After World War I, the Allies attempted to change history with the Guilt Clause in the Treaty of Versailles. The Guilt Clause declared that Germany was the sole instigator of WWI. In reality it was a combination of factors that led to international armed conflict. The Allies were able to include this clause because they were victorious over the Germans. Germany and its allies could not resist against this clause since they could no longer fight. Since we are taught in a public school classroom that Germany was not the instigator of the war, we can show that history is not always written by the victor.
We cannot assume that the history we are taught is from a objective perspective. There are pieces of history written by the victor. Joseph Stalin, a Russian communist dictator, seized power from his opponents and used it to construct himself as Lenin's right hand man. Since no one was able to oppose Stalin, he was able to get away with his vandalism of history.
There are also times when the loser tries to rewrite history. For example, After Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated and sent into exile, he wrote his memoirs detailing the exploits of his life. Napoleon tried to turn himself into the hero of the French Revolution. Napoleon was grasping at straws, but was ultimately successful. Today Napoleon is remembered as an integral part of the French Revolution and a brilliant military leader.
The one thing to take away from this is that we have to take every story we hear with a grain of salt. No story is completely unbiased. There are people who will deface history to make the world remember their name.
Interesting revelation, Josh. We've sort of touched on the idea of history not exactly being unbiased in class this year. However, I'd have to say that taking every story that we hear with a grain of salt is a bit much. Rather, we should probably seek out as many sides of the story and gather as many perspectives as we can before we make a judgement about what we think is true and what's not.
ReplyDeleteYour suggestion to take everything with a grain of salt makes me question how accurately we are taught American history. It seems we often downplay our nation's injustices. Yes, we are exposed to the atrocities, but there is not a whole lot of America shaming in our history classes- even where there maybe should be.
ReplyDeleteContinuing on Annie's point, both the U.S. federal and state governments must approve of textbooks before they are used in schools. As an example, all of the history textbooks we have read in school portray communism in a very negative light. Even when benefits arise (such as when Stalin's 5 year plans actually helped stimulate the Soviet economy), we don't learn about them in traditional history textbooks because it goes against American ideals. Josh, I agree that history is sometimes written by the victor, but I also believe that history is always written by each country.
ReplyDeleteIntriguing post Josh! This reminds me of a comment that Mr. Stewart made during the World War II unit. He said that American troops also did some pretty nasty things throughout the Pacific campaign but we don't necessarily hear about it too often due to the fact that they were American soldiers. It makes you think what else they're leaving out of the textbooks.
ReplyDeleteNice post Josh! I agree that it is really important to understand that history is usually written by the victor. It is essential to understand that there are multiple point of views for every event that takes place in history. The point of view we hear today may not necessarily be the most accurate and victors will often manipulate history to make their actions appear more justified. This isn't always the case, but it is important to keep this in mind when discussing history.
ReplyDeleteThis post brings up the question of whether or not people we have considered bad are justified in their actions too and we just aren't hearing their side of the story. Obviously I'm not talking about people like Hitler and Stalin because their actions aren't justified but lesser "villains". The example I can think of right away is the British during the Colonial period. After studying U.S. history this year I understand why the British did what they did and I kind of don't blame them for doing it.
ReplyDeleteEven in the United States there are still attempts to rewrite history in skewed view. In terms of the civil war, we all know that the South had lost. But in the deep South, there are still arguments today of whether or not the South had actually lost.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I think this applies a lot in terms of past injustices that have now been somewhat rectified. Though Americans admit that we have done some pretty terrible things in the past, I think they get too dumbed down. For example, the Trail of Tears is always mentioned as a tragedy, but no one ever thinks to compare the atrocities to something like the Holocaust. Obviously they are different events, but the treatment of Native Americans seems to have parallels in some ways to treatment of Jews in the Holocaust. If anything the situation with Native Americans can be considered to be worse in that America has extinguished entire peoples where Hitler thankfully didn't succeed in wiping out Jewish people. However, I don't think our history textbooks look at in so drastic a light. It was bad, but it's over and it's not that big a deal, is the impression I usually get. I guess this is a situation where the victor writes history, since the Native Americans definitely lost that battle.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Maya in the fact that most American textbooks don't usually recognize an actual genocide of Native Americans, which some historians estimate to result in the deaths of tens of millions of people. Textbooks are also approved by the state, which means that a textbook in California puts historical events in a much more different light than does a textbook in Texas. Also, this reminds me of the Japanese textbook controversy, where the Japanese government tries to omit any in-depth information about Japanese atrocities in WWII, such as the brutal Rape of Nanking.
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