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"Historical Revisionism" was "Re: Friday hmmmm..."



On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, XXX wrote:

> "Revisionist" is a label people give to new historical interpretations they
> don't agree with. The same people call interpretations they DO like "a
> brilliant new synthesis."

"Revisionist" and "Historical Revisionism" are unfortunately very loaded
terms. Try a search on the internet and see.

Very often "historical revisionist" is a code term for those who advocate
some very specific revisions in what is perceived as mainstream history.
Most often these days the term is used for those who deny that that there
was a Holocaust, e.g. that significant numbers of Jews were deliberately
killed by the Nazis in WWII.

The term is also used for for the following propositions:

-- That attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941,  was a direct result
of the manipulations of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

-- That no genocide of Armenians took place in the early 20th century.

-- That large numbers of Southern Blacks willingly supported the
Confederacy during the American Civil War and that thousands were
regularly enlisted soldiers in the Confederate Army.

-- That Jews controlled the transatlantic slave trade.

Now "revisionist" SHOULD be a neutral term. We are constantly "revising"
how we understand the past (which is one of the reason we keep
archives...).  Some things we thought we knew about historical events turn
out to be wrong.

Unfortunately, "revisionist" in modern historical terms most often refers
to those who deny that the Holocaust happened, and there is considerable
reason to suspect that what drives some revisionists is not some abstract
desire to determine historical truth, but a clearly anti-semetic agenda.


> The readers of history are just as biased as the writers. And just as biased
> the witnesses and makers of history, for that matter.

While it is hard to make absolute distinctions, I think there is still
considerable difference between having biases (which we, as archivists,
should be self-aware as much as possible), and with self
consciously writing history to serve a particular political agenda
(and pretending to be objective).  When that agenda, as it sometime is, to
attack some particular religious or ethnic group, it is, in my humble
opinion, bad and dangerous.








Christopher Densmore
University Archives
University at Buffalo
420 Capen Hall
Box 602200
Buffalo, New York  14260-2200

Voice: 716-645-2916
Fax: 716-645-3714
E-Mail: Densmore@acsu.buffalo.edu

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