Historical Revisionism

[UnrepentantSinner]

Since "global communism" actually was defeated, and the USSR actually did collapse, and Reagan actually was in office during that time, that idea is nowhere near the same league of lies and/or delusions that are the hallmark of historical revisionism.

Point of fact. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 while Bush 41 was in office. The rebellions in the Baltic states occured in '90 and '91 while Bush 41 was in office. The house arrest of Gorbachev and the siege of the Russian "White House" occured in '91 while Bush was in office. The dissolution of the Soviet Union occured through 1991 to 1993 while Bush 41 and Clinton were in office. But....

It is, however, a gross insult to everyone else who did so much more than Reagan, including risking their own lives, to bring down communism and the USSR.

...agree completely as I think I stated in my post above.

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

Thanks!

I noticed his hair colour too, but put it down to an effect of the mummification or post-mortem aging process. I have no evidence of that, though. Time to do a bit of research ...

BTW, count me in the Red-Headed League, although these days, I wouldn't pass the entrance exam.

bPer

ah but, did you know, that extensive historical research has found that all was wonderful in the bucolic paradise that was prehistoric earth ( where the pizza trees flourished - in many flavors ) before the coming of the evil redheads?

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

That explains the "bump" . (I've only just been referred here, having kicked Politics cold-turkey a while back.)

There are a few films set in Bosnia, or "Former Yugoslavia", but none from Hollywood that aren't action movies, I'm pretty sure. It could happen, though. Unlike Rwanda or Cambodia or Darfur, the Balkan atrocities occurred in a non-exotic, recognisable, modern setting. From mundane to nightmare, just like that.

the movie "Savior" with Dennis Quaid is a very moving depiction of the horror or Bosnia.

 

[Earthborn]

Would the idea that Reagan defeated global communism and the USSR be considered historical revisionism?

Not by itself. It is just an exaggeration of his role. It just takes the "history is made by Great Leaders" approach to history that is so unpopular among historians but very popular in school history lessons.

But BPSCG's idea of how Reagan defeated the USSR is an astounding piece of historical revisionism. Usually revisionists are wise enough to cast doubt on things that are not entirely certain to add in their own narrative, or at the very least got the order in which things occured approximately right. Not BPSCG however; he claims that something that is well documented, was televised and which most of us lived through, happened in nearly the opposite order than it did.

 

[aerosolben]

"If Lincoln had let the South go then Federal power would be far weakened, therefore the USA would not intervene to the same extent in WW1, therefore Imperial Germany would not be defeated as badly, therefore the treaty of Versailles would not be as harsh, therefore the Nazis would not have been able to play on resentment of the treaty to gain power. Ergo, Lincoln caused Hitler, QED".

I think Harry Turtledove wrote a book about that.

Without Hitler, how would we have survived the alien menace? You should be thanking Lincoln that you are not currently enslaved by extraterrestrial overlords.

 

[Chaos]

Point of fact. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 while Bush 41 was in office. The rebellions in the Baltic states occured in '90 and '91 while Bush 41 was in office. The house arrest of Gorbachev and the siege of the Russian "White House" occured in '91 while Bush was in office. The dissolution of the Soviet Union occured through 1991 to 1993 while Bush 41 and Clinton were in office. But....

*snip*

Well I think of it this way... they started seriously losing altitude while Reagan was in office, which caused the dramatic crash during Bush I´s term, and the salvage effort during Clinton´s.

IIRC Bush I entered office in January ´89, right? I sorta kinda had front rows seats at some of the events back then, geopolitically speaking, and I distinctly remember the first craks appearing in the facade a long time before the Wall fell. People fleeing the eastern bloc, stuff like that... the border between Hungary and Austria seemed to leak like a sieve for some time.
You could even go further back and say that Walesa´s Solidarity movement (and the lack of an extremely bloody Prague Spring type crackdown against it) was the first sign of impending political collapse.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

You could even go further back and say that Walesa´s Solidarity movement (and the lack of an extremely bloody Prague Spring type crackdown against it) was the first sign of impending political collapse.

Sorry to snip, but that was my point earlier. The roots of the fall of the Wall were in place long before Reagan's speech or the fall itself. Solidarity, John Paul II's efforts with the Poles, Glasnost and Perestroika, the moribund economy of the Soviet Union and their life-sapping support for other moribund economies like Cuba which really started effecting the Eastern Bloc in the 1970s (Mir was their only space success after Sayult ended for ex.). I mentioned the Baltics above, but the Caucuses and Central Asian SSRs also rebelled as 89-93 progressed. And as you mentioned the Iron Curtain in Central Europe had become more a sieve by that time as well.

To say that Reagan himself and and solely he was responsible for the disintigration of the Soviet Union is to ignore the efforts of people in Poland, Russia, the Vatican, Lithuania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, East Germany and Afghanistan who helped it's demise.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

If any mod sees this, could this thread be moved to the History or General Skepticism subforum since they would be more accurate locations for it than politics?

TYIA.

 

[332nd]

US? As to your OP and the Egyptian Afrocentricism part, would not people of African decent be able to "claim that" what with Egypt being in Africa? Please don't think that I'm saying you're wrong and trying to slam you I just don't understand why Egypt seems to separated from the rest of Africa.

ETA: I should clarify. I went to an HBC/U for undergrad and I took many Black Studies courses. (Two more and I could have minored in it.) I have never heard some of the theories linked to Afrocenticism that I've seen posted recently. (here and in other places.) Like what you said about Ramses II and Blacks have a different way of looking at science. I mean I'm confused because as i said I went to undergrad at an HBC/U and I taught at a different HBC/U for three years and I've never heard of most of these claims.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

You added your eta while I was doing a little wikisearch.

US? As to your OP and the Egyptian Afrocentricism part, would not people of African decent be able to "claim that" what with Egypt being in Africa? Please don't think that I'm saying you're wrong and trying to slam you I just don't understand why Egypt seems to separated from the rest of Africa.

That's an excellent and totally valid question. I'm not trying to say that Egypt isn't part of Africa nor should it be excluded from the study of the entire continent. My criticism of Egyptian Afrocentrism is that proponents seem to be claiming that it developed out of sub-saharan (or Nilo-Saharan) populations when there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.

Obviously Egypt had both trade and war with Nubia as represented in heiroglyphs and artwork, but they weren't a transplated or derived sub-saharan population.

ETA: I should clarify. I went to an HBC/U for undergrad and I took many Black Studies courses. (Two more and I could have minored in it.) I have never heard some of the theories linked to Afrocenticism that I've seen posted recently. (here and in other places.) Like what you said about Ramses II and Blacks have a different way of looking at science. I mean I'm confused because as i said I went to undergrad at an HBC/U and I taught at a different HBC/U for three years and I've never heard of most of these claims.

In my defense the OP is from over 5 years ago and I believe I the things I mentioned in that section came from a C-SPAN Book TV presentation I watched by an Afrocentrist author. Obviously Wikipedia wasn't as well known now, and I'm sure you're familiar with this entry, but I'd have cited it back then. There's also this article which more specifically discusses what I did in the OP.

 

[dudalb]

The main problem I have with Historical "Revisionism" (at least as the term is commonly understood) is that inevitably it serves a political purpose. Most "Historical Revisionists" are not scholars looking at new evidence or taking a new look at evidence, but ideologues out to promote a political viewpoint under the guise of "correcting History".
"Revisionism" is a lousy term for the distoriting of history for the sake of a political agenda,since being open to new evidence and taking a fresh look at existing evidence is part of being a good historian, but the term is so commonly used that we will never be rid of it.
And it happens on all sides of the political spectrum. You can find "revisionists" on both the left and the right who are not "honest brokers" but distorting History to back their political agenda.