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#REDIRECT ] | |||
:'' For the ] expression see ].'' | |||
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A designation in ] which includes ], ], ], ], ] <ref>Lynn Boyd Hinds, Theodore Otto Windt Jr., | |||
''The Cold War as Rhetoric: The Beginnings, 1945-1950''</ref> and others. | |||
The distinction appears to have been introduced into American ] shortly after ] (about 1920) to categorize American historians who questioned the alleged "war guilt" to which ] was subjected for allegedly being responsible for starting said war.<ref>Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994.</ref> | |||
The expression revisionist also refers to American historians of the 1960's mostly, who criticized the orthodox history of the ] which made the West, especially the United States, substantially blameless. | |||
With respect to ], ] says, "In the 1930s a few revisionist historians began to challenge the traditional version of Reconstruction with a more balanced and less racist interpretation. But the old orthodoxy prevailed until at least the 1950s."<ref>"Reconstruction Reconsidered" (book review) The Atlantic Vol. 261 (No. 4), April, 1988, pp75-77</ref> | |||
It is not known whether these historians themselves produced a distinct ]. Nevertheless, at least one scholarly work portrays them as constituting a "school." <ref>Lynn Boyd Hinds, Theodore Otto Windt Jr., ''The Cold War as Rhetoric: The Beginnings, 1945-1950''</ref> | |||
Subsequently, a group commonly known as ] have persisted in calling themselves also ]s, or ], and there is, as a result, confusion. | |||
== History of the categorization == | |||
According to ], certain American historians were concerned over the involvement of the ] in ]. These highly regarded ] called themselves ]. The distinction was effectively drawn in ] when ], a ] ] published a collection of articles on the causes of World War I in the prestigious ] ]. Nevertheless, a connection to the discredit "revisionists" exists - according to Lipstadt - in the person of ].<ref>Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, Plume (The Penguin Group), 1994.</ref> | |||
According to ], | |||
... 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. | |||
=== Civil War, Peter Novick on Harry Elmer Barnes === | |||
Novick contrasts the split among historians who are lumped together as revisionists, "Moderate revisionists on World War I, like Sidney B. Fay, or on the Civil War, like ], might display a relativistic sensibility; the more zealous, like ], were engaged in a holy crusade to replace error with truth."<ref>Novick p. 276</ref> | |||
=== Peter Novick and James G. Randall === | |||
American Civil War revisionist ] defined the process, "The scholarly revisionist overthrows only falsehood. Revisionism is not a matter of promoting a theory. It is a matter of findings."<ref>Novick p. 276</ref> | |||
=== Peter Novick on Reconstruction and the Civil War === | |||
Another example (given by ]) is the revisionist historians of ] who rejected the dominant ] that found the blacks were tools of evil ], and instead stressed economic greed on the part of northern businessmen.<ref>Bernard Weisberger, "The Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography," ''The Journal of Southern History,'' Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov., 1959), pp. 427-447 </ref> Indeed, in recent years a "]" revisionism has become standard, that uses the moral standards of the 19th century abolitionists to criticize racial policies. "Foner's book represents the mature and settled Revisionist perspective," historian Michael Perman has concluded regarding ]'s ''Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877'' (1988)<ref> Michael Perman, "Review: Eric Foner's Reconstruction: A Finished Revolution," ''Reviews in American History,'' Vol. 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 73-78 </ref> | |||
Revisionism also occurred in the historiography of the ]. Historian ] writes: | |||
{{quote|The "revisionist" school of Civil War historiography argued that inept statecraft and irresponsible extremism had produced a "needless war." Avery O. Craven asserted that the conflict was "the work of politicians and pious cranks"; for James G. Randall it was the combination of "fanaticism" and "bogus leadership" of a "blundering generation."<ref>Novick p. 237</ref>}} | |||
== American Business and the "Rubber Barons" == | |||
The role of American business and the alleged ] began to be revised in the 1930s. Given the Gabriel Kolko term "]", writers and historians such as ], ], and ] emphasized the positive contributions of individuals who were previously pictured as villains.<ref>Kolko, Gabriel. "The Premises of Business Revisionism" in ''The Business History Review'', Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), p. 334</ref> Novick writes, "The argument that whatever the moral delinquencies of the robber barons, these were far outweighed by their decisive contributions to American military prowess, was frequently invoked by Allan Nevins."<ref>Novick p. 342. Novick describes Nevins as "the best known voice of what came to be called "business history revisionism." (p. 343)</ref> | |||
== Post-revisionism == | |||
Subsequent to the work of the revisionists, a new ], a ] emerged, which criticized the work of the former. These scholars became known as ]. | |||
== Bush's criticism of revision of history == | |||
In ] ] ] became critical of ] of ]. But that discourse involves the criticism of the wars with ] and ]. But these are not the subjects of the earlier "revisionists" whose concerns were focused, initially, on World War I and, subsequently, the ]. The ] source of controversy involves, substantially, ], particularly denying the Holocaust, and even portraying ] in better light. These were not the subjects with which the American revisionist historians concerned themselves. <ref>Deborah Lipstadt, | |||
''Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory'', (Plume, The Penguin Group, 1994)</ref> | |||
==See also== | |||
:Revisionist historians (American): | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
:Other relevant articles: | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
==References== | |||
{{reflist}} | |||
== 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'' | |||
*Peter Novick. ''That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical profession.'' (1988) | |||
== American (historical) revisionist works == | |||
*] | |||
:''The Cold War and Its Origins'', 2 vols. | |||
:(New York: Doubleday, 1961) | |||
*] | |||
:''The Tragedy of American Diplomacy'', 2d ed., rev. and enlarged | |||
:(New York: Delta, 1962) | |||
*] | |||
:''The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1965) | |||
*], ed. | |||
:''Corporations and the Cold War'' | |||
:(New York: Modern Reader, 1969) | |||
*] | |||
:''Revisionist Viewpoints: Essays in a Dissident Historical Tradition'' | |||
:(Ralph Myles, Colorado Springs, CO, 1971) | |||
*] | |||
:''The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945'' | |||
:(New York: Random House, 1968) | |||
*Joyce and Gabriel Kolko | |||
:''The Limits of Power, 1945-1954'' | |||
:(New York: Harper and Row, 1972) | |||
==External links== | |||
*''Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist'': | |||
*''From the President's column column of the September 2003 Perspectives'', '''Revisionist Historians''' By James McPherson | |||
*''Reconstruction Reconsidered'' (book review), by James McPherson, ''The Atlantic'', Vol. 261 (No. 4), April, 1988, pp75-77: | |||
*''Introducing Revisionism'' by James J. Martin: | |||
] | |||
] | |||
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