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The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History
An experienced, multi-faceted historian shows how revisionist history is at the heart of creating historical knowledge
“A rallying cry in favor of historians who, revisiting past subjects, change their minds. . . . Rewarding reading.”— Kirkus Reviews
“A wise, erudite, and, perhaps most important, a clearly written examination of the ways historians go about their craft of interpreting and reinterpreting the past.”—Gordon S. Wood, Brown University
History is not, and has never been, inert, certain, merely factual, and beyond reinterpretation. Taking readers from Thucydides to the origin of the French Revolution to the Civil War and beyond, James M. Banner, Jr., explores what historians do and why they do it.
Banner shows why historical knowledge is unlikely ever to be unchanging, why history as a branch of knowledge is always a search for meaning and a constant source of argument, and why history is so essential to individuals’ awareness of their location in the world and to every group and nation’s sense of identity and destiny. He explains why all historians are revisionists while they seek to more fully understand the past, and how they always bring their distinct minds, dispositions, perspectives, and purposes to bear on the subjects they study.
“A rallying cry in favor of historians who, revisiting past subjects, change their minds. . . . Rewarding reading.”— Kirkus Reviews
“A wise, erudite, and, perhaps most important, a clearly written examination of the ways historians go about their craft of interpreting and reinterpreting the past.”—Gordon S. Wood, Brown University
History is not, and has never been, inert, certain, merely factual, and beyond reinterpretation. Taking readers from Thucydides to the origin of the French Revolution to the Civil War and beyond, James M. Banner, Jr., explores what historians do and why they do it.
Banner shows why historical knowledge is unlikely ever to be unchanging, why history as a branch of knowledge is always a search for meaning and a constant source of argument, and why history is so essential to individuals’ awareness of their location in the world and to every group and nation’s sense of identity and destiny. He explains why all historians are revisionists while they seek to more fully understand the past, and how they always bring their distinct minds, dispositions, perspectives, and purposes to bear on the subjects they study.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published March 16, 2021
18 people are currently reading
293 people want to read
About the author
James M. Banner Jr.
16 books12 followersA 1957 graduate from Yale University, James M. Banner, Jr. earned his Ph.D. degree in 1968 at Columbia University under Richard Hofstadter and Eric L. McKitrick. Banner taught at Princeton University from 1966 until 1980, when he resigned to found the American Association for the Advancement of the Humanities.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 27, 2024
Revisionist history is a label often slung at those who dare challenge the approved elite narrative; given that history is usually written by the victors, it should surprise no one that some historians might be more interested in the real story than in the victor’s one. “History is not and has never been inert, certain, merely factual, or beyond reinterpretation.” The Right has tried to make revisionism seem pejorative by intentionally using the term Holocaust revisionism instead of Holocaust denial. And we are supposed to still believe that slaves had been somehow “civilized” by the South. The Right also calls Marxist revisionism any history that places needs of the people above those of the corporations and US military. Thus, the Right has made “revisionism” into curse words “that have lost all concrete meaning.”
Revisionist scholarship, however, has placed “slavery and racism squarely at the center of the larger history of American capitalism.” Revisionist history showed us how the inventor of the cotton gin, Eli Whitney, was a Northerner and so the North played an important role in continuing slavery (especially if you include the role of Northern bankers and the busy slave port of Newport, Rhode Island). Note that Fredrick Jackson Turner’s famed “frontier thesis” was also clearly revisionist. And if the JFK assassination files were all suddenly declassified, it’s hard to imagine there wouldn’t be some kind of revisionism. In fact, the author states, “all historians are revisionist” and “all works of history should be approached as presumptively revisionist.” “Even a history that is a mere chronicle of facts can offer a fresh look at the past by its selection of those facts.” The author says we should “consider every work of history as revisionist until proven.” Words to live by.
The famed author, Homer of the Iliad, may never have existed, and it is not at certain that “he” was a single person, and he may have even been blind. “The Renaissance opened the way to the gradual redirection of Western thought toward human rather than godly affairs.” Think of the Reformation as Germans, French and the English breaking free of the “Italian yoke” and that of Rome and Greece in order to “interpret their own histories in national terms.” Charles Beard’s 1913 “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution” was one of the first bits of history tagged as revisionist; it showed the Framers as taking their positions not from the Enlightenment or constitutional principles but from their property and privilege. His thesis was that the Framers first protected their class interests.
