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, revisionism is a legitimate academic pursuit - however, it is also commonly used colloquially as a pejorative term.

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 undisputable facts.

Revisionism as a pejorative

Revisionist history also gets a bad name, because if one is not careful, one can start changing or distorting the past in order to suit a particular political goal or end, much like those efforts in Holocaust denial.

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.

Historical revisionists

Revisionism in the USSR

A short, biased list of historical revisionists:

• David Irving, historian and holocaust denier
• William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, who is even now busily rewriting the history of the United States glorious successes in the Iraq War.
• Robert Harvey, former assistant editor of the The Economist.
• 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.
• Phillip 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.
• 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.
• Ann Coulter, psycho-bitch pundit
• 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.

See also

• Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's seminal novel, which deals with historical revisionism, among other totalitarian topics.