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Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 1:10 am
by Apollonius
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
From a speech attributed to Calgacus, a Calcedonian chieftain, in Tacitus,
Agricola (30):
Whenever I consider the origin of this war and the necessities of our position, I have a sure confidence that this day, and this union of yours, will be the beginning of freedom to the whole of Britain. To all of us slavery is a thing unknown; there are no lands beyond us, and even the sea is not safe, menaced as we are by a Roman fleet. And thus in war and battle, in which the brave find glory, even the coward will find safety. Former contests, in which, with varying fortune, the Romans were resisted, still left in us a last hope of succour, inasmuch as being the most renowned nation of Britain, dwelling in the very heart of the country, and out of sight of the shores of the conquered, we could keep even our eyes unpolluted by the contagion of slavery. To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary of Britain's glory has up to this time been a defence. Now, however, the furthest limits of Britain are thrown open, and the unknown always passes for the marvellous. But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.
Re: Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 1:20 am
by Enki
Anyone with a pen living in a jurisdiction that doesn't murder historians.
Re: Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:34 am
by Ibrahim
History as a whole favors two groups:
1. Those who write everything down, ideally on stone or clay and in dry climates. The speak louder than their contemporaries who only had oral traditions, as accurate as they may have been in their day.
2. The most bombastic and self-aggrandizing people who won't shut up about themselves. The writings of Julius Caesar or the self-deification of Ramses II are responsible for a distressing amount of commonly held knowledge about large swathes of history, including people and events about which they may not have been... objective.
Still, other voices get a word in here and there. They are more commonly heard today, and there is much revisionism as a result, simply because there is more translation and dissemination of documents. I've got a Penguin anthology of translated Islamic authors writing about the Crusades. What Western schoolboy had access to such a thing fifty years ago? Both sides are now presented as a matter of course (in serious academic circles at anyway).
Re: Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:02 am
by Azrael
Most of the History of the Civil War was written by wealthy Southern landowners, who seemed to have more time on their hands and fewer useful things to do than Northerners.
Re: Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:09 am
by Farcus
Azrael wrote:Most of the History of the Civil War was written by wealthy Southern landowners, who seemed to have more time on their hands and fewer useful things to do than Northerners.
What makes you say that?
Re: Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:45 am
by Azrael
Farcus wrote:Azrael wrote:Most of the History of the Civil War was written by wealthy Southern landowners, who seemed to have more time on their hands and fewer useful things to do than Northerners.
What makes you say that?
"The Birth of a Nation", "Gone with the Wind" . . .
Re: Who writes history? The victors or the critics?
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:05 pm
by Apollonius
Thanks all for your replies.
I could have named this discussion "Who writes history? The victors or the vanquished? Besides having alliterative appeal, it's more of a play on opposites. However, I aimed for accuracy more than poetry.
This question was of course prompted by another discussion where the oft-referred to 'History is written by the victors" misquotation was offered up as the default bias of writing history, a sort of 'check-mate' in any argument about history.
I'm not so sure. There's Julius Caesar and Winston Churchill. But most of Western history's greatest names, from Thucydides to Tacitus to Rousseau and Marx have been far more critical than lauditory. Over the last twenty years the most of widely popular books that cover historical subjects, perhaps epitomized by Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, are revisionist and highly critical of Western achievements.
I know the Chinese have been known to lend a similarly critical eye to their views on former emperors and been critical of the societies they ruled.
But Tinker is right. There are many societies that don't allow critics to live.