Historical revisionism

Historical revisionism has both a legitimate academic use and a pejorative meaning. The pejorative use refers to illegitimate manipulation of history for political purposes, for example Holocaust denial. This meaning is described further in the article historical revisionism (negationism).

Within the academic field of history, historical revisionism is the hypercritical reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards rewriting histories with newly discovered information. The assumption is that history as it has been traditionally told may not be entirely accurate.

Historical revisionism

Those historians who work within the existing establishment and who have a body of existing work from which they claim authority, often have the most to gain by maintaining the status quo. This can be called an accepted paradigm, which in some circles or societies takes the form of a denunciatory stance towards revisionism of any kind.

If there were a universally accepted view of history which never changed, there would be no need to research it further. Many historians who write revisionist exposés are motivated by a genuine desire to educate and to correct history. Many great discoveries have come as a result of the research of men and women who have been curious enough to revisit certain historical events and explore them again in depth from a new perspective.

Revisionist historians contest the mainstream or traditional view of historical events, they raise views at odds with traditionalists, which must be freshly judged. Revisionist history is often practiced by those who are in the minority, such as feminist historians, ethnic minority historians, those working outside of mainstream academia in smaller and less known universities, or the youngest scholars, essentially historians who have the most to gain and the least to lose in challenging the status quo. In the friction between the mainstream of accepted beliefs and the new perspectives of historical revisionism, received historical ideas are either changed, solidified, or clarified. If over a period of time the revisionist ideas become the new establishment status quo a paradigm shift is said to have occurred.

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." –Napoleon Bonaparte.

Historians, like all people, are inexorably influenced by the zeitgeist (the spirit of the times). Developments in other academic areas, and cultural and political fashions, all help to shape the currently accepted model and outlines of history (the accepted historiographical paradigm). As time passes and these influences change so do most historians views on the explanation of historical events. The old consensus may no longer be considered by most historians to explain how and why certain events in the past occurred, the accepted model is revised to fit in with the current agreed-upon version of events. Some of the influences on historians, which may change over time are:

• Developments in other academic areas. DNA analysis has had an impact in various areas of history either confirming established historical theories or presenting new evidence which undermines the current established historical explanation. Professor Andrew Sherratt, a British prehistorian, was responsible for introducing the work of anthropological writings on the consumption of currently legal and illegal drugs and how to use these papers to explain certain aspects of prehistoric societies* ^[1]. Carbon dating, the examination of ice cores and tree rings and measuring oxygen isotopes in bones in the last few decades have provided new data with which to argue new hypotheses. The new area of 'ancient DNA', recovering partial results, allows scientists to argue for example whether or not humans are partly descended from Neanderthals. The reader must watch out for multi-disciplinary academic papers that end with cautious or generalised results.
• Language: For example as more sources in other languages become available historians may review their theories in light of the new sources. The revision of the meaning of the Dark Ages are an example of this.
• Nationalism: For example when reading schoolbook history in Europe, it is possible to read about an event from completely different perspectives. In the Battle of Waterloo most British, French, Dutch and German schoolbooks slant the battle to emphasise the importance of the contribution of their nations. Sometimes the name of an event is used to convey political or a national perspective. For example the same conflict between two English speaking countries is known by two different names, the "American War of Independence" and the "American Revolutionary War", or the Irish War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish War. As perceptions of nationalism change so do those areas of history which are driven by such ideas.
• Culture: For example as regionalism has become more prominent in the UK some historians have been suggesting that the English Civil War is too Anglo-centric and that to understand the war, events which had previously been dismissed as on the periphery should be given greater prominence; to emphasise this, revisionist historians have suggested that the English Civil War becomes just one of a number of interlocking conflicts known as Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
• Ideology: For example during the 1940s it became fashionable to see the English Civil War from a Marxist school of thought. In the words of Christopher Hill, "the Civil War was a class war." In the post World War II years the influence of Marxist interpretation waned in British academia and by the 1970s this view came under attack by a new school of revisionists and it has been largely overturned as a major mainstream explanation of the middle 17th century conflict in the British Isles (IONA).
• Historical bias: Social historians like Howard Zinn began to write about history from the perspective of communists and the liberals rather than the traditional historians in the United States. Perhaps one of the famous works of historical bias is Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
• Historial causation: Issues of causation in history are often revised with new research: for example by the middle of the twentieth century the status quo was to see the French Revolution as the result of the triumphant rise of a new middle class. Research in the 1960s prompted by revisionist historians like Alfred Cobban and Francois Furet revealed the social situation to be much more complex and the question of what caused the Revolution is now a closely debated one.
• Accession of New Data: Much historical data has been lost. Even archives have to make decisions based on space and interest on what original material to obtain or keep. At times documents are discovered or publicized that give new views of well established events. Archived material may be sealed by Governments for many years, either to hide political scandals, or to protect information vital for national security. When these archives are opened, they can alter the historical perspective on an event. For example with the released of the ULTRA archives in the 1970s under the British 30 years rule, a lot of the Allied high command tactical decision making process was re-evaluated, particularly the Second battle of the Atlantic. The release of the ULTRA archives also forced a re-evaluation of the history of the electronic computer.^[2]

