I have heard people say that history books change with time...do you know of any examples of how...?

Question

history books were changed to give the society a different view point of the past?

Answer 1

Most of the other answers have pointed to three reasons why history "changes" over time. I think there are four:

NEW INFORMATION BECOMES KNOWN: A diary or witness is found that sheds new light on an event, etc.

NEW WAYS OF VIEWING THE PAST: There are many ways to view the past, including "Great Man" history (looking at the lives of important individuals), military history, diplomatic history, political history, social history, black history, women's history, etc. All of these ways of viewing the past look at events from a different perspective, and can make history itself look very different.

TO SUPPORT A CURRENT MOVEMENT OR EVENT: Some highlight certain aspects of the past (or deride others) in order to make a current person or movement look good. The U.S. view of Saddam Hussein, for instance, changed radically from the 1980s to the 1990s (even though we knew in the 1980s that he killed his own people).

A PERSON, PLACE, OR EVENT FALLS OUT OF FAVOR: This is related to all three, but is its own subgroup, in my opinion. The best example of this is Columbus--he went from a hero with a national holiday in his honor, to a villain, who enslaved and killed indigenous people.

Whatever the reason, history does indeed "change" over time, because history is nothing more than what we REMEMBER it to be. And while many above cast "revisionist" historians in negative terms, I think it is the job of a historian to constantly revise the past based on new interpretations and information. The difficluty is determining whether the "revisionist" historian is being academically (and intellectually) honest, or if he is trying to make his audience believe something for his own gain.

History is not easy!

Answer 2

They change as new events happen. For example Bill clinton and George bush both have spots in the new history books in the line of presidents. Im 25 years old and my father was in operation desert storm. Back then it was still going on. Now Desert Storm war is in the history books. Their are historical artifacts that gives us better insight to the way things were back then. Back then the history books talked more about slavery. Now with it being 2007 none of the history books really go into detail about that anymore. There are many examples of how history books change with time i only named a few. Your right history books were changed to give society a different view point of the past but you know just as well as i do at the end of the day were all going to have different views and our own beliefs on what the past history was and what really happened.

Answer 3

Yes, history books "change with time". This is because history is a theory about what happened in the past based on the evidence ("facts" if you like) at hand.

There are three ways that history "changes." The first is through the discovery of new information. An example of this would be the impact that the "lost" German army records of the First World War have had on the study of that conflict since they were returned by the Russians in the 1980's.

The second is called "revisionism," which means taking existing evidence and reinterpreting (or "rearranging") it. This happens all the time. To use the World War example again, historians are constantly "reinterpreting" the causes of the war. We have gone from"blame Germany," to "blame everyone," and back to "blame Germany" again.

The third way history changes is through intellectual dishonesty. This means telling lies (or picking only certain "facts") to advance an agenda. An example of "fact selectivity" would be Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

Answer 4

There are several options here, not all of which are entirely ethical but are still very common:

First, entirely new information can be discovered that changes our understanding about some period of history. So, we have to change the books.

Second, so-called "revisionist historians" can decide that certain views of the past are "unfair" or biased in an inappropriate way. They can argue for revisions in our interpretation of events...not necessarily whether some events happened or not. This one is tricky--be careful with it. Very often, some of these people are creating "revisionist histories" based not upon hard data, but rather on what makes them "feel better" about some historical issues. In this category there are "useful" and as well as "abusive" revisions.

Third, and very similar to the abuse of choice two above, there are propagandists who simple write a view of history that serves a narrow political agenda...with NO regard for the facts, whatever they may be. The Nazis were masters of this, as were the Marxists. Today, there is a lot of Marxist dogma still hidden the textbooks we use in public schools, so we need to read these very carefully.

How's that? I hope this gives you something to think about.

Good luck!

Answer 5

I've noticed that older books about the later Roman Empire tend to emphasise how barbaric, uncivilised, etc. the Germanic tribes were. Newer books that are based on more recent research tend to downplay that, instead indicating that Germanic tribesmen weren't all that different from Roman peasants on the opposite side of the river.

Also, in the [newer] textbook that I used in University, the chapter describing the fall of the Western Roman Empire is titled "Localization of Imperial Power under Germanic Kings", while older textbooks would have used titles along the lines of "Barbarian invasions" and the like, and the content that is emphasised is correspondingly different.

There's probably quite a lot of other examples in the field of ancient history.

Answer 6

Some older history books take a slanted view of history. These are sometimes updated by historians because over time historians realize that the original version of the book doesn't give an objective view of the events.

Answer 7

Well, when I was a kid, we referred to Native Americans as "Indians," even in history books, and of course that has changed now. Also, they used to say in the history books that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, but today's books seem to give a broader overview of how America came to be and all the people who had a hand in shaping it- nobody ever says it was "discovered" anymore.

Answer 8

One quick one *I* can point out is the Czech Republic and Slovakia...not too long ago, it was one country called, interestingly enough: Czechoslavakia.
History books are changed, I suppose, to let people see *all* sides of the human drama. Because that's what most of history is...humans making decisions that affect our societies.

Answer 9

Yes, it depends on who is written by and such. Everything in a history book are real life stories that have been passed down from generation to generation so obviously people go on changing little details here and there.

Answer 10

A good example might be an African History text, I read once in our local library. Printed under the former government of South Africa, it went to great pains to explain how South Africa was empty of permanent residents before the Dutch got there and started importing labor. Apparently, nobody wanted empty, mild weather land suitable for agriculture. Obviously, this imaginary history needed to be changed.