What is history? Lacking an answer to that, teaching it is the blind leading the eyeless. That is, what is it? What is its purpose and goal as history? How is it done? And to what end? — tim wood
What is behind the new role of history in the US? — Number2018
Some years ago I asked some very bright high-school students from one of America's better high schools just a few questions about American history. According to them, the American Civil War occurred in the 1920s, "Didn't it?" — tim wood
1776 or 1619? Either, neither, both. — Bitter Crank
All history is myth, designed to reveal ideals and enforce ideology. It is a political tool. Objective history is a video tape of events, no events prioritized, no events nterpreted, and no commentary provided. We embue with new meaning when we interpret. — Hanover
Frederick Wiseman has made a series of films like those you describe: His camera observes people going about their day in various institutions--mental hospital, emergency room, welfare office, high school and numerous other places. There's no narration, no comment, no interpretation provided. The films are a history, not the history. — Bitter Crank
And the interesting thing is that regardless of what the film maker shows, all of it will be factual, but the myth that is advanced would be purposeful and subject to the intention of the historian. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do disagree with those who claim that really Thomas Jefferson was not all he's been said to be. Those people aren't correcting history and myth busting. They're just replacing the old myth with their new one. If they are able to do that, that signals only a shift in politics, not an evolution toward more accurate truth. — Hanover
Jefferson apparently had more ideas in his head than he knew what to do with. — Bitter Crank
Yet, he asserts that “Leaving behind the End of History, we have arrived at something like History as End.” — Number2018
No, you do not need to read the essay. Matthew Karp means that we deal now with a new, extremely politicized function of history.Yet, he asserts that “Leaving behind the End of History, we have arrived at something like History as End.”
— Number2018
I wonder what that's supposed to mean. Must I read the damn essay to understand? — Ciceronianus the White
You are right, the event of 1619 has no importance. Karp, a historian, knows it well. However, his essay is not historical; it is about the politics of the past. It is a protest against the newest role of history.I think it's more likely other factors played a part, and that it's as certain as it can be American institutional slavery would have come into being even if instead of the 20 enslaved persons, Jesus Christ himself, his mother, the apostles and all the saints had been brought to the shores of British colonial America in 1619. — Ciceronianus the White
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