# "Revisionist History" - Always a Negative Connotation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 10, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551 "2003-07-10T20:25:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/1 "2003-07-10T20:25:11Z")
History does get revised, and it doesn’t seem to me that there is anything inherently negative in the word ‘revision.’ Archives are opened up, documents become declassified, new archeological discoveries are made - all this causes new works to be written, arguments made and previously accepted history to be modified. Yet the phrase ‘revisionist history’ today generally means Holocaust denial or deliberate distortion of events for whatever political agenda. My question is: has it always had this meaning or is this a fairly recent reading of the phrase? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/2 "2003-07-10T20:57:42Z")
Actual historical revisionism is completely respectible, and, in fact, what historians do. Unfortunately, it’s been hijacked by the holocaust deniers, who wanted a phrase more respectable than “holocaust denier”. (Ironically, what the deniers do isn’t even historical revisionism. They just ignore evidence that they don’t like.) ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/3 "2003-07-10T22:02:29Z")
Historians may see it differently, but I think for the average person, revisionist history means history created by people who started out, like creationist, trying to force the facts into a point of view. Revisionist history is not only over-simplified, and often construced at the expense of well-established scholarship. Many historical ideas have been enriched by, for instance, improvements in medical archeology – but usually this new information refines theories or answer questions that had been left open. It would be more helpful if revisionists encouraged people to study history more deeply and thoughtfully. The contributions of non-white males become fairly apparent if you take the time to learn about all aspects of a time and place. Perhaps historians should use terms like refine and enhance. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/4 "2003-07-10T22:14:55Z")
For many decades after the Civil War, the foremost historians on the subject of the war and reconstruction were southern. After World War II, however, a new school of historians called many of their conclusions into question. These historians forthrightly called themselves revisionists. In fact, I still have one of the book I was assigned in college - _Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings_. > [@](#): > > These revisionists have by no means repudiated all of the traditional story, but they have corrected many errors and misconceptions. Moreover, the new picture of the period that has taken form from their investigations has greater variety, a richer texture, more subtlety of shading and nuance, and much better perspective. The modern wave of Holocaust revisionists have stolen this term, but it was once extremely well respected, and I suspect remains so in real historical circles. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/5 "2003-07-10T22:15:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by j.c. \* > \*\*The contributions of non-white males become fairly apparent if you take the time to learn about all aspects of a time and place. > > Perhaps historians should use terms like refine and enhance. \*\* Since you didn’t offer a cite with this, may I provide an example? Teddy Roosevelt ran for president using his exploits on San Juan Hill as background color and to show his bravery under fire. This incident is factual, but the story was embellished with generous amounts of fiction, created by Roosevelt himself and his publicist. While TR was unquestionably a brave man, his charge up a hill with five men to capture an objective already acquired by the Buffalo Soldiers was not significant. It is only relatively recently that the Buffalo Soldiers have been properly credited with winning the conflict. See [http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/spanam/BSSJH/Shbrt-BSSJH.htm](http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/spanam/BSSJH/Shbrt-BSSJH.htm) for the full story. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/6 "2003-07-10T22:39:46Z")
Well, there’s a difference between revising _interpretations_ of history, and revising _history_ itself. There’s nothing wrong with revisionist history in the sense of “hey, there’s some new information, we should incorporate this into our history”, the problem is reviosinst history in the sense of photographs with people airbrushed out, forged documents, hearsay presented as fact, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/7 "2003-07-10T22:58:46Z")
[Article](http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2003/keyssar_revisionists_062403.htm) from a Harvard professor that concludes: “The suppression of revisionist history has generally been a mark of dictatorships – from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein himself. Or have we forgotten that?” ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/revisionist-history-always-a-negative-connotation/187551/8 "2003-07-10T23:17:20Z")
In explaining why she uses the term Holocaust _deniers_ throughout her _Denying the Holocaust_ (1993; Penguin, 1994), Deborah Lipstadt discusses (p20-1) various schools of historians who have called themselves revisionists and then concludes: > [@](#): > > Finally, I abjure the term _revisionist_ because on some level revisionism is what all legitimate historians engage in. Historians are not just chroniclers - they do not simply retell the tale. Each one tries to glean some new way of interpreting the past to help us better understand the present. That interpretation always involves some constant “re-visioning” of the past. By its very nature the business of interpretation cannot be objective. But it is built on a certain body of irrefutable evidence: Slavery happened; so did the Black Plague and the Holocaust.