Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

When we talk about "revisionist history", don't we generally think of people with less than honest intentions deliberately trying to force a narrative? Often or usually by sprinkling untruths and non-facts in?

What the article seems to be arguing is that historians without such dishonest intentions are necessarily reinterpreting history in light of the modern era, and are likely including their own and societal biases in their narrative. and there is no real 'objective' history. Is this news? This is the sort of thing I learned in history class as a teenager (albeit in simplified form). Primary sources are valuable but should be put through the filter of partial knowledge of a situation and personal bias. Secondary sources should be looked at with knowledge of the times around them and the potential biases of the author.

It's the intent that's always defined "revisionist" history to me, and the willingness to include things which are not fact-based, or are counterfactual.

Not just deliberately trying to force a narrative... trying to force a narrative that is contrary to what is commonly accepted to have happened, specifically because their new narrative benefits them financially, politically, socially, or in some other way.

A "revisionist historian", as I understand it, is a manipulator, a con artist, a gaslighter. Someone who is trying to convince people of some history that didn't actually happen, because doing so will enrich them.

This article... seems to try to revise "revisionism"?

One good example of such a person is Hannah-Jones and her fraudulent 1619 project, who fits all of those attributes except for historian.

> This is the sort of thing I learned in history class as a teenager

My observation from discussion about history (including on HN) is that most people did not learned the same thing. My own history lessons in high school definitely did not taught that. Instead, many people assume whatever they learned is definite and any new addition or emphasis on something else is bad.

> Primary sources are valuable but should be put through the filter of partial knowledge of a situation and personal bias.

Yes, but also to interpret primary sources, you need to understand quite a lot about that period. What they mean when they say certain words. What knowledge is assumed, what values are assumed by the orignal writer. History is foreign country, it is very easy to misunderstand their priorities or what they write about.

When laypeople say "revisionist history" they often think that, but the term precedes this modern meaning in academic circles and does not have the same meaning.

Somebody who writes about some topic in history from the perspective of women when it has largely only been examined from the perspective of men in prior scholarship is engaged in "revisionist history" but without the connotations of propaganda and poor scholarship.

The core problem here, as is often the problem when HN discusses history as a profession, is that few people here actually have engaged with the profession. So basic jargon of the field is misunderstood.

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