Left Wing Historical Revisionism

[Patchman123]

Anyone on this forum here notice about left-wing revisionism in history dealing with the Pacific War revising it to make America the bad guy and the aggressor and racist against the Japanese and the Japanese as innocent victims and minimizing Japanese atrocities and their racist attitudes towards Chinese, Filipinos, and whites?

I've read somewhere that the left-wing historians in America, California I believe, present the ACCEPTED view of history of the Pacific War where Japan is the aggressor, as racist conservative history and that it is preventing them from writing their blatant garbage about America that they write, from being written, by a history tainted by nationalist conservatives that are reactionary and don't know nationalism from patriotism. Their view of history that holds on to the ACCEPTED view, will be labeled pseudohistory by Wikipedia and labeling the conservative view as wrong, even though the World War II Japanese were a brutal bunch of people, no one's gonna dispute that, right?

The far-left sickens me to death! Is there anybody who shares my opinion about this outrage?

It isn't pseudohistory when they do it, because they write and interpret the history. I regrard the aformentioned article on Wikipedia as a joke because Wikipedia is a revisionist encyclopedia, not peer-reviewed by historans and their presenting of anyone who doesn't do that as pseudohistory not accepted by "academics" (Wikipedia is NOT accepted by academics) as a complete joke. It's a total joke that highlights the tea kettle being called black, that highlights how Wikipedia's pseudohistory article is a joke because Wikipedia does not use historiographic methods, it is not accepted by academia and their history articles are regarded as fake history by professional histories because they aren't well-written or properly cited. That's why the pseudo stuff on their article is a total joke, but someone has to push their stupid agenda through. Nationalist history is now pseudo-history, Really? The history of victorious nationalists that wrote histories of entire nations and helped shape their consciousness and histories is pseudo-history? What a joke!



I love the military historians better than the civilian ones because the military historians are often more objective in their presentations and interpretations that these militant liberal civilian historians. The military historians better review the evidence. If only Samuel Eliot Morrison were alive today, he'd flail these people alive and expose them as the frauds they are .

Wikipedia is a revisionist's dream because it can be edited with all kinds of sensational claims, despite the article never properly defining "sensational claims" and all that and to me it silences the writing of history, where historians make sensational claims aming fellow historians to properly discuss the evidence and write the history, and labeling claims as pseudo-history to be silences the writing of history, and think it disgusts me.

[TLAM Strike]

If your using Wikipedia as your primary source for history: Your Doing it Wrong. :stare:

Two semesters ago I took a course on WWII History (got an 'A' BTW) and we focused an entire class on Japanese brutality incl. some very graphic pictures. :yep:

[CCIP]

I've read somewhere that the left-wing historians in America

That's an awfully influential source to be angry about. Reading things somewhere, in California I believe, is a great way to get into an intellectual debate.

There's also a difference between historical revisionism and considering a wider range of factors in making interpretations than previously.

There is also a big question about what exactly is ACCEPTED and why we have to accept it and stick to one interpretation.

There is also the fact that Wikipedia is ACCEPTED, that is, due to recent changes to its editorial policy it is now considered a quotable published source, no less so than most other publications. I know this because I work for a university. Like all sources, it is also subject to questioning and criticism - ACCEPTED or not. That is how studies of history worked, last I checked - and how all studies of anything work. You don't go with what's ACCEPTED, you take the evidence available and theorize as new interpretations become available. Time and debate will test their strength, not some vague ACCEPTABILITY.

So, anyway, is this actually a discussion or did you just want to throw some labels and indignation around to sound morally superior to some guy you heard about in California who you assume to be left-wing and who makes you angry for some reason?

Isn't it kind of interesting that you're so concerned with citation and historiography, yet run off with rants that show blatant disregard - or perhaps I should say ignorance - of both?

[razark]

I've read somewhere that the left-wing historians in America, California I believe...
http://xkcd.com/285/

[Patchman123]

That's an awfully influential source to be angry about. Reading things somewhere, in California I believe, is a great way to get into an intellectual debate.

