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Historical revisionism is the reexamination of the accepted "facts" and interpretations of history, with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered, more accurate, and less biased information. Broadly, it is a skeptical approach, that history as it has been traditionally told may not be entirely accurate,and that perhaps an accurate history is as unobtainable as a dispassionate autobiography. While reinterpreting past events in light of new facts is the essence of good scholarship, corrupt history may distort these facts as a means of influencing readers' beliefs and actions for politically motivated reasons.
EtymologyThe phrase is composed of two English words; revisionist (revision—act to examine and improve, from the Latin, revisere—look at again, and the suffix -ist—an adherent of a system of beliefs expressed by nouns ending in -ism, from the Greek suffix -istes), and history (the study of past events, from the Greek, historia—narrative). The popular use of the word revisionist arose in the first half of the 20th century to describe the Communists who revised Marxist theory while professing they had not done so; however, the word was used at least as far back as the 1850s and in the same pejoritive sense. The phrase itself was coined in the late 1950s, although revisionist history existed much earlier (see Mein Kampf, which avows that Germany did not lose World War I; or, compare the early Russian Communist histories with any of those published later by the Stalinist regime). The review of The Cold War, Revisited And Re-Visioned in the New York Times, Jan 14, 1968, includes an early usage of the term. John A. Drobnicki, M.A., M.L.S., (Untruth in the Classroom, OAH Magazine of History, Organization of American Historians, 1994) first posited that "Historical revisionism is a valid practice" and put forth the idea that it was just a reexamination and new interpretation of facts. See the Wikipedia article Historical revisionism. Revisionism has been accused of becoming a "trendy" pursuit, and indeed, bold revisionist theories often get a lot of attention from historians and the media. Some argue that this fosters an attitude of historical apathy, and is encouraging scholars to focus on sensational or obscure parts of history, rather than the well-known and universally accepted. Historical revisionismAll writings of history are in some way revisionist. 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. Those historians who work within the existing establishment, 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. Revisionist historians often contest the mainstream or traditional view of historical events, they raise views at odds with traditionalists, which must be freshly judged. Oftentimes historians who are in the minority, such as feminist historians, or ethnic minority historians, or those who work outside of mainstream academia in smaller and less known universities, or the youngest scholars, who have the most to gain and the least to lose, by shaking up the establishment. In the friction between the mainstream of accepted beliefs and the new perspectives of historical revisionism, received historical ideas are either changed, or solidified and clarified. If over a period of time the revisionist ideas become the new establishment status quo a paradigm shift is said to have occurred.
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:
As national perspectives change so does the perspective of these popular histories, particularly those which deal with recent history. As the British Empire has faded into history, the history of the Empire as taught in the majority of schools in Britain has been revised to include many of the ambiguities which appeared in academic histories long before they appeard in school books. This has happened because without an empire, there is no further need for the self delusion that colonisation was the best thing that could have happen to a none European people. At the beginning of the 21st century there is an intense debate going on in Germany about how to interpret the 20th century particularly the period between 1933 and 1945. It started in 1993 with the debate over German reunification and whether it was a unification or a reunification. This has continued partly because the views of history differed in East and West Germany and a synthesis was needed, and partly as part of the process of revision which all modern history goes through. In German these processes are known as Geschichtsaufarbeitung (working through history) and Vergangenheitsbewältigung (mastering the past). A second common usage of the phrase "historical revisionism"Although the term does encompass the general meaning as defined above and used in this Washington Post article "History In the Remaking Reagan's Story Doesn't End Here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35987-2004Jun11.html)". It also has a more specific when it is used as label to describe view of qualified historians and self-taught historians who publish articles which deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence, an example of this secondary usage is reported in another Washington Post article Conservatives Celebrate Winning One for the Gipper (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A6791-2003Nov5¬Found=true:)
