# History Is Paper Thin **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 25, 2001, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812 "2001-02-25T08:15:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2001, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/21 "2001-02-26T20:36:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duke \* > **DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH TECHNIQUES** Okay, I am currently reading a history of the US Civil War by Harry Hansen. As a historiographical researcher, how would he compare with, say, Catton or Foote or McPherson or Ambrose? Am I wasting my time? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by SofaKing_ > **humankind’s history is as malleable as the medium it is printed upon once those who have lived it have passed** So, those authors I mentioned, with their “modern historiographical research techniques,” are less trustworthy than, say, the possibly revisionist and self-agrandizing memoirs of some Civil War hero? ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/22 "2001-02-27T01:45:57Z")
**dropzone** : Sorry, it was the Pit, I was just ranting against shopworn phrases like “history is written by the winners” etc. For example, many of my colleagues are writing on post-Reformation English Catholicism, and you don’t get much more “loser” than the late-16th-century English Catholics. As it stands about your Civil War question: I’ll throw the standard Ph.D-student disclaimer at you. “Not my field.” Sorry, but I haven’t studied American history for eight years. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/23 "2001-02-27T02:18:50Z")
Hey, Duke, whaddya study? Do you do 16th C stuff? English? Reformation? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/24 "2001-02-27T02:19:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duke \* > \*\*1. …and you don’t get much more “loser” than the late-16th-century English Catholics. > > 1. “Not my field.”\*\* 1. Ah, but they (mostly) survived to write their own histories, with their own slants. I think some of them came over and wrote my fifth-grade text; it was old enough. (Okay, in all fairness, it was printed in 1944, “only” twenty years before I got it. It was retired after me, though. 2. Pussy. So, what do you WANT me to ask about, the ENGLISH Civil War, you treasonous, lime-loving, poseur? Yer own country isn’t GOOD ENOUGH for you? 😉 I did get a good one from Hansen’s book. He tells the standard legend about the origin of Stonewall Jackson’s nickname, one that, in my other reading, AT WORST is thought of as apocryphal, but adds that, while Gen. Bee, who was conveniently killed later that day, did say something like “There’s Jackson, standing like a stone wall,” his aide later wrote that it was a part of a rant about how Bee’s men were getting their asses kicked while Jackson stood there like a stone wall, not bringing his men to help. History is sometimes where you put the emphasis, both literally, as in this case, or because the author does some editing, both conscious and unconscious. My bemused attitude toward historic absolutism comes, in part, from my training in anthropology. Talk about a malleable field! By now, just about EVERYTHING I was taught has been re-researched, reconsidered, or discarded. In other words, EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WRONG, be it physical or cultural anthropology or archeology. WE DON’T EVEN HAVE THE SAME LINEAGE! Completely topsy-turvy. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/25 "2001-02-27T20:10:17Z")
**dropzone** , I’m sorry I wasn’t clear about that statement of mine that you quoted. I was taking the role of the historian for granted. It’s a natural assumption on my part, as I am also an aspiring historian. If everyone wrote the complete truth all the time, I’d just be a file clerk. The malleability of history exists in the student’s _interpretation_ of the documents. I don’t know anything about Hansen. But if your point is that documentation–and the historians before you who assembled and interpreted that documentation–must be very carefully considered, it is well taken. If one were to ignore all Civil War documents except the memoirs of von Borcke, one might conclude that the South won the Civil War largely due to the single-handed efforts of a German officer informally serving on Jeb Stuart’s staff. I consider that God-damned television show to be no less absurd. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/26 "2001-02-27T20:14:55Z")
Jeez, I think this Pit thread is in danger of getting tossed into Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/27 "2001-02-27T22:26:12Z")
But at least this board doesn’t let you edit your past posts. Baby steps… ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2001, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812/28 "2001-02-27T23:36:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > \*\*I consider that God-damned television show to be no less absurd. \*\* You don’t think Joshua Chamberlain won the war? Nah, I’m glad this isn’t in GD. If I were over there I’d have to look at how completely the [human lineage](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=61325) has changed since I graduated and I’d just get depressed. Christ Almighty! I might as well have gone to Nam as college. No, check that. But you get my point. And I couldn’t call that anglophilic **Duke** a pussy. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-is-paper-thin/55812.md?page=1)