Re:Who invented the lightbulb?
by 082349872349872 on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @07:44AM
(#24480103)
"History is more or less bunk." — Our Ford.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2018/01/14/fact-check-what-...
(that was 1916. Later, Ford would become more outspoken, leading to current debate as to what degree he sympathised with certain european politicians known for claiming to create a great future and change history.)
The heroes of yore were the ones who wrote history. I'm just an editor.
No one 'writes' history, that's why you need historians, they are the ones that can bring a matter into the right context and research why something was 'written' like it is, like it was a battle of 10000 Horsemen when in fact historians know that a that time in hole Europe maximal 3000 Battle-horses existed.
Re:Who invented the lightbulb?
by psychoslave on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @10:01AM
(#24481264)
Well, history surely have a lot of good tools to cross information by now, meanwhile historians are still human beings happening in some specific socio-cultural frame. If you rely on someone else analysis – which is reasonable – being aware of the person profile is as important as the impact of the work on shaping society representations.
I’m pretty sure that GP’s use of “write” was meant as doing things not the literal writing them down.
... History is if anything far less politically influenced today than at any prior point in, er, history. The whole idea that a historian might be appropriately critical of the country in which they live is rather new, as is the idea that a historian shouldn't be in the business of censoring history for a public audience.
Politicians today: "Vote for me, we will do xyz and change history ...books"