What do you really know of the last 2,000 years or even the last 5,000. History has been written by conquerers, kings and emperors. Would you agree that a lot of the history we've grown up and been taught with is really not as it is. Is it time to re-write history based on fact? Do you have any facts?
2007-02-02 04:22:18 · 10 answers · asked by djdenisb 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Sure history can be rewritten based on fact, but that brings up a big question. " Who's version of fact '? The historians are finding more and more every day. Sometimes they believe that they have the true story, only to find additional material that shows they were on the wrong track.
In the past few years the aqualung made searches under water possible. Material is being found faster than it can be studied. Whenever there is an earthquake where ancient ruins stand stones are being found with ancient writings that were turned inward. The stones were used before but when the building came down, the inscribed side was turned inward to leave a smooth side visible.
So history is never complete. A great deal of fakeing is done for national prestige. The Japanese, in their school history books, claim that they were forced into attacking America. They justify an attack without declairing war which is considered murder by international law.
My neighbor from Slovakia was taught in school that the Sudetenland people were chased over the border into Germany. It took him by surprise to learn it was all highly organized and carried out according to international law.
How do I know ? I'm the one who set the whole thing up. Jozef has copies of all of my papers to show his friends.
2007-02-02 04:53:23 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
History is written based on the winning side. Fair? No. What we can do to change it, is find out all the facts we can about a certain subject, and write our own history book according to our own opinion.
This, too, may even be biased, because an author can put down only facts he/she agrees with. Who's facts would the history be based on? Are you sure these facts are not biased? Should you take everything at face value or research each and every sentence?
Good Luck!
2007-02-02 12:38:41 · answer #2 · answered by Nepetarias 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
History is very one sided, and opinionated, a good historian looks at all sides of the story. One of the biggest things to consider is that for elementary school (K-12) the school board chooses the books taught. On the other hand college history books are chosen by the professor, people whom are usually interested in teaching the unbiased truth. I suppose the only real way to know is to look at today, I mean to look around and see where we came from and where it looks like history was unraveled from.
2007-02-02 12:33:05 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I agree that history is not accurate, however I do not believe that it is possible to "re-write history based on fact," because the facts themselves are open to interpretation, or is answerable only by information that is no longer available, or is otherwise subjective (at least the interesting part of history, as opposed to the boring list of dates).
Nonetheless, there is certainly a lot of room for improvement. Some of what we learn is outright incorrect, or edited to promote a specific cultural agenda. For example, the story of Helen Keller is taught to school-aged children so that they can learn about the "miracle" of her learning to communicate. Very touching stuff. What is completely ignored is the rest of her life, in which she became a well-known socialist activist. She argued for livable conditions in factories, frequently noting that if she could "see" the horror of the conditions, that everyone else should as well. Unfortunately, history books for school aged children ignore this, undoubtably to prevent introducing the concept of socialism, or "tarnishing" Ms. Keller's reputation with it.
James Loewen wrote a book on the subject of poor quality history that is taught to children that you might enjoy, called "Lies My Teacher Told Me"
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/156584100X/sr=8-2/qid=1170437731/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-1705434-2940616?ie=UTF8&s=books
2007-02-02 12:44:37 · answer #4 · answered by Eric 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5,000 to 2000 yrs ago is more factual than modern history because it is confirmed by physical evidence. Up until WWI all the history was written by the winners, but bit by bit Anthropologists are slowly unearthing the facts. Modern day historians don't take bunk from anybody. You have to prove every claim. People who write "popular history" are more folklorists than historians.
2007-02-02 12:47:48 · answer #5 · answered by Sophist 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The term truth is fairly subjective; howerver I can tel that History is written by the winners of war and things like that, so i'm sure history is filled with 1/2 truths
2007-02-02 13:13:58 · answer #6 · answered by evil_paul 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Media has always been the scapegoat so to speak for about any history book. Media is there to get the story, key word story. They rewrite factual events to make them sound more dramatic, and leave out parts that cartain organazations don't want you to know about. Then they print it in a book and call it history, and teach it to youth.
2007-02-02 12:31:18 · answer #7 · answered by y2kguyarea51 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well history is written by the victory side not the true side ...for example at ww2 what if germans won the war will the history wrote like its written today ofcourse not ..
2007-02-02 12:30:59 · answer #8 · answered by . 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is a gap in history writings, nobody can explain about the pyramids and stonehenge.
2007-02-02 12:27:40 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
our idea of history is a series of interpretations of people in historys interpretations. history is written by the vicotrs of battles, so we know little of the losing civilisations of the past.
2007-02-02 12:45:09 · answer #10 · answered by fifs_c 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