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Old 11-19-2008, 12:36 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,554 posts, read 86,928,948 times
Reputation: 36644

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Literally, History is written by people commissioned by the publishers of school books who wish to sell their books to schools that require that the content is approved by the California or Texas school boards, There is a subset of our society, consisting of maybe five percent of the population, who pursue additional sources of historical knowledge beyond what was found in their high school text books. Among this subset, about 95% of those will virtually never read any history that is not written by an American, and published by an American publisher.

So the answer to your question, as a practical matter within the context of American society, is that History is written by Americans who self-censor their material to meet the expectations of the market that will buy their books.

In a way, it is akin to automotive technology. The new car at your dealer's lot is not the state of the art of technology, it is the state of the art of marketing. The state of the art of technology is not relevant to anything in the real world.
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Old 11-19-2008, 12:40 PM
 
Location: southern california
61,288 posts, read 87,384,526 times
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there is some tweaking of history but to say that all history books are fiction is not so.
the danger is when offended parties began to say events never happened.
e.g. the german death camps.
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Old 11-19-2008, 01:05 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,554 posts, read 86,928,948 times
Reputation: 36644
I didn't mean to imply that, but only that the expectations of the readers can result in subjective conclusilons being drawn on the reader's behalf, from the same body of known data, with different data differently weighted These subjective conclusions not only influence the reader, but are often the title of the work.
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Old 11-19-2008, 03:01 PM
 
48,502 posts, read 96,816,250 times
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All history has to be related to the times. If niot then the struggles i amoung the western european powers can not be understood.Looking just for example how the british and the franch treated germany after the first world war has to be looked at as to what that war did to the population and now much they feared a strong geramny. In teh end they just turned germany into a ripe society for someone like Hitler. That is one reason the US decided not to just leave it to the european nations.Even the imprisonment of the japanese after pearl harbor has to be looked at in the eyes of the people at the time. Things changed alot after the first world war which is what brought on communism as a popular view in light of the experiences of wesern european soldiers in WWI. They really got a taste of the class systemj and where they stood.
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Old 11-20-2008, 08:14 AM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,554 posts, read 86,928,948 times
Reputation: 36644
Quote:
Originally Posted by texdav View Post
All history has to be related to the times. .
This imperative would apply only if the historian sets about the task of justifying history---which is not the clinical role of the historian. History is what it is. If a historian feels that he needs to justify th events in the aftermath of the war, he is equally obliged to justify what Hitler did in the first place. Or, at least explain and account for the motives without subjective coloring.
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