I will not lie, I'm going to be blatant and the fact of this article is extremely boring to read. I attempted doing so and found myself unable to finish the reading. What I got out of what I was able to read though was somewhat useful, or oftentimes helpful. I felt that Ian Mortimer, although extremely biased on his findings, pointed out that not all of the whole of society can be based and relied on what one individual in this case, George W. Bush, stated. He took his quote of, "Now there are some who would like to rewrite history – revisionist historians is what I like to call them..," and turned it to sound as if he was speaking for the whole in his talk about revisionism. This isn't true, you must put everyone's perspective into thought and by just taking a countries leader as the example is not a good way in demonstrating this. Taking this one example is also demonstrating to us that he doesn't have much support behind his efforts in arguing this.
Culture is brought into play, people's opinions are brought, even peoples surroundings are a cause of history and the past. It skews what actually occurred and by basing you country or feelings off of mere history is not intelligent to do. When people's feelings and opinions come into play, things are switched up and in doing so, aren't the complete truth of what happened. I feel like revising history could, ultimately be a good thing to do because, hell, we don't exactly know what all is the complete truth or what is based on beliefs. If we can find more support for the history known, who knows, maybe that will lead to us finding history that might have been lost in the past.
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I completely agree that it is fair to take everyone's view point of things. It is especially unfair to use a figure like George Bush, who is hated by a ton of american citizens and other people around the world, and use something that he has said and using it as an example. It does show that there is a lack of support for the argument.
ReplyDeleteI agree also that his choice of examples makes his argument less credible but I think you should have elaborated more on your opinion on historical revisionism itself. You kind of used an example used in the beginning in the article as the base of your blog post. I sort of wanted to know more of how you felt on the actual topic Mortimer wrote about.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point. Maybe you could talk about an event that, because of revision, it has changed how we look at it.
ReplyDeleteHis choice of examples do, in fact, make his argument less credible. I did not see that until I read your blog, good job. Anything that Bush has been involved in seems to be a harsh subject and very opinionated. Therefore, I know see this article as more of an opinion than the author really seeing both sides of the story.
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