Examples

These are examples of historical revisionist ideas.

The "Dark Ages"

As non-Latin texts such as Welsh, Gaelic and the Sagas have been analysed and added to the canon of knowledge about the period and a lot more archaeological evidence has come to light, the period traditionally known as the Dark Ages has narrowed to the point where many historians no longer believe that such a term is useful.

"Feudalism"

The concept of feudalism has undergone a number of revisions. Recently some revisionist thinking has rejected the term and concept completely saying it is invalid and should not be used at all.

Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt was for centuries believed to be an engagement in which the English army, though overwhelmingly outnumbered 4 to 1 by the French army, pulled off a stunning victory. However, recent research by professor Anne Curry using the original enrollment records, has brought into question this interpretation and although her research is not finished^[3], she has published her initial findings^[4], that the French only outnumbered the English and Welsh 12,000 to 8,000. If true, the numbers may have been exaggerated for patriotic reasons by the English.^[5]

Alchemy

Science historians are taking a new look at alchemy. Traditionally there was little room in the history of science for alchemy, which famously tried to convert lead into gold, and it has been seen as closer to magic or mysticism than science. However there has been a revival of scholarship on the field and historians are finding reasons to give at least some alchemy a new interpretation. Alchemists, some historians are now saying, contributed to the emergence of modern chemistry as a science.^[6]

New World "discovery"

In recounting the European colonization of the Americas, history books of the past paid little attention to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, usually mentioning them only in passing and making no attempt to understand the events from their point of view. This was reflected in the once widespread description of Christopher Columbus having "discovered" America. The portrayal of these events has since been revised, and much present scholarship examines the impact of European exploration and colonization on indigenous peoples. Some of this historical writing is revisionist in the ideological sense of the word, such as in portrayals of Columbus which compare him to Adolf Hitler, which are arguably polemical and presentist. But even moderate portrayals of Columbus now take into account modern revisionism, and rarely, for example, use the word discovery without quotation marks. (see Postcolonialism).

Slavery

During historical periods of slavery, slaves have not been considered equal to their masters, something that has been reflected in the accepted histories of the time. In the study of the Reconstruction era of the American South, the revisionist interpretation of events has completely replaced the Dunning School interpretation.

