Talk:Revisionist historians

See discussion at Talk:Holocaust denial. --Ludvikus (talk) 13:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The two are not to be confused. --Ludvikus (talk) 13:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This include the following(--Ludvikus (talk) 15:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)):[reply]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here (as of 25 September 2009):

• • Harry Elmer Barnes
  • Gabriel Kolko
  • Gar Alperovitz
  • Howard Zinn
  • James J. Martin
  • Sidney B. Fay
  • Walter LaFeber
  • William Appleman Williams

--Ludvikus (talk) 00:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He probably should be discussed in this article because of his "revisionist" view as to Germany's alleged "war guilt" - for starting WWI. --Ludvikus (talk) 04:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no distinctly American version of historical revisionism -- instead, as the article

What's present is merely a "stub" - it's not yet an article. I'm no youngster either, and I remember reading, often, the classification of American historians as revisionists. But I never recall reading any study of such classification. I always recall a qualification that such-and-such was a "revisionist." But no explanation was ever given, except that a list was sometimes given of others dubbed "revisionist."

So if I'm going to develop this "stub," the best I can do is retrieve my sources for the listings.

I've made some inquiries as to any collective study of "revisionists" - by identifying the Americans I know often classed together under this category.

But I sincerely doubt that byou can produce one scholarly study which justifies your turning of the expression "historical revisionism" into a well-defined school, or historiographical distinction. Everything I remember in the articles about this classification smells like original research. It's true that McPherson wrote a piece discussing "revisionism." But that does not warrant any more merit than a view of McPherson that all history is revision, or something like that. I don't know of any encyclopedic source beside Wikipedia which justifies such a historiographical observation. But I'm not going to touch that article at this point. I'm only interested in writing about these American (not foreign, or international) historians who have been traditionally lumped together as "revisionist." And if there is no study of what they all have in common, so be it. But I certainly do not find that you've established that there's common methodology by which we are warranted to classify historians and thinkers throughout the world as belonging to this family of historians which I've named explicitly in the stub. So please help me develop the stub by making specific recommendations. Sweeping generalizations as to the inadequacy of the stub are nonconstructive and even useless. --Ludvikus (talk) 20:10, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear what (brother?) Bush meant in 2006. Apparently there was now a third category of revisionists:

• Revisionists, get out of Florida - Los Angeles Times

So we need to write about that in this article. --Ludvikus (talk) 21:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Those words appeared in a draft of the bill, not in the final version." --Orange Mike | Talk 22:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're mistaken. Here's the opening text of the version as allegedly approved by the governor of Florida:

New Florida Legislation on Content of History and Other Classes

CHAPTER 2006-74

House Bill No. 7087

Approved by the Governor June 5, 2006.

Section 22. Section 1003.42, Florida Statutes, is amended to read:

1003.42 Required instruction.—

…

(2) Members of the instructional staff of the public schools, subject to the

rules of the State Board of Education and the district school board, shall teach efficiently and faithfully, using the books and materials required that meet the highest standards for professionalism and historic accuracy, following the prescribed courses of study, and employing approved methods of instruction, the following:

(a) The history and content of the Declaration of Independence, including

national sovereignty, natural law, self-evident truth, equality of all persons, limited government, popular sovereignty, and inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property, and how they form it forms the philosophical foundation of our government.

(b) The history, meaning, significance, and effect of the provisions of the

Constitution of the United States and amendments thereto, with emphasis on each of the 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights and how the constitution provides the structure of our government.

(c)(b) The arguments in support of adopting our republican form of government,

as they are embodied in the most important of the Federalist Papers.

(c) The essentials of the United States Constitution and how it provides

the structure of our government.

(d) Flag education, including proper flag display and flag salute.

(e) The elements of civil government, including the primary functions of

and interrelationships between the Federal Government, the state, and its counties, municipalities, school districts, and special districts.

(f) The history of the United States, including the period of discovery,

early colonies, the War for Independence, the Civil War, the expansion of the United States to its present boundaries, the world wars, and the civil rights movement to the present. American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.

(g)(f) The history of the Holocaust (1933-1945), the systematic, planned

annihilation of European Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany, a watershed event in the history of humanity, to be taught in a manner that leads to an investigation of human behavior, an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping, and an examination of what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purposes of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions.

(h)(g) The history of African Americans, including the history of African

peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the contributions of African Americans to society.

. . .

• --Ludvikus (talk) 22:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • And here's the source to the complete text of said law: [1]. --Ludvikus (talk) 22:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We should probably also write about this, and not necessarily in this article. :[2]]. --Ludvikus (talk) 21:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, that's the work (in Florida) of Jeb Bush. --Ludvikus (talk) 21:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3: As examples of the revisionist interpretation, see:

[1] D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1961);

[2] William Appleton Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, 2d ed., rev. and enlarged (New York: Delta, 1962);

[3] David Horowitz, The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1965);

[4] David Horowitz, ed., Corporations and the Cold War (New York: Modern Reader, 1969);

[5] Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945 (New York: Random House, 1968);

[6] Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power, 1945-1954, (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).

This comes from a footnote of a scholarly reference. --Ludvikus (talk) 23:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The quote is from this work:

The Cold War as Rhetoric: The Beginnings, 1945-1950

by Lynn Boyd Hinds, Theodore Otto Windt Jr.; Praeger Publishers, 1991. 272 pgs. --Ludvikus (talk) 23:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my exact source: [3]. --Ludvikus (talk) 23:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another reference available online: [4] --Ludvikus (talk) 00:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a hatnote that will refer readers to the general article Historical revisionism. Obviously American historical revisionism is a subset of the main category. This current article does not even have a definition of what historical revisionism is and had no link to the main article whatsoever. A reader who stumbled on this stubb needs to know where to go in order to find information.

I have also added a reference up front referring a reader to

[copied from my talk page since it relates to this article] I welcome your contributions (the headers). However, I now think that the ("good") article referred to by one of the headers needs more editing - to conform to these historians' actual writings and scholarship. --Ludvikus (talk) 18:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What I don't think you realize is that there are may more American historians who have been labeled as revisionist other than the select few you have zeroed in on. Their areas of expertise cover all areas of American history, not just World War I. As far as the WW I revisionism, the work that started the trend was written in the early 1920s, decades before the crew you are focused on had even started their careers as historians. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's your (personal) view. But I went out of my way to purchase

revisionist historians (the good one]]. Unfortunately, I haven't found one yet (nor have you, as I know from your writing on WP). But I did give explicitly two (2) sources which shows a scholarly consensus of who is such a "revisionist" historian. --Ludvikus (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

What you don't seem to acknowledge is the fact that the discredited

holocaust deniers call themselves such "revisionists," or "historical revisionists." As Deborah Lipstadt shows use - there is a link - through Barnes (lost his first and middle name at the moment), who turned into a "denier." --Ludvikus (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

That's Harry Elmer Barnes - who is the "missing link" to the common roots of this American "revisionism." --Ludvikus (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're not responding to what I wrote. I went back and highlighted my own reference to the date of its origin. The point you ignore is that NONE of the historians you have referenced in the article were writing (or even walking and talking) in 1920.

I suggest you try out Peter Novick's "That Noble Dream" if you want to really learn something about American historiography. What you don't realize is that there is no single school labeled "American Historical Revisionist" -- you have to go into the historiography of each major topic in history to find who the revisionists are in that field. This is basic information that anybody who has ever taken an historiography course at either the undergraduate or graduate level realizes.Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I'm not "responding" is because you've accused me of violating the 3RR WP Rule. You've recommended that I be "Banned" from Wikipedia for my editing on this

holocaust denier's point of view dominates these parts of Wikipedia, and that's why Wikipedia is unable to associate Howard Zinn with the "true" and "good" historical revisionists" to which class he belongs. --Ludvikus (talk) 22:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

Unfortunately, the two-term expression, "revisionist historians," in its use, is not qualified with a parenthetical adage, like "(America)" or "(negationism)." That's a fact of the world we live in.

This article is about specific American historians who have consistently been labeled "revisionists." But Wikipedia has two articles about

historical revisionism (negationism)" does not require you to give an unjustified weight to one article over the other. A reader should be able to read both, if they wish, to understand the confusion cause by the common expression. Besides, I do not yet see that the Revisionists in this article having anything to do with what "historical revisionism

." says. And I just now read your addition of Randall to the article which you merely cite with Novick. I'm going to research your reference, "Novick." Could you be more specific in your footnote?

That being said, your provocative accusation that I wish to maintain that libelous idea (above) regarding Zinn is inappropriate. Please desist. --Ludvikus (talk) 12:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are the one that eliminated, without explanation, the phrase "For the denial and distortion of well-established historical fact" before

Historical revisionism (negationism). I added it back for the exact reason that there should be no implication whatsoever that the people discussed in this article have ANYTHING to do with Holocaust Denial. Why do you object to making this crystal clear? Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

There was an attempt to picture revisionism as being limited to World War I and Cold War historiography. This approach, which was apparently Original research, was incorrect and unsupported by reliable sources. I have added examples from Civil War and Reconstruction historiography. There are numerous other instances available if editors choose to look. I am concerned that the references added by the originator of this article lack page numbers, making it very difficult to verify whether the sources are being used properly. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noted your recent contribution:

    American Civil War revisionist James G. Randall defined the process,
    "The scholarly revisionist overthrows only falsehood.
    Revisionism is not a matter of promoting a theory.  It is a matter of findings."[1]

But your reference only gives "Novick." Could you please be more specific, and allow me time to respond? I'm going to be away, and I cannot engage in such a speedy, unsourced, crtic as your making here.

What you call "original research" is really in fact a well-documented phenomena: that there are certain specific American historian known as "revisionists," and these are not didcussed at all in the lead article, historical revisionism. I think hecause it is that this article, which I believe you wrote, constitutes the "original research." I do not know much about your article, but I do not about these American historians. You also introduced "Randall" into the article. Maybe he is another American who belongs here. But I need time to check this out. --Ludvikus (talk) 13:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had already added the specifics on Novick's work in the "Sources" section of the article. The fact that you don't know who Randall is suggests that you don't have a broad enough base to be drawing your own conclusions about subjects in American historiography. You seem to be relying on one or two sources that are NOT primarily about the subject of historiography. What constitute original research on your part is the attempt to limit the subject to two instances while I have already added three others with little effort at all. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please no "personal attacks." I know Randall, it's "Novick" I asked you about. --Ludvikus (talk) 13:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see now your reference fails to omit the first name of Peter Novick. This scholar is known to be criticised by Alan Dershowitz. Why? But also, please inglude the complete citation in the article where you moit the full name and title of the work you cite. --Ludvikus (talk) 15:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

James G. Randall

You say that this historian is a "revisionist" who belongs in this article. But I checked the article on him, and there's no "Novick" reference listed. What's your reference? Why didn't you even produce a "first name" regarding your footnote? How can one check on your reference? --Ludvikus (talk) 13:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And I do not understand why you do not include this stuff in the

On the other hand, I want to check on your references to make sure that all these people your bringing belong together - and not just because you think so. I want to know exactly, on what page, and what book, does a scholar group these new people you introduced as belonging in this article together. --Ludvikus (talk) 13:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How hard did you actually look? Here is the entire "Sources" section from the article:

Sources

• Deborah Lipstadt

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory

(Plume, The Penguin Group, 1994)

• Lynn Boyd Hinds, Theodore Otto Windt Jr.

The Cold War as Rhetoric: The Beginnings, 1945-1950

• Adrianus Arnoldus, Maria van der Linden

A revolt against liberalism: American radical historians, 1959-1976

• Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical profession. (1988) p. 395

Do you see it now or do I need to boldface it for you. So how about providing the page numbers for your own sources?Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Lynn Boyd Hinds, Theodore Otto Windt Jr., The Cold War as Rhetoric: The Beginnings, 1945-1950
  2. ^ Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994.
  3. ^ Bernard Weisberger, "The Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov., 1959), pp. 427-447 in JSTOR
  4. ^ Michael Perman, "Review: Eric Foner's Reconstruction: A Finished Revolution," Reviews in American History, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 73-78 in JSTOR
  5. ^ Novick p. 237
  6. ^ Kolko, Gabriel. "The Premises of Business Revisionism" in The Business History Review, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), p. 334
  7. ^ Novick p. 342. Novick describes Nevins as "the best known voice of what came to be called "business history revisionism." (p. 343)
  8. ^ Lynn Boyd Hinds, Theodore Otto Windt Jr., The Cold War as Rhetoric: The Beginnings, 1945-1950
  9. ^ Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994.
 10. ^ Novick p. 276
 11. ^ Novick p. 276
 12. ^ Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, (Plume, The Penguin Group, 1994)

Please - no personal attacks. Now here's my reproduction of what appears in the article. Notice this: ...Novick p. .... So that footnoting of yours needs correction. But please refrain from your sarcasm. I find it extremely disruptive. --Ludvikus (talk) 13:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually you are wrong. I suggest you check out Wikipedia:Citing sources and the subsection titled "Shortened footnotes". What is disruptive is your failure to find information after I tell you EXACTLY where to look for it. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 14:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean that I'm "wrong." In the list of references above, all have the exact name of the author and title of the book. But "Novick" does not. Please - again - refrain from your disruptive provocation by calling me "wrong" in this context. Instead, explain why "Novick" dangles there with page numbers of an unmentioned title. --Ludvikus (talk) 14:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where there distinct American historical "revisionist" warranting a special article? And did they concern themselves primarily with (1) revising our view of World War I, and (2) revising our view of the Cold War? --Ludvikus (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Here's a partial list of some of those who definitely fall under the category of this article:

• Gabriel Kolko
• Gar Alperovitz
• Howard Zinn
• Sidney B. Fay
• Walter LaFeber
• William Appleman Williams

Also see:

• Historiography of the Cold War

--Ludvikus (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a tag to the lede which in some respects reflects the ongoing debate. With the article now divided into sections, it is clear that the lede, by neglecting the well sourced sections unrelated to WW I and the Cold War, reflects a clear POV to exclude specific information which reflects the majority of the contents of the article. I'm content to let the RFC work for a few days before modifying the lede myself. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let me remind all that there is an article called

post-revisionism begins. You, on the other hand, have contributed to an article which obscures this specific distinction in time as well as space, the United States. So I think many of your contributions to this article probably need to be deleted. --Ludvikus (talk) 16:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

• Peter Novick is very interesting. and you know that he's also controversial. I need time to track two of his books. I think your point is that because of him, we may disregard post-revisionism, and conclude that there are more such scholars after the 1960's. Is that your point? --Ludvikus (talk) 17:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I found Novicks book on line. But unfortunately, pages 276-277 are missing. --Ludvikus (talk) 17:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately, page 237 is also un-avalable online. --Ludvikus (talk) 17:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• James Randall. Interesting, and no doubt important. But what justifies you categorizing him as a "revisionist"? Where, exactly, does he even use that word? Can you give me the context? Nothing I find here, for example: [5] --Ludvikus (talk) 17:17, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Eric Foner. Also interesting. But what's his exact relevance to the "revisionism" which is the subject of this article? --Ludvikus (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We’re not going to let all historical revisionists into this article -- only the American ones.

Post- revisionism also pertains to Reconstruction history and may very well be used in other areas of history. Online you can check out this at [6]. In the printed area you can check out Michael Perman’s “Emancipation and Reconstruction, 1862-1879”. From the website:

Revisionist historians in the 1960s accepted the notion of Reconstruction as revolution, and praised its achievements. Some of them believed that it was not revolutionary enough; in particular they regretted that Thaddeus Stevens's proposal to confiscate the !and of wealthy "traitors" (Confederates) and grant it in forty-acre plots to the freed slaves was never adopted. Without the basis of economic independence that this might have provided them, the largely landless ex-slaves were vulnerable to the white counterrevolution that swept away many of their civil and political rights. Without land reform, one revisionist scholar wrote in 1969, "Reconstruction was a revolution manque."

It was but a step from this assertion to a belief that Reconstruction was no revolution at all. By the 1970s a number of "post-revisionist" historians had taken precisely this position. Post-revisionism grew up in the climate of disillusionment with American institutions produced by the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the civil-rights movement. If capitalist democracy produces imperialism and napalm bombing in Southeast Asia, if civil-fights and voting-rights acts leave the masses of black Americans impoverished in urban ghettos, what good are they? Such was the question asked by a growing number of white radicals and black militants.

What you will find is that social conditions that lead one group of historians to reexamine their field usually leads other historians to reexamine their fields. Once you find the Novick book and read it you will have a broader perspective.

It’s irrelevant what I call Randall or Foner -- it’s enough that reliable sources call them revisionists.

How are you coming with locating those page numbers on the sources you added? Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:46, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. This article is clearly about Americans (according to its title).
2. You give an excellent reference. But it supports my view, not yours. Read exactly how James M. McPherson uses the terms "revisionist" and "post-revisionist," and notice that he makes explicit reference to the 1930's when he uses the term, "revionists": [7]
3. I don't agree with your sweeping historical generalizations expressed above regarding "revisionists." I'm interested in exact souces - and the exact wording - and on what page precisely.
4. No, I've not yet had access to the references you cite.
5. You miss my point. I want to know if Randall or Foner are "revisionists" according to you. If they are, the may need to be included here as such. So the question is clearly relevant.
6. And I think that if I question a reference, you should give it to me exactly - so I can look it up.

--Ludvikus (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. And here's a useful reference: Introducing Revisionism: an interview with JAMES J. MARTIN [8] --Ludvikus (talk) 02:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
2. I think now that there's an attempt to expound the views of the
   libertarian organization) on this page. --Ludvikus (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply
   ]
3. But it looks like there's a good, useful, book for us published by this institute - the author is
   Jeff Riggenbach; title is Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism. --Ludvikus (talk) 15:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply
   ]

    "...Vidal's vision of American history does rest on a solid foundation in historical scholarship.
    But there is also a long answer to the question, and it runs as follows:
    the historical scholarship that verifies Vidal's account of American history
    is scattered throughout the historical record of the last century and a half,
    but most of it is the product of one or more of the three closely interrelated "revisionist" movements
    that emerged in American historiography during those years.
    These three movements are the "New History," whose leading practitioners later came to be called "the Progressive historians";
    the rebellion of the "New Left Historians" that began creating consternation within the historical profession during the 1960s and '70s;
    and the closely related revisionist movement established in the 1960s by a new group of libertarian historians
    — a movement which only now, nearly half a century later, is at last gaining the adherents and generating the excitement that have long eluded it."

• Hope this reference helps us write better articles on these terms, the root of which is "revision." --Ludvikus (talk) 16:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted back the version of this page that existed before user:Ludvikus started to edit it on 22 of September 2009.

I have restricted

I certainly had no intent on engaging in creating a WP:POV Fork. If that is in fact what I've done - my apology. But the fact is we do have a DAB page for these related pages. In other words, there are different articles associated with the root, or stem, "

libertarian scholar Jeff Riggenbach has identified in his new 2009 book. --Ludvikus (talk) 16:33, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply

]