There's also a difference between historical revisionism and considering a wider range of factors in making interpretations than previously.

There is also a big question about what exactly is ACCEPTED and why we have to accept it and stick to one interpretation.

There is also the fact that Wikipedia is ACCEPTED, that is, due to recent changes to its editorial policy it is now considered a quotable published source, no less so than most other publications. I know this because I work for a university. Like all sources, it is also subject to questioning and criticism - ACCEPTED or not. That is how studies of history worked, last I checked - and how all studies of anything work. You don't go with what's ACCEPTED, you take the evidence available and theorize as new interpretations become available. Time and debate will test their strength, not some vague ACCEPTABILITY.

So, anyway, is this actually a discussion or did you just want to throw some labels and indignation around to sound morally superior to some guy you heard about in California who you assume to be left-wing and who makes you angry for some reason?

Isn't it kind of interesting that you're so concerned with citation and historiography, yet run off with rants that show blatant disregard - or perhaps I should say ignorance - of both?


I have no disregard for historiography, I do not know where you come up with such a conclusion. I am sick of the revisionist crap on there bashing America and everything. I use proper historiography of cited sources. I am not fully aware of their changes in editorial policy. I do not know anything about it, though I am aware that many still do not accept it in universities. I do not show any disregard for historiography, although Wikipedia seems to with its "sensational claims" I am aware that history is rewritten based on the evidence, but there is also the traditional view of history of the traditional historians that don't change unless they have to.

I do not believe that America commited aggression against Japan during the Pacific War, although both sides were racist. I do not know where you come up with me disregarding historiography. I regard PROPER historiography, based on actual evidence and not emotional claims as proper to the teaching of history and I believe furthermore, that if history is written correctly and preserve it for all time, we are properly utilizing it, but history is not a tool for political propaganda and shouldn't be used as such.

I do not disregard historiography, although Wikipedia does because to do so is foolish and using historiography to force through a message of someone's agenda is to me wrong and calling anyone else that adheres to the accepted view of history of America as a victim of Japanese aggression during the war, and America not commiting aggression against Japan, as wrong, is to me flies in the face of the evidence. You can rewrite history, as long as you do it CORRECTLY!

OKAY! I do not like history being used as a tool of propaganda. You're up in Canadian universities, they tend to be more liberal than American universities in Wikipedia, so your view is of course different. I do not see where you come up with me disregarding historiography because I want to use my brain to come with claims based on what I see and feel based on the evidence that's there, not make up stories about primitive peoples coming into contact extraterrestrials.

I regard historiography as correct based on the books I write as correct because it was properly written by historians.

I see these left-wing revisionists and they sicken me and I do not like their views. There are varying interpretations of history and sensational claims that one makes based on how they feel about history, which Wikipedia does not bother to define.

I do not like the whole article on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is still crap in my opinion.

I am tired of people who say that I disregard historiography because I do not agree with someone's agenda or because they want to paint me as simple-minded and stupid and not inclned to reason, as stupid because he watches TV documentaries and do not do things his way and because he is too stupid because he doesn't have training when in fact, history is about interpreting the facts and making a judgement, based on the evidence.

You're of the revisionist types over the traditional types. There a revisionist school that I am aware of.

I write things based on the logical gathering of evidence and sources, and I do sometimes based sensational claims, but this is based on interpretation of what I see based on a thought that I have, that is another way of looking at it, that isn't false history or whatever.

We agree to disagree. Let's put it like that.

[CCIP]

I'm not sure if I agree to disagree. I have respect for historiography and I do not believe America committed aggression against Japan. In fact I think most claims that have been made of that are pretty ludicrous, even if it's true that Japan did act partially because they were backed into a corner. But that doesn't constitute aggression, and those who say that aren't making emotional claims - they're simply stretching the evidence.

But...

