History "should" be an objective exercise but as the old saw goes history is written by the winners/survivors. Emphasis and omission can often tell a somewhat different story.ruffrecords said:It is extremely difficult to be accurate about history, even recent history, because that demands we be objective but that is impossible.
Cheers
Ian
It seems modern/recent history is likely to be more subjective and opinionated than older history that has sorted out more of the BS. Current events is almost a guessing game to decode what might have actually happened from who said what and their personal agendas.
One recent example is the reminiscences about the deceased President George HW Bush. During one of his presidential campaigns decades ago he was characterized by his political opposition as a "wimp" (probably ageism because he was older than his opponent). This is the same guy who was shot down as a young navy fighter pilot in WWII (rescued by a submarine), ran the CIA, and much more in a lifetime career of public service... about as far from being a wimp as humanly possible... It is nice to see him get (mostly) favorable treatment now in the recent revisit of his life history.
I read a lot of history and often different treatments about the same events (like world wars) reveal new angles or facts. All versions can be true but from different perspectives. I caution about taking Hollywood's sundry versions of history as more than mindless entertainment. It bothers me when current entertainment TV shows use time travel as a device to share their versions of past history. For many that is all they ever get.
JR