French attacking formations in the Napoleonic wars

The military historian James R. Arnold argues that:

The writings of Sir Charles Oman and Sir John Fortescue dominated subsequent English-language Napoleonic history. Their views [that the French infantry used heavy columns to attack lines of infantry] became very much the received wisdom. ... By 1998 a new paradigm seemed to have set in with the publication of two books devoted to Napoleonic battle tactics. Both claimed that the French fought in line at Maida and both fully explored French tactical variety. The 2002 publication of The Battle of Maida 1806: Fifteen Minutes of Glory, appeared to have brought the issue of column versus line to a satisfactory conclusion: "The contemporary sources are...the best evidence and their conclusion is clear: General Compère's brigade formed into line to attack Kempt's Light Battalion." The decisive action at Maida took place in less than fifteen minutes. It had taken 72 years to rectify a great historian's error about what transpired during those minutes.^[7][8]

Military leadership during the First World War

The military leadership of the British Army during the First World War was frequently condemned as poor by historians and politicians for decades after the war ended. Common charges were that the generals commanding the army were blind to the realities of trench warfare, ignorant of the conditions of their men and were unable to learn from their mistakes, thus causing enormous numbers of casualties ('lions led by donkeys'). However, during the 1960s historians such as John Terraine began to challenge this interpretation. In recent years as new documents have come forth and the distance of time has allowed for more objective analysis, historians such as Gary D. Sheffield and Richard Holmes observe that the military leadership of the British Army on the Western Front had to cope with many problems that they could not control such as a lack of adequate military communications, furthermore military leadership improved throughout the war culminating in the Hundred Days Offensive advance to victory in 1918. Some historians, even revisionists, still criticise the British High Command severely, but they are less inclined to portray the war in a simplistic manner with brave troops being led by foolish officers.

There has been a similar movement regarding the French Army during the war with contributions by historians such as Anthony Clayton. Revisionists are far more likely to view commanders such as French General Ferdinand Foch, British General Douglas Haig and other figures, such as American General Pershing, in a sympathetic light.

Irish history concerning relations with Britain

In the ideological approach of Irish nationalism leading to the independence of most of Ireland from Britain in 1922, a natural priority was to distance any mutual aspects of the relationship. Irish was made a compulsory subject at school, much was made of religious differences, militant patriots were glorified and considered martyrs and the existence of the border with Northern Ireland was deprecated. Since 1970 some commentators and historians have sought or promoted a revisionist approach, often deprecated as 'anti-national', focusing on newer aspects such as local, economic and women's history. Professor Kevin Whelan has proposed a 'post-revisionist' stage in his studies of the 1798 rebellion.^[9] His chapter '98 after '98 follows the differing interpretations of the rebellion within the nationalist and loyalist camps over two centuries. Whelan argues that revisionism in Irish history has been an on-going, uneven and multifaceted process since the 1700s.

See also

• Pseudohistory
• Black Legend
• The Inquisition myth

Notes

1. ^ Obituary of Andrew Sherratt in The Independent 6 March 2006
2. ^ In 1972, before the release of official documents about ULTRA, Herman Goldstine wrote in The Computer from Pascal to von Neuman page 321 that: "Britain had such vitality that it could immediately after the war embark on so many well-conceived and well-executed projects in the computer field". In 1976 after the archive were opened Brian Randell wrote in The COLOSSUS on page 87 that: "the COLOSSUS project was an important source of this vitality, one that has been largely unappreciated, as has the significance of its places in the chronology of the invention of the digital computer".
3. ^ Page 288. Matthew Strickland The Great Warbow. Pub Sutton, 2005, ISBN 0-7509-3167-1
4. ^ Anne Curry. Agincourt: A New History, Pub Tempus, 2005, ISBN 0-7524-2828-4
5. ^ Richard Brooks Henry V’s payroll cuts Agincourt myth down to size May 29, 2005
6. ^ John Noble Wilford, "Transforming the Alchemists", New York Times, August 1, 2006
7. ^ Arnold, James R. "A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Peninsular War Oman and Historiography", The Napoleon Series, August 2004.
8. ^ James R. Arnold, "A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Napoleonic Wars" Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research LX no. 244 (Winter 1982): pp. 196-208.
9. ^ Whelan, K. The Tree of Liberty (CUP 1996) p.174. ISBN 1-859218-060-4

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