I regard PROPER historiography, based on actual evidence and not emotional claims as proper to the teaching of history and I believe furthermore, that if history is written correctly and preserve it for all time, we are properly utilizing it, but history is not a tool for political propaganda and shouldn't be used as such.

Then why are you doing this yourself?

I mean, you're making an emotional claim about "the left" and you're speaking on terms obviously meant do disparage political positions of fictitious parties that supposedly represent it, and doing so in terms that are filled with very telling sloganized language - aka propaganda. Please check your bias at the door if you want to discuss academic norms, otherwise you'll be taken as engaging in nothing but political baiting, which I believe you currently are.

[Sailor Steve]

I've read somewhere that the left-wing historians in America, California I believe, present the ACCEPTED view of history of the Pacific War where Japan is the aggressor, as racist conservative history and that it is preventing them from writing their blatant garbage about America that they write, from being written, by a history tainted by nationalist conservatives that are reactionary and don't know nationalism from patriotism.
You lost yourself right there. You read somewhere...? Do you remember where? Can you cite this? If not, how does anyone know what they're really teaching? If you can't quote what they're actually saying then you're arguing against nothing, and for nothing.

[Hottentot]

Past --> Researcher --> History. You can't make it a two-step process.

Otherwise what CCIP has said is spot on.

Edit: this thread has great tags.

[Gorduz]

I thought of getting into the debate, but CCIP is saying all the right things so :salute:

[Oberon]

Have I noticed it?

No

Does it happen?

Yes, particularly in some Japanese schools in regards to Nanking.

Do I like it?

NO

Can I do anything about it?

No

[Hottentot]

Does it happen?

Yes, particularly in some Japanese schools in regards to Nanking.

Don't get me started on school history, regardless of the country. :stare:

[Tribesman]

Is it silly season already?

Isn't it kind of interesting that you're so concerned with citation and historiography, yet run off with rants that show blatant disregard - or perhaps I should say ignorance - of both?
Didn't CAPS LOCK sink the ship already without quibbling about where the fatal blow was struck?

Edit: this thread has great tags.
You certainly know exactly what to expect from them

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Edit: this thread has great tags.Agreed. What puzzles me on them is what "tacos" means in this context? :hmmm:

[Skybird]

Rewriting history is something the EU is heavily engaged with, too, especially the Germans. It is not so much the Third World War, and Nazi Germany, but how Islam has build the modern European world, and for what it all may claim credits for - almost nothing there that Islam is not being given credit for, even modern human rights and woman liberation movements. Not to mention the very one-sided story telling about Grenada, the Islamic occupation of Spain, France, parts Italy and Greece and the Balkans, and the wars of the crusades. Two years ago a whole volume of German history school books were sacked just in time before they were released inb their first edition. The ammount of forging and distorting they gave examples for raised the hairs in my neck.

George Orwell, 1984. Control of language. Deleting history. Anyone remember? The best censor, the best controller is the one implanted into our heads when we are kids. That makes the perfectly obedient, masterminded citizen who voluntarily calls dictatorship "freedom", aggressor "victim", and cultural mutilation "social improvement". Since any sense for national identity has been whipped and beaten out of German mentality after WWII, Germans are especially prone to this, more than any other people in Europe.

[Penguin]

As a feminist, I am sit-pissed off that I have heard that every man (and woman) calls it history. This is patriarchalic, chauvinistic male revisionism. Woman have contributed a lot to history: Elizabeth Báthory, Eva Braun, Angela Merkel, etc.

That's why I think every teacher (and teacheress) should call it herstory.
I am on your side, sisters! :salute: (and brothers)

[Tribesman]

Well I did wonder if this topic could get any more craziness added, I thought not....but I underestimated Skybird and his thing about the EU and about Islam

[Egan]

I love the military historians better than the civilian ones because the military historians are often more objective in their presentations and interpretations that these militant liberal civilian historians. The military historians better review the evidence. If only Samuel Eliot Morrison were alive today, he'd flail these people alive and expose them as the frauds they are .