Banner concludes that “It is best to assume that every work of history is revisionist in some manner.” He says, “Thucydides can justifiably be considered the Founding Revisionist for taking sharp issue with Herodotus.” Eusebius was the father of Christian history; after him all pagan European history is sidelined, and Europe entered the Dark Ages. “After Eusebius, pagan historiography was gradually relegated to the margins of written history in the West and replaced by a tradition of historical thought and writing in which the old gods either found themselves replaced or, in the case of the Jewish god and the Pentateuch, appropriated by Christians and incorporated into their Bible. This was as thoroughgoing an intellectual, as well as historiographic, transformation as can be imagined.” Michael Parenti writes about this crime by the church in depth in both his “History as Mystery” and “The Assassination of Julius Caesar” books. Note that “the British Isles, the last major European redoubt of pagan belief, did not fall entirely to Christianity for three centuries.”
DNA analysis forced the US and Monticello administrators to revise the Jefferson story when a 1998 Nature article proved that Jefferson had been banging Sally Hemmings and had kids with her. Well before Epstein’s island, Thomas Jefferson, a US paragon of virtue, started nailing Sally when she was 14 and she was pregnant with his child when she was 16 returning with him from Paris. This certainly gives potentially revisionist meaning to Eric Clapton’s lyrics for “Lay Down, Sally”.
Anyway, this book was a real help to me after I was publicly called “revisionist” and “Marxist” (I’ve never read Marx) on the school lawn at my 50th high-school reunion last summer by a DC lobbyist for the US defense department I went to school with. I immediately bought and read this book which boldly states that real history is routinely revisionist by nature. As for Marxist, I assume the appellation came from me challenging the dominant bipartisan permanent war paradigm which amply paid his salary and ego. I’m super glad I read this book; as I said, it pairs well with the historical writings of Michael Parenti. Kudos.
Revisionist scholarship, however, has placed “slavery and racism squarely at the center of the larger history of American capitalism.” Revisionist history showed us how the inventor of the cotton gin, Eli Whitney, was a Northerner and so the North played an important role in continuing slavery (especially if you include the role of Northern bankers and the busy slave port of Newport, Rhode Island). Note that Fredrick Jackson Turner’s famed “frontier thesis” was also clearly revisionist. And if the JFK assassination files were all suddenly declassified, it’s hard to imagine there wouldn’t be some kind of revisionism. In fact, the author states, “all historians are revisionist” and “all works of history should be approached as presumptively revisionist.” “Even a history that is a mere chronicle of facts can offer a fresh look at the past by its selection of those facts.” The author says we should “consider every work of history as revisionist until proven.” Words to live by.
The famed author, Homer of the Iliad, may never have existed, and it is not at certain that “he” was a single person, and he may have even been blind. “The Renaissance opened the way to the gradual redirection of Western thought toward human rather than godly affairs.” Think of the Reformation as Germans, French and the English breaking free of the “Italian yoke” and that of Rome and Greece in order to “interpret their own histories in national terms.” Charles Beard’s 1913 “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution” was one of the first bits of history tagged as revisionist; it showed the Framers as taking their positions not from the Enlightenment or constitutional principles but from their property and privilege. His thesis was that the Framers first protected their class interests.
Banner concludes that “It is best to assume that every work of history is revisionist in some manner.” He says, “Thucydides can justifiably be considered the Founding Revisionist for taking sharp issue with Herodotus.” Eusebius was the father of Christian history; after him all pagan European history is sidelined, and Europe entered the Dark Ages. “After Eusebius, pagan historiography was gradually relegated to the margins of written history in the West and replaced by a tradition of historical thought and writing in which the old gods either found themselves replaced or, in the case of the Jewish god and the Pentateuch, appropriated by Christians and incorporated into their Bible. This was as thoroughgoing an intellectual, as well as historiographic, transformation as can be imagined.” Michael Parenti writes about this crime by the church in depth in both his “History as Mystery” and “The Assassination of Julius Caesar” books. Note that “the British Isles, the last major European redoubt of pagan belief, did not fall entirely to Christianity for three centuries.”
DNA analysis forced the US and Monticello administrators to revise the Jefferson story when a 1998 Nature article proved that Jefferson had been banging Sally Hemmings and had kids with her. Well before Epstein’s island, Thomas Jefferson, a US paragon of virtue, started nailing Sally when she was 14 and she was pregnant with his child when she was 16 returning with him from Paris. This certainly gives potentially revisionist meaning to Eric Clapton’s lyrics for “Lay Down, Sally”.
