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Growing Up: is history written by the victors?
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Dear readers, hello I'm back. Writing to you again from Jerusalem, 14.5 months since I last wrote... Let's get into it... An idea I'm thinking about: is history written by the victors? K: But whoever ends up having the power to write the history books will impose their political and ideological world view on those events so that our descendants are given a worldview that says X or says Y. What do you say to that?
R: Well, that's what Orwell wrote, isn't it? "He who controls the past controls the future."
K: Well isn't it true?
R: Well, if you can get away with it, if you have an intellectual authority that can impose a certain view of the past, then well, yes, you can do that. But many people would say the purpose of studying history is precisely to be able to say that what you're saying is not right. I mean, I think that's part of the answer... another thing I would say... a lot of what is history is perfectly well known. It's not just a matter of opinion.
You can't deny that there was a second world war. You can't deny who fought in it or who won it. You can't deny that there was a holocaust. And, this is true of so much of history, the idea that you can just pick the bits you like and ignore the bits you don't like is, is simply not true...
I sometimes feel history's a bit like writing about a football match. You might say, well, the important things are where was it played? When was it played? Who won? Who scored the goals? Then you might say, well, yes, but why did Arsenal beat Aston Villa? Then that's a matter of opinion. You might say, well, that can never be proved. But the fact is, you can't just say, well, to say that Arsenal beat Aston Villa, that's just your story. I've got a different story, which is that the other way around. That just cannot be intellectually honest.
Transcript from Triggernometry podcast interview with Nigel Biggar and Robert Tombs (lightly edited for clarity) more soon bzH... |
Hi! I'm Delia Burgess
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