Or maybe the military historians play to the gallery more often? It's a funny quirk of human reasoning that we often regard those who share our socio-political viewpoint as being more objective. As an aside, is Stephen Ambrose to be considered a military historian because, if he is, he certainly has never even heard of the word 'objective' and it's also worth noting that one of those military historians probably read by a number of people here at Subsim, Clay Blair, is not exactly lacking in natural bias either.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Rewriting history is something the EU is heavily engaged with, too, especially the Germans. It is not so much the Third World War, and Nazi Germany, but how Islam has build the modern European world, and for what it all may claim credits for - almost nothing there that Islam is not being given credit for, even modern human rights and woman liberation movements. Not to mention the very one-sided story telling about Grenada, the Islamic occupation of Spain, France, parts Italy and Greece and the Balkans, and the wars of the crusades. Two years ago a whole volume of German history school books were sacked just in time before they were released inb their first edition. The ammount of forging and distorting they gave examples for raised the hairs in my neck.Sky... should we here in Finland start developing MRBMs to deal with Germany? :hmmm:




:O:

[Hottentot]

Rewriting history is something the EU is heavily engaged with, too, especially the Germans.

There is a huge difference between politicians (EU) doing politics and historians writing history. Can you recommend me an academic research written by a historian which is doing what you mentioned?

As a feminist, I am sit-pissed off that I have heard that every man (and woman) calls it history.

[snip]

I think every teacher (and teacheress) should call it herstory.

The sad thing here is that I have heard a lecturer (not on a history class, but still) in my university genuinely wondering out loud exactly what you just parodied there. My forehead has never been that close to any table as it was then.

[Catfish]

Left wing revisionism.
9/11 1973 anyone ?

Don't answer, i'm just trolling :yeah:

[Tribesman]

There is a huge difference between politicians (EU) doing politics and historians writing history. Can you recommend me an academic research written by a historian which is doing what you mentioned?

Careful, last time he was asked about "academic research" there was a link provided which went to some Canadian based Indian religious extremists who support blowing up airliners in mid atlantic:03:

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Left wing revisionism.
9/11 1973 anyone ?

Don't answer, i'm just trolling :yeah:Chilean coup d'état?

No I'm not going to argue about it. :DL

[the_tyrant]

You know, I don't care much about historical revisionism
it happens everywhere, and history is open to different people's interpretation. Especially since I look at many different historical events from a different perspective than most people.



however, I am not a big fan of manipulation science for political means

these come to mind (sorry for the wikipedia links, wikipedia is my best friend):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars

[Bilge_Rat]

Slightly off topic, but I find the increasing use of WIKIPEDIA as a historical source to be a disturbing trend. When you know a subject because you have researched it in reputable books and you then compare with Wikipedia, it is amazing to see the distortions and outright lies that get posted.

The worst example for me is the so called "Chenogne massacre" which has its own entry and is often listed as an example of a massacre of german POWs by allied troops. I have been reading about WW2 for 40+ years and had never heard of this until it started popping up on the internet a few years ago. I grew suspicious when I first read it and some months ago I took the time to track down all the sources listed in wikipedia and to do my own research.

As far as I can tell, it never happened and is a totally made up internet event. There is no eyewitness testimony or any other proof that the massacre ever occurred, yet it has its own wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenogne_massacre

All the "sources" listed lead to other authors who quote other authors, none of which list any references to back up their claims.

[tater]

I haven't seen much of it in serious military history, frankly. Some popular military histories written by journalists I've read have had a clear political axe to grind (most left, but some right, as well), though.

It is, however, prevalent in academic studies of the former Soviet Union and Cold War, however (In Denial is a great history/historiography by Haynes and Klehr responding to ideological attacks against their work on Soviet espionage and influence in the US (and the culpability of the CPUSA). They included studies of articles in academic history journals, and positivity vs negativity WRT the CCCP in papers and found after the late 60s, negativity virtually disappeared in academic papers, or was always heavily tempered ("sure, there were some excesses, but the trains ran on time" sorts of things). I only read it because I had read their other excellent books (the Venona one, secret world of american communism, the soviet world of american communism, etc (most from Yale University Press I believe)). They went to Russia right after it opened up, and went through files before the Russians closed them again, so their work is an invaluable resource, direct from Soviet espionage files.