Anyway, this book was a real help to me after I was publicly called “revisionist” and “Marxist” (I’ve never read Marx) on the school lawn at my 50th high-school reunion last summer by a DC lobbyist for the US defense department I went to school with. I immediately bought and read this book which boldly states that real history is routinely revisionist by nature. As for Marxist, I assume the appellation came from me challenging the dominant bipartisan permanent war paradigm which amply paid his salary and ego. I’m super glad I read this book; as I said, it pairs well with the historical writings of Michael Parenti. Kudos.
June 14, 2021
This is an academic study of the history of writing history and its subsequent and inevitable revision, although history buffs may find it interesting.
Banner begins with a study of the historians of the American Civil War, then progresses to a two chapter survey of the history of writing history, hitting all the highlights from Herodotus and Thucydides, to Eusebius and other church fathers, and then a rapid study of this historians of the Renaissance, Enlightenment and on to the late 18th century into the early 21st, most especially historians of the origin of the French Revolution and those of the American Civil War.
Listening to this book, I was reminded of my graduate history course in the historiography of history, and much of the work to study for my comps. Fortunately, I have studied many of the historians, having read some of them in the original.
Banner spends much time discussing how each historian revises, almost without a choice, the history of his topic as written by those who went before him. Note that Banner covers the main-stream Western hemisphere historians, primarily white males, although women historians writing in the 20th and 21st century are mentioned. Most of the histories are history from above, that is military, political, and dynastic, with a nod to history from below in the 19th through 21st centuries.
So grab a history of historical writing and listen to Souer’s non-stop reading is daunting. If only the audio book included a PDF listing historians and their works.
For a review of the performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com
Banner begins with a study of the historians of the American Civil War, then progresses to a two chapter survey of the history of writing history, hitting all the highlights from Herodotus and Thucydides, to Eusebius and other church fathers, and then a rapid study of this historians of the Renaissance, Enlightenment and on to the late 18th century into the early 21st, most especially historians of the origin of the French Revolution and those of the American Civil War.
Listening to this book, I was reminded of my graduate history course in the historiography of history, and much of the work to study for my comps. Fortunately, I have studied many of the historians, having read some of them in the original.
Banner spends much time discussing how each historian revises, almost without a choice, the history of his topic as written by those who went before him. Note that Banner covers the main-stream Western hemisphere historians, primarily white males, although women historians writing in the 20th and 21st century are mentioned. Most of the histories are history from above, that is military, political, and dynastic, with a nod to history from below in the 19th through 21st centuries.
So grab a history of historical writing and listen to Souer’s non-stop reading is daunting. If only the audio book included a PDF listing historians and their works.
For a review of the performance, see AudioFile Magazine http://www.audiofilemagazine.com
June 7, 2025
This was an interesting read in the context of how we more popularly talk about history and historical revisionism. In the Philippines, for example, "historical revisionism" as a term has become very popular over the past two decades, especially during the political return of the Marcos family. When I was growing up in the early 2000s, the Marcos name was associated with terrible times: dictatorship, institutional corruption, civilian violence, the suppression of free speech, and so on. The narrative of Philippine history was said to pivot when Ferdinand Marcos, the country's president for over 21 years, was forcibly exiled during the "People Power" movement in 1986 and democracy was restored. When the eldest son of the Marcos dynasty started to aim for the country's highest positions in the 2010s, there was a sudden wave of (Cambridge Analytica-backed) online support for the family at large. On social media, the Marcoses were said to have been wronged and smeared over the past 30 years and that the real truth was that the Philippines actually thrived during the political family's reign, that it was a "golden age". And that voting them back into power would return us to the past. To make the Philippines great again, if you must (which happens to literally be the slogan Ferdinand ran on 60 years ago).
And so there was a lot of discussion that Philippine history was being actively revised by the Marcoses, that they have been perpetuating through social campaigns, a mass act of "historical revisionism". The message of this book would probably not sound too great explained within my own local context, but it seems to me that nothing being said here is controversial amongst contemporary historians around the world: that all history is revisionist history.
What this means, to put it briefly, is that according to Banner, one of the present-day presuppositions of professional historians is that all that has been, is, and will be, contributed to the field of history, can never be definitive or "objectively true". That every new "history" that is written is just a revision of what has already been relayed or said, whether due to new evidences, perspectives, or analytical lenses. History is always just as much written for the present and the near future as it is about relaying truths about the past itself, and so every generation's histories are always going to reflect the times in which they are written. We are also not infallible creatures. We bring into all our writings certain vantage points that can affect how we narrativize the past in ways that fits how we think we can learn from it. It's always going to be there.