This second common usage has occurred because some historians who publish articles which deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence, have labelled themselves "historical revisionists" and this label has been used by others as a derogatory label to describe them when criticising their work. When David Irving a self-taught historian lost his British libel case againt Deborah Lipstadt, and her publisher Penguin Books, (for identifing him as a Holocaust denier, falsifier, and bigot)1 , Justice Charles Gray, the trial judge concluded that "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.". David Irving explicitly calls himself a "revisionist"2 During the time that the Germans have been revising their view of 20th century some people, who have sympathies with the Nazi agenda, have published popular histories which challenge the body of existing work used to support the generally accepted view of the period. They do this by downplaying the scale of the Holocaust and other Nazi war crimes while emphasising the suffering of the Axis populations at the hands of the Allies and stating or implying that the Allies committed war crimes as well. It is sometimes hard for a none historian to distinguish between an book published by a historian which is considered to be an acceptable academic work by fellow professional historians and a work which although popular is not. For example it was not until David Irving lost his libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt and that he "deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence", that the general public realised that his books were anything but works which were broadly in the canon of acceptable academic histories. Because of the adoption of the term by Holocaust deniers of historical revisionism the term has become stigmatized, and revisionist a suspect description of a historical work dealing with the Nazi period. Holocaust revisionists insist that they are correcting falsehood, and that their publications represent authentic historical research. Revisionist techniquesAccuracy and revision are central to historical review. Historians who uncover new facts are sometimes unfairly accused of revisionism when the new facts upset long-held beliefs, but revision based on fresh evidence is not revisionism. The difference is that revisionists rewrite history to support their own goals, using any number of techniques to obtain their results. Among them are:
Examples of revisionist historyAfrican EuropeansThis theory says Egyptians were racially black and thus white European culture owes its accomplishments to Africa. Holocaust revisionism/denialBecause of the adoption of the term by holocaust-deniers, historical revisionism has become stigmatized, and revisionist a suspect description of a historical work dealing with the holocaust. Holocaust revisionists insist that they are correcting falsehood, and that their publications represent authentic historical research. Holocaust-deniers have attached themselves to the issue of the Heimatvertriebenen, and have in the view of their opposition attempted to use the sympathy for the plight of those Germans who suffered to blame the Jews for the suffering of the Heimatvertriebenen, or to retroactively minimise the suffering of the Holocaust. There is opinion that Zionists have used the Holocaust in an effort to drum up support for their positions, and as cover for questionable activities by the state of Israel. This issue is discussed in the controversial book, The Holocaust Industry. Negationism is the denial of historic crimes. See also Winston Smith. Jack Chick's Nazi inquisition theoryJack Chick, a well known and controversial Christian evangelist, and outspoken critic of Catholicism, considers the Nazi Holocaust to have been an inquisition undertaken by Hitler (a Catholic) against the Jews at the behest of the Pope. Soviet and Communist historyDuring the era of the Soviet Union, dictator Joseph Stalin's regime employed a variety of revisionist tactics to ignore unpleasant events of the past. Soviet school books would constantly be revised to remove photographs and articles that dealt with politicians who had fallen out of favor with the regime. History was frequently re-written, with past events modified so they always portrayed Stalin's government favourably. According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, writing in their book In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage, many academic studies in the field of Soviet and Communist studies, especially in the area of History of the Soviet Union and regarding the history of the Communist Party USA by the so-called "Revisionist School" have generally taken a benign view of the Party while minimizing Soviet atrocities and the totalitarian nature of the movement. Haynes and Klehr attribute the biased stance of these historians, many of whom entered academia during the Vietnam War era, to anti-American and anti-capitalist sentiments. Political correctnessThere is a "politically correct" movement in revisionism that can often be found in history materials targeted towards children and young adults. This type of revisionism effectively seeks to censor some of the less pleasant sides of history, lest it should cause controversy or hurt feelings. For example, in some American schools the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. are not presented in their entirety, as King, who was black, frequently used racial terms such as negro, now considered offensive. Slander Or PromotionRevisionist history is also used to promote or slander persons, or promote or discredit an idea -- for example, bringing evidence that Abraham Lincoln was homosexual, or that Winston Churchill was a Communist symphasizer. This usually backfires as often as it succeeds. Garry KasparovThe term "revisionism" is also sometimes used to refer to specific revisionist theories, the most famous believer of which may be the chess player Garry Kasparov, which hold that the events of what are known as the last 3,000 years occurred in either a much shorter or a much longer time frame. This theory is called the New Chronology. Heribert IlligHeribert Illig believes the approximately 300 years between 614 and 911 are an invention and never happened. The basis of Illig's claims is the paucity of archaeological evidence that can be securely dated to this period known commonly as the "Dark Ages". Related articlesFurther reading
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