Historical revisionism has become a very popular topic over the past few years. The publications of such novels as The Da Vinci code have brought new light to historical events that were always taken for granted. Many of these alternate historical theories can easily be tossed aside since the evidence is sloppy or ridiculous. I find it completely understandable (on a societal and cultural level) that historical revisionism creates so much controversy. If a society was built on a certain event, or believed something a certain way for thousands of years, that could have serious effects on their culture. Yes, there are some historical events that wouldn't affect much if they were in accurate, but if the conspiracy theory proposed by The Da Vinci Code was true, the repercussions would be drastic. Then again, when there is a piece of history that no one alive today was there to see, we don't have absolute proof that it happened the way we think it did. We can only make a very good guess. The one issue that I found with this article was that it was definitely written for a British audience. The allusions made were mostly from British history, and for readers outside of Britain whom do not understand these examples, the article is missing universal connection. I would very much like to see this article rewritten for America. I know I would be able to better connect and understand the arguments trying to be made when I can relate to the arguments being presented. George Washington and the cherry tree, JFK’s assassination, and the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son are all occurrences in American history that have been subjects of revisionism. Historical revisionism is unique to a group of people, and no matter what, someone is going to be affected and stand against it.
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I always wondered why this article didn't stand out more to me. I was reading through people's blogs and had the toughest time commenting on blogs on this article because I just didn't find it interesting, and what you said made me realize that's exactly how I feel. This article was more centered on British history hence we didn't understand and connect much to what was being said. That's one reason we did that group assignment in class and looked up and discussed the different myths, sure this helped but reading about American history revisited would definitely be more entertaining.
ReplyDeleteThis article was definitely written for a British audience. I feel like in order for this passage to be more interesting, which I too found it extremely boring, would be for the author to appeal to a broader audience. If he were to venture overseas to the United States and incorporate more American history, I would have been more interested throughout this reading.
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