[lit-ideas] History is written by historians
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:58:04 -0400
On 6/10/2010 3:15 PM, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx quoted:
"History is written by the winners."
Can't agree that this makes as much of a difference as absolute cultural
relativists and absolute cultural prescriptivists would maintain.
Sometimes there are "secret" histories (Procopius for example).
Sometimes there are "populist" histories (Zinn for example).
Sometimes there are "revisionist" histories (Green on the Hellenistic
period for example).
The claim that historians enter their work with biases and assumptions
is no big deal. Everyone does. In science, for example, people working
with microscopes have to deal with "color bias" in the microscope. We
all make judgments by presuming things and these assumptions carry us
forward.
That the winners often write histories is perhaps a good thing. Imagine
how misleading accounts written only by the losers would be! Far worse
than the current state of affairs.
EY
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