This does not mean that historical writings have no truth to them, it just means that one must always accept that what is being said can never be considered the final word on it. The way that Banner treats this subject is to give comprehensive histiriographies of the American Civil War and the French Revolution. He makes the point that how we see the past has consistently changed over time due to the amorphous natures of our futures. Or in other words, with hindsight, it's easy to see how much of "the past" has been filtered through the needs of the present. And there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make history any less compelling or less filled with truth value. In fact, in some ways we've moved more and more towards the democratization of history-making and history-telling. Each of us has something of interest to say about the past that, while influenced by our own lives and our positions in our societies, is worth listening to and considering. We all contribute to history. We are all historians in our own ways.
For my own local example of "historical revisionism", what it comes down to is that it is not an interesting condemnation to say that history is being revised. History is inherently in constant revision. All history is revisionist. What's more important to understand is how national history has been utilized by those in power to secure their positions. One may argue that that's the function of nationalist history. It's to provide legitimacy to whoever is currently in power. A major reason why the Marcos narrative resurged in the 2010s is that their ideological enemies had been vanquished. The scions of the Aquino family had passed away. There was no more resistance. One narrative took over another.
The instrumentalization of nationalist history by politicians is an interesting field of the study. In a sense, "revisionist history" becomes essential to all nations seeking to start afresh. A history war occurs and the winners are the ones who end up able to tell it, as that saying goes. The nationalist histories of many post-colonial countries, for example, are fascinating in both what they choose to include and highlight, as well as what is silenced. Who are our nation's heroes? Who are its villains? Why? A great recommendation for anyone who wants to read more about this is Michel-Rolph Trouillot's "Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History".
Overall I liked the book, though it took me a long time to finish fully. It's not necessarily one of my favorite books of all time, despite my rating here, but I think that for what it's trying to accomplish, it succeeds brilliantly. It may be hard to get through if you don't have a special interest in the two subjects Banner chooses to dive in depth into, the American Civil War and the French Revolution, but by the end of the book, I found getting though it all to be more than worth it.
And so there was a lot of discussion that Philippine history was being actively revised by the Marcoses, that they have been perpetuating through social campaigns, a mass act of "historical revisionism". The message of this book would probably not sound too great explained within my own local context, but it seems to me that nothing being said here is controversial amongst contemporary historians around the world: that all history is revisionist history.
What this means, to put it briefly, is that according to Banner, one of the present-day presuppositions of professional historians is that all that has been, is, and will be, contributed to the field of history, can never be definitive or "objectively true". That every new "history" that is written is just a revision of what has already been relayed or said, whether due to new evidences, perspectives, or analytical lenses. History is always just as much written for the present and the near future as it is about relaying truths about the past itself, and so every generation's histories are always going to reflect the times in which they are written. We are also not infallible creatures. We bring into all our writings certain vantage points that can affect how we narrativize the past in ways that fits how we think we can learn from it. It's always going to be there.
This does not mean that historical writings have no truth to them, it just means that one must always accept that what is being said can never be considered the final word on it. The way that Banner treats this subject is to give comprehensive histiriographies of the American Civil War and the French Revolution. He makes the point that how we see the past has consistently changed over time due to the amorphous natures of our futures. Or in other words, with hindsight, it's easy to see how much of "the past" has been filtered through the needs of the present. And there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make history any less compelling or less filled with truth value. In fact, in some ways we've moved more and more towards the democratization of history-making and history-telling. Each of us has something of interest to say about the past that, while influenced by our own lives and our positions in our societies, is worth listening to and considering. We all contribute to history. We are all historians in our own ways.
For my own local example of "historical revisionism", what it comes down to is that it is not an interesting condemnation to say that history is being revised. History is inherently in constant revision. All history is revisionist. What's more important to understand is how national history has been utilized by those in power to secure their positions. One may argue that that's the function of nationalist history. It's to provide legitimacy to whoever is currently in power. A major reason why the Marcos narrative resurged in the 2010s is that their ideological enemies had been vanquished. The scions of the Aquino family had passed away. There was no more resistance. One narrative took over another.
The instrumentalization of nationalist history by politicians is an interesting field of the study. In a sense, "revisionist history" becomes essential to all nations seeking to start afresh. A history war occurs and the winners are the ones who end up able to tell it, as that saying goes. The nationalist histories of many post-colonial countries, for example, are fascinating in both what they choose to include and highlight, as well as what is silenced. Who are our nation's heroes? Who are its villains? Why? A great recommendation for anyone who wants to read more about this is Michel-Rolph Trouillot's "Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History".
Overall I liked the book, though it took me a long time to finish fully. It's not necessarily one of my favorite books of all time, despite my rating here, but I think that for what it's trying to accomplish, it succeeds brilliantly. It may be hard to get through if you don't have a special interest in the two subjects Banner chooses to dive in depth into, the American Civil War and the French Revolution, but by the end of the book, I found getting though it all to be more than worth it.
October 16, 2022
No account can recapture the past as it was because the past was not an account. It was a set of events and situations. Even if you try to capture past in words, photographs, paintings, you can only capture the memory or after-the-fact imagining of it. The past is actually the events themselves. That past is indifferent, it simply takes place. By contrast, written history is purposeful.
Books, monuments, and memorials to the past are results of thoughts and intensions.
Artifacts of the times and places, memorials are created and are the products of people who wrote, created and erected them.
One historian referred to history as a 'foreign country.'
White men and Westerners no longer monopolize the study and writing of history. The internationalization of historical study means that different questions are asked and different approaches are taken in scholarship.
Niels Bohr's complementary duality of waves and particles can be applied to normal thought and discourse: the vantage point of observation informs history. Seeing history from different perspectives (ethnicity, nation, gender, etc).
Books, monuments, and memorials to the past are results of thoughts and intensions.
Artifacts of the times and places, memorials are created and are the products of people who wrote, created and erected them.
One historian referred to history as a 'foreign country.'
White men and Westerners no longer monopolize the study and writing of history. The internationalization of historical study means that different questions are asked and different approaches are taken in scholarship.
Niels Bohr's complementary duality of waves and particles can be applied to normal thought and discourse: the vantage point of observation informs history. Seeing history from different perspectives (ethnicity, nation, gender, etc).
August 19, 2021
The author makes a good case for why historiography is, by its very nature, a "revisionist" discipline.
Extending the point for 270+ pages is simply overkill.
The author's observation is absolutely correct, but could have made the point in an essay.
Extending the point for 270+ pages is simply overkill.
The author's observation is absolutely correct, but could have made the point in an essay.
January 9, 2023
This could have been an essay. The greatest contribution of the book was providing case studies in history to illustrate the points
June 2, 2021
If you love learning for fun, have I got a book for you
The premise of this book is kinda a big "No Duh".
All history is revisionist. What joy can be found listen to a guy prove what you already know?
Well... It's a freaking delight!
if you expect some scholarly snooze-fest here you better brace yourself because James M. Banner Jr. does not believe in foreplay. BAM! chapter one: The cause of the Civil War. Damn son, don't you want to warm a body up some before you dive right in? Oh hell NO. he hits hard. gets right to the point, and he does not let up.
This guy lays out a logical argument to support the premise, and then he makes it rain with a jackpot of scintillating historical facts that You didn't already know. (well I didn't)
(I've been burning out on non-fiction for a wile because they keep telling me what I already knew and not challenging my conceptual paradigm. not here baby)
-I got so much out of this book that I wasn't expecting. Learning the philosophical differences between Herodotus and Thucydides, and how that shaped military attitudes toward "enemy" civilian casualties. (ie. we don't care) How many different versions for the "cause of the civil war" America has tried on before you or I were born. Who was the biggest history re-writer in human history. Why the discovery of the new world was a bigger shock to European self image than the fall of Roman Empire, and how the feminist entry into the study of history discovered the amount of power women have wielded through out time.
-So anyway, I had a great time reading this book. My Girl and my roommate might wish I hadn't cause I couldn't shut up about it. I fully expect to re-read this book in the years to come like I do with Germs, Guns & Steel, -The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Andrew Marr's History of the World (book)
The premise of this book is kinda a big "No Duh".
All history is revisionist. What joy can be found listen to a guy prove what you already know?
Well... It's a freaking delight!
if you expect some scholarly snooze-fest here you better brace yourself because James M. Banner Jr. does not believe in foreplay. BAM! chapter one: The cause of the Civil War. Damn son, don't you want to warm a body up some before you dive right in? Oh hell NO. he hits hard. gets right to the point, and he does not let up.
This guy lays out a logical argument to support the premise, and then he makes it rain with a jackpot of scintillating historical facts that You didn't already know. (well I didn't)
(I've been burning out on non-fiction for a wile because they keep telling me what I already knew and not challenging my conceptual paradigm. not here baby)
-I got so much out of this book that I wasn't expecting. Learning the philosophical differences between Herodotus and Thucydides, and how that shaped military attitudes toward "enemy" civilian casualties. (ie. we don't care) How many different versions for the "cause of the civil war" America has tried on before you or I were born. Who was the biggest history re-writer in human history. Why the discovery of the new world was a bigger shock to European self image than the fall of Roman Empire, and how the feminist entry into the study of history discovered the amount of power women have wielded through out time.
-So anyway, I had a great time reading this book. My Girl and my roommate might wish I hadn't cause I couldn't shut up about it. I fully expect to re-read this book in the years to come like I do with Germs, Guns & Steel, -The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Andrew Marr's History of the World (book)
January 29, 2022
Banner does an excellent job of defining and defending his thesis that all history is revisionist history. He clearly shows how it is impossible to recapture the past in its totality when investigating and writing about history. Even as an event occurs, those who are involved perceive it through their individual life experiences. Therefore, it is impossible for those writing after the fact to capture past events fully and accurately.
This does not mean we should give up the pursuit of revealing and understanding history. It is through continued investigation and interaction with other historians, archeologists, anthropologists, etc., that we can get as close as possible to understanding past events and persons. Historians have developed rules, procedures, and protocols to work against inherent bias; thus, "there exists a general discipline-wide sense of what constitutes valid evidence..." (p. 263). Rather than give up on history, we must continue to delve into the past in order to understand the past, present, and future.
This does not mean we should give up the pursuit of revealing and understanding history. It is through continued investigation and interaction with other historians, archeologists, anthropologists, etc., that we can get as close as possible to understanding past events and persons. Historians have developed rules, procedures, and protocols to work against inherent bias; thus, "there exists a general discipline-wide sense of what constitutes valid evidence..." (p. 263). Rather than give up on history, we must continue to delve into the past in order to understand the past, present, and future.
August 22, 2023
Rarely do I pick up a display book at the WSU library, but this was one such case. Classes had not started and I thought I could return it before students missed it. Banner does a good job in providing a historiographic review of revisionist history and starting with Thucydides complaining about Herodotus. His examples are great and simple to follow. Starting with the lost cause and the histography of the American Civil War, the French Revolution, the dropping of the Atomic bombs at the end of WWII, and the paternity of Sally Hemming's children.
October 19, 2021
It was ever thus.
Banner's job is actually quite difficult, make a simple case that political rhetoric about the use of history is completely antithetical to the actual practice of reassessing the past against new sources and frames of reference. His examples though of common controversies about revisionism are well chosen and each expose a new wrinkle about how a static view of the past doesn't just miss the point but also loses clarity in pursuit of absolute truth.
Banner's job is actually quite difficult, make a simple case that political rhetoric about the use of history is completely antithetical to the actual practice of reassessing the past against new sources and frames of reference. His examples though of common controversies about revisionism are well chosen and each expose a new wrinkle about how a static view of the past doesn't just miss the point but also loses clarity in pursuit of absolute truth.
May 5, 2021
Splendid book! It's aimed at profession historians, but if you've ever wondered whether historians ever change their minds (and why and how they do so) this is an exceptional introduction to the topic. It will be the standard source on "revisionism" for many years to come.
November 13, 2023
I loved the way the author crafted this book. It was thought provoking and intentional and I learned a lot while reading it. The examples he made were really interesting and I felt like it was a very readable book for anyone.
June 21, 2024
This is an important read for nonhistorians, however it is very dry and probably longer than it should've been for the audience who ought to read it. The examples were great and demonstrated the thesis very well, but an article written with briefer analyses for a broader audience would suffice.
Read
June 14, 2021Its truthful to reality makes it banal.
December 17, 2021
A fascinating study that both debunks and confirms mythos surrounding historical revisionism.
December 26, 2021
Well-written, argued and documented with a host of spot-on examples, this is a wonderful thought-piece on the profession that I once pursued, half a lifetime ago.
May 11, 2022
Talking about revisionism by performing its own version of same.
May 3, 2023
This is an interesting look at not only how all history is revisionist history but also at how historians and the general public view history differently.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews