sulawesigirl4
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Here we go again...opening a can of worms. I have been following rather closely the details that are coming out about the rationale that Bush used for going to war and how it appears to be unravelling day by day. It's most fascinating to watch the language the administration is using to shift from declarations of assurance "we know Iraq has/had WMDs" to "it had a WMD program" to "don't listen to those revisionist historians". In that vein, I was very interested to read this editorial on the idea of history and revision. Perhaps we could discuss history and those who write it. Or we could just fight about Iraq.
Anyways, full text is here at the Washington Post
excerpt
Anyways, full text is here at the Washington Post
excerpt
Last week, in a speech to business leaders in Elizabeth, N.J., President Bush dismissed as "revisionist historians" those critics who have begun to question the administration's rationale for invading Iraq. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, made a similar claim a few days earlier. They both seem to think there is something suspect or illegitimate about revisionist history.
Yet revising prevailing interpretations of historical events is precisely what historians do. As new evidence becomes available, or new research methods are developed, or the passage of time shifts our perspective, historians revise their accounts of the past and their explanations of key trends and developments: The writing of history is a continuing, collective effort to attain closer approximations of the truth.