How much of recorded history is distorted by politics and religion ?

Question

Another angle >>> How much of history has NEVER BEAN RECORDED due to the bias of politics and religion ?

Answer 1

Many seem to concur that the victors write the history, and will not suffer the other side of the story being told. That is the way it is, for a season, but in the end, survivors, or victors with a conscience are the ones who are the truth speakers. Remember the Holocaust. Soon there will be none left to speak of the abominations that occurred, and I am grateful that so much effort is being put into recording their testimonies. The same twisting of facts occurred over the Wounded Knee Massacre. For many years, it was referred to as a "battle," when in fact, the Native Americans had surrendered most of their weapons when the fighting started.

Answer 2

History is more than a record of the past. It is the understanding of people in a time and place about another time and/or place. It cannot escape the perspective of the people making the history. This is partly why "the history" of any topic, such as the fall of the Roman Empire, can be rewritten every couple of decades. The past isn't changing - history is.

And it changes when we - usually historians or people with the time and resources to make and spread around a new narrative - want to use it for something. The fall of Rome can be used to criticize a modern empire, or to shore it up, or to shape society and culture within it.

Conservatives might blame the fall of Rome on licentiousness; liberals might blame it on absolutism. Libertarians could blame government regulations - against certain religions or economic activities; socialists are more likely to blame social stratification.

But my direct answer may surprise you. I argue that none of history is "distorted" by politics and religion (or class, or any element of perspective). That is the essence of history, not a distortion of it. You might as well say that the moon's gravity distorts the tides.

Answer 3

Everything! People in power always have a way of manipulating the truth, even if it's by the slightest bit. They want the world to either see things for better or worse than they really were or are. Religion has been distorted by so many in order to fit their needs and wants. Look at how many different bibles there are. Each one tells a different version of the same story. Like it's said "every story has two sides". What we read in bibles and history books usually is only part of the truth.

Answer 4

That sounds like a question that can only be answered with a great degree of opinion...

Difficult, difficult question....bias will prevail here as it does in politics and religion!

However, I must add that bias and victors do not WRITE history alone, historians write history. Therefore, some bias will exist but the end result will be constructed with a good deal of honest research in an effort to add to the body of history. Like any research, historians endeavor to provide "good" science.


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Answer 5

The old maxim of "History is written by the victors" seems to have been replaced by "History is written by the the side with the best spindoctors". History is always to some extent based on a political agenda.

Answer 6

Karl Marx once stated history is really politics turned on to the past.

Answer 7

One only has to look at the history of the US
it has gotten worse Pc has caused alot of it
There are alot of black people how owned slaves
and also alot that fought for the South but look at history books they dont even list it Even a alot
blacks will not admit either one of these. They say
all slaves were beaten.

Answer 8

This is great entertainment.

A complete generation of high school and college graduates that had very little interest or even endured one single class in Western History or even a basic course in their state’s Geography, now has such deep and profound insight into questions of historic value?

Keep sending in those picture post cards, ladies and gentlemen.

Aint the world still flat, yet?

Answer 9

Let's get the definition of "history" straight.
History is the process of examining, thinking about, and writing about the past.
Most people seem to think that history is "data about the past." In fact, history is "what we do with data about the past."
If history is just data about the past, then mathematics is just numbers, and carpentry is just wood.

Answer 10

I guess anything can be distorted; even history. Everything is open to interpretation. Do extensive research and form your own conclusions.