I remember seeing classes at the U that were along those lines as well, but they were not in the real history dept, but the silly "american studies" department (yes, I know calling "american/women's/gender/etc-studies" is redundant, since any real work along those lines would simply be "history").

Like everything else human, there is going to be bias. You have to just live with it.

[Catfish]

Well in the history books i read, Chenogne happened, like Malmedy, and like numerous other not isolated incidents before, and after.

What is seldomly told in history books or Wikipedia is that it was and pretty much is common procedure to shoot prisoners of war or surrendering troops. If you could not take prisoners, due to time or personell constraints, what should you do ? And british, french, german and american troops did it before 1944 as well. There is no black and white, not even in WW2.
War is not pretty or righteous, get over it.
"War crimes" are mostly being discussed by people far away in time and mind, who never fought themselves.

Do not misunderstand me, it is important we have international laws, but it would be even better if people did what's mentioned in those international treaties. :shifty:

[Bilge_Rat]

Chenogne never happened, it is a figment of the imagination of right wing extremists who want to rewrite history to show that the Nazis were not really that bad since the Allies shot prisoners also. It is an all too common problem on the internet.

The problem with that theory is that when you dig in to it, you will see that the only troops which systematically shot prisoners in cold blood in NWE 44-45 were German SS troops.

Now I am not saying troops in the process of surrendering were not shot. I am sure it happened on both sides in the heat of combat, but there is not one documented case of Allied troops deliberately murdering POWs in NWE 44-45. The Ostfront was, of course, a totally different story.

[Hottentot]

It is, however, prevalent in academic studies of the former Soviet Union and Cold War, however

As someone interested in and researching that field, I can say that reading an account after account that could be summarized by saying "this sucked" gets tedious. It's an easy way to get lots of accepting nods, but it has been done for so many times that it's difficult to bring much new to it. Researcher after researcher has argued and proven that the first five year plan failed, the collectivization was a tragedy and the purges whimsical tyranny. In how many different ways it is necessary to say that?

The research these days may seem to be looking at the Soviet Union in a more positive light, because the focus is on subjects that do not necessarily need a "failed / succeeded" stamp on them. I, for example, studied the Soviet film culture in the 1930s for my seminar thesis and am continuing it on my master's thesis. I mentioned the current paradigms on the 1930s when necessary and compared my sources (the films) to the researched reality of the 1930s, but I had no reason to start repeating in detail what researchers far more experienced than me had already said. I could simply refer to any of them.

I haven't personally yet seen excesses in the papers I have read on the subject. They might exist, but at least in my material there haven't yet been any. Mostly the writers disagree on if, for example, the first five year plan failed completely or just partially. They do, however, say that the plan started the industrialization of the Soviet Union at heavy cost. All in all they seem neutral to me, but then again, I'm not researching that particular topic and haven't read the original sources myself.

[MH]

Academic bias is as old as academy.
While there is this mainstream established view there are always those deviation based on political hegemony of given country or personal views.
Some times the bias can be subtle but sufficient to shape views in given direction.
Any academic who thinks otherwise must be sort of lazy one or victim.

[Hottentot]

Academic bias is as old as academy.

Academics (historians in this case) are human beings who have the same right to be biased as any human beings, as long as they make their arguments coherently based on sources and logic that can be either agreed or argued with. It's more lazy and intellectually dishonest to shout "bias" at anything one possibly disagrees with.

[MH]

Academics (historians in this case) are human beings who have the same right to be biased as any human beings, as long as they make their arguments coherently based on sources and logic that can be either agreed or argued with. It's more lazy and intellectually dishonest to shout "bias" at anything one possibly disagrees with.

OK good point i agree with that and that's a good start to look at it when talking about honest ones.
Not some ideologically infected academics.

[Hottentot]

Not some ideologically infected academics.

These are mythical beings. Many people talk about them, but the worst I have met on my academic career have been a few hard liner feminists. Universities at least in here used to be politically charged, but these days not so much. I couldn't honestly tell you what "ideologies" (and I use the term very loosely) even the professors and doctors I know the best here support or whom they vote in the elections.

For all I know, they could be fanatical closet communists or catholics wanting a new inquisition starting from tomorrow or maybe just plain old moon nutsys. What I know about them is that they write interesting papers, have good lectures and are nice to chat with on topics not necessarily related to studying.

[mookiemookie]

OP sounds like a slightly more literate Bubblehead. Grandstanding, ranting and raving about "far left liberals" being the bane of society. :roll:

One could easily find many inaccurate and flat out biased accounts of history from military sources. To assign that as strictly the MO of the opposite of whatever political side you agree with is foolish and shows an inherent bias in and of itself.

It's also ignorant of the way the world actually works to look at things in absolutes and in terms of black and white. Dear Leader Dubya said once, (with pride, I might add) "I don't do nuance." To say that the U.S. is the good guy always and forever is just as bad as saying that the U.S. is always evil or the aggressor. Were war crimes committed by the U.S. in the Pacific War? Yes. Desecration of the dead, murdering POWs, killing shipwreck survivors, rape...all of these are documented. Is it enough to label the U.S. as "the aggressor?" No. But being a rational adult means that you have to confront and accept that the ideas you have about something could be wrong, and that the white hat cowboy may not be 100% good.

In short, partisan hacks are dummies.

[joegrundman]

my opinion actually is that a calm discussion of the circumstances leading up to the pacific war would be interesting.

From what little i know of the subject, labels like who is "the aggressor" start becoming irrelevant the more you look into it, and how much further back you wish to go.

but clearly this is not the thread for that discussion

[tater]

Never miss an opportunity to pitch good books :)

Really good overviews of the Pacific war are H.P. Willmott's books, IMO.
Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942

This is Willmott's overview of rationales for fighting, and strategy. Another good one along those lines is Combined Fleet: Decoded by Prados.

These include the larger political picture.

Clearly Japan was in the wrong. While you can argue they felt "forced" into war, they were only forced in the sense that they would not ever stop their atrocities in China willingly. Some will say our colonialism in asia was no better, but they'd be forced to jack up our body count by a couple orders of magnitude to make that claim.

[MH]

These are mythical beings. Many people talk about them, but the worst I have met on my academic career have been a few hard liner feminists. .

You live in very quiet and hegemonic corner of the world.

[Hottentot]

You live in very quiet and hegemonic corner of the world.

And often when reading these forums I find myself being very happy for it. :yep:

[tater]

An academic in NYC would find himself in a very quiet corner as well, since virtually everyone around him would have identical politics. ;)

People tend to only notice bias contrary to their own. So if you think there is little bias in your particular are of interest, it likely just means you share the same biases.

[joegrundman]

People tend to only notice bias contrary to their own. So if you think there is little bias in your particular are of interest, it likely just means you share the same biases.

ain't that the truth.

thanks for the book recommendations tater. i will look into them.

I have one on the pacific war written in the 1970s by a BBC journalist called John Costello. The biases are pretty blatant by today's standards, but if you notice them you can work around them. Very interesting nonetheless.

[MH]

An academic in NYC would find himself in a very quiet corner as well, since virtually everyone around him would have identical politics. ;)

People tend to only notice bias contrary to their own. So if you think there is little bias in your particular are of interest, it likely just means you share the same biases.

:yep:

[Hottentot]

People tend to only notice bias contrary to their own. So if you think there is little bias in your particular are of interest, it likely just means you share the same biases.

True. I would just hope that the years in university have taught me to recognize my own biases, write them down to the readers of my texts to evaluate on their own, and to look at each research text I'm reading without thinking if I agree with it or not, but by thinking how it's written.

I would hope I wouldn't start blaming the bias of the writers at any point, but instead conclude on more scientific merits if their research is good or not. Likewise I would hope I could just shrug and chuckle the next time someone calls me a Soviet symphatizer because I didn't use 35 pages of the 40 page seminar thesis to tell how evil the Soviet cinema system was. (Not referring to this thread, as it hasn't happened here.)

I would hope that is what separates me, a future professional of history, from the countless of people thinking they are experts in history because they can read. For history is a difficult science, because it makes everyone an expert. Everyone who can read can also read history. They are usually even free to go and study the original sources themselves. They can do most of the things professionals can, but that doesn't make them professionals.

As a professor in my university so well summarized it: "It's very difficult to debate with commoners [poor translation by me, but he didn't mean it as an insult], because they know so much."

[Tribesman]

OP sounds like a slightly more literate Bubblehead.
You mean he might know what "allegation" means and at what point the word can no longer be used?
perhaps patch should take bubbles place in lawskool:03:
But on the literacy level maybe that deserves some exploration, could it be that patch has taken the usual historical take on the co-prosperity enterprise and got to the words "racist" and "conservative" and hit a mental block?

@tater, you are just showing your bias there.:yeah:

[TLAM Strike]

Never miss an opportunity to pitch good books :)

Really good overviews of the Pacific war are H.P. Willmott's books, IMO.
Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942

This is Willmott's overview of rationales for fighting, and strategy. Another good one along those lines is Combined Fleet: Decoded by Prados.

Don't forget Eagle Against the Sun by Ronald Spector.

[August]

Phillippine Diary, 1939-1945 by Steven Mellnik
Corregidor: The Rock Force Assault by EM Flanagan
With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by EB Sledge

[CCIP]

I don't know, I tend to think of "Left wing academia" in the same way I think of the "Liberal media" - in the sense that it's something that the opposition always points to as a ridiculous source of bias, and yet when you look at it neutrally, you see that there's plenty of extremes on both sides, and that this is where a lot of the slogans and threads like this come out of. They don't come out of nowhere, after all. Working in academia, I have met many rather conservative people, including several fields of study (literature, philosophy, humanities/liberal arts) where Christian scholars at least a very large and vocal minority, and certainly a number of fields (business, public affairs, politics) where I have seen an overwhelmingly market-liberal majority whose social views often approach neoconservatism. Unlike some people, I've learned to not only live with but also appreciate their views, as long as they're not jerks about them and have the courtesy to follow norms of academic debate. And oh, there are plenty of jerks in academia, of any political persuasion, don't get me wrong on that. But that's pretty true of the rest of the world as well.

The idea that academia is some sort of spawning ground for communism and anti-patriotic feelings is pretty ludicrous though. It's just that to some people's narrow views, any questioning of their nation's and culture's inherent "rightness" constitutes betrayal, and apparently engaging in critical pitching of alternatives (and their refutation or reconsideration) is no better than treason. Such people have usually been given slogans by politicians who fear academia's acceptance of open debate and rejection of 'sacred cows', and have swallowed them up whole, without reflecting on the reality of things. Because after all, it's easier to live in a "patriotic" mindset than to be able to take criticism and stand up to it not with slogans, but with evidence, reason and respect for etiquette. There is no reason that the suggestion that Japan is the victim of aggression should make you angry - unless you were directly and mockingly approached by someone who screamed that repeatedly in your face and ran away. If you know it's false, then it shouldn't make you angry, because you should be able to give a substantiated, polite, logical response without resorting to ALL CAPS and attacking red herrings like Wikipedia and that mythical left-winger in California. The idea that America is "an evil empire" shouldn't make you angry, unless you are actually afraid that it's true. For everything else, there are critical methods and etiquette that can guide one through a discussion without compromising anyone's core values, accepting preposterous ideas, or resