# Historians’ Single Greatest Mistake? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 6, 2025, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632 "2025-01-06T14:23:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632/22 "2025-01-07T04:13:08Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > It was thinking back in the 1930s or so many left wing intellectuals, including historians, were very positive about Russian communism–and this of course was a time that in retrospect it was clear there were massive famines and purges. Can anyone clarify? I’m not sure this is a case of a mistake on the part of leftist in the 1930s who defended communism in Russia. These were folks blinded by ideological beliefs who deliberately ignored the truth because it was inconvenient. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632/23 "2025-01-07T04:29:22Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I’d nominate as the “single greatest mistake” made by Western historians–historically, as it were–as having come up with, and adhering to, the Great Man Theory of History. Seconding this one. But if I was picking a specific area in history which was wrong, I’d go with the general consensus on the pre-Columbian population of the Americas. It was widely accepted for a long period that the American continents had relatively low populations. Historians now recognize the existence of the Great Dying, a massive wave of diseases that were introduced into America’s native population by European explorers and which killed off around ninety percent of the population. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632/24 "2025-01-07T04:59:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Historians now recognize the existence of the Great Dying, a massive wave of diseases that were introduced into America’s native population by European explorers and which killed off around ninety percent of the population. Was this ever not known, by actual academics who studied it, if not the average Joe? In the Spanish ruled bit the Americas at least. The Spanish rulers documented the great dying (or most of it, the bit that happened during or after they seized power) As with a lot the stuff in this thread this seems a matter of interpretation, rather than historians actually getting the facts wrong. The facts of what happened (or most of them) were there for everyone to see. They just choose to interpret them as an unfortunate side effect of the great project for mankind that was the European colonisation of the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632/25 "2025-01-07T05:42:22Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Was this ever not known, by actual academics who studied it, if not the average Joe? In the Spanish ruled bit the Americas at least. The Spanish rulers documented the great dying (or most of it, the bit that happened during or after they seized power) My understanding is that historians were aware that European diseases had killed many Americans but greatly underestimated the number of people who died. The Spanish and other Europeans often did not see the full extent of the diseases. There was the factor that everyone lacked a modern understanding of how diseases worked. They didn’t realize that the European diseases were traveling faster than the European explorers; by the time the first Europeans showed up in an area and looked around, the local population was already greatly reduced from what it had been just a few years earlier. So when Europeans wrote reports about how underpopulated the regions they were exploring were, they didn’t realize this was a new development. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632/26 "2025-01-07T05:59:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d go with the general consensus on the pre-Columbian population of the Americas. I agree with this bit, but IMO the Great Error was thinking these were Noble Savages who lived in some sort of state of grace hunting and gathering without modifying their environment. We know now that they massively changed their habitat to suit themselves - who wouldn’t? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632/27 "2025-01-07T06:08:04Z")
Part of the problem with evaluating the first few years-- say, the first two decades-- of the Communist Russia (well, the Soviet Union, beginning in 1922), of the Bolsheviks, in that time (the 1930s, or so) was that as much as the Bolsheviks were shooting ducks with an AT4, Tsarist Russia was such a cesspool for the peasant class. The peasant class had been living in shanty shacks, so when a nobility family of seven, and its 12 servants were driven out of the home (maybe the servants got to stay) and 12 peasant adults were moved in, 2 per room, or families of as many was fine in a room, and the shacks used for firewood. Additionally, many working class people were moved in from their meager (often condemned) apartment buildings. They modernized Russia, bringing in cars, and building equipment, and education for the masses. They repaired and expanded the infrastructure. A lot of people died in the process. However, if nothing had changed, **a lot of people would have died anyway**. Believe it or not, that was part of the “sell” to the rest of the world. And remember, the writers we’re generalizing about, were writing before Stalin. “Fewer, but better Russians” wasn’t just a joke. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historians-single-greatest-mistake/1012632.md?page=1)