Especially recent history. For an instance it took three hundred years for the french monarchy to recognize how Jean d’Arc wasn’t a witch and saved France.
What is neat is that after the people in those oppressive regimes faking the news die the archeological evidence they leave behind paints a much clearer image. Even more recent stuff like the move of the Benin Bronzes into the British Museum in 1897, after they were forcibly taken from Nigerian natives in the Kingdom of Benin when a British Diplomat thought it apt to kill the king and loot the palace instead. They were, for decades, known as upright officials, but now the entire world has a very complete timeline of every single action they took on their atrocity filled adventure.
Even things as far back as the western history of Greece and Egypt that people are so accustomed to has been thoroughly examined and refuted by archaeological evidence.
The only cases where this isn’t true, yet, is when literally nothing was left behind by the invaders: like with the Catholic Crusades against the Vikings in the 12th and 13th century, destroying some of their languages and cultures completely. Someday, though, we might know more about what they believed in or how to read their runes instead of taking the Church’s word for it.
I remember stumbling on more academic criticism somewhere but I’m honestly just too lazy to find it :)
Really I think the more interesting thing to point out and discuss is that history is written by people, with ideologies, for reasons. When we examine history we need to ensure we try to do so from a variety of perspectives and with an open mind as even the best scholars making their best efforts to be fair will not describe history objectively. That is an impossible task.
At best we can hope to identify where interpretations are disputed and what the reasons for that are. E.g. lack of evidence, value differences, political motives etc.
Sorry I don’t follow. I think we agree that if nobody survives or people are forced to exist in a hostile culture it’s harder for them to propagate their stories.
But if we go too far we ignore the work of the brilliant people who did manage to preserve their account of events. From Indian perspectives on Indian war of independence vs Sepoy Uprising, to native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, Maori people and so on fighting generational struggles to preserve their recounting of events and be acknowledged.
I didn’t say that you thought that and I definitely don’t mean to. Are you having a bad day or something? is this a cross cultural communication issue?
All I’m saying is that history being written by the victors is a bit simplistic and not very interesting in terms of how to understand history. If you’re interested in history I would have thought you’d be keen to look at examples of narratives that refute that popular trope. I meant no offense.
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