn about the Tiananmen Square Protests, The Great Leap Forward, Chinese cultural/demographic genocide of the Tibetans, and the Cultural Revolution in Chinese government-approved history textbooks [1][2]
  6. ↑ Because, they explain, you can't very easily say, "You free enterprise system supporting pig!"
  7. ↑ Extreme wingnuttery at work!
  8. ↑ NY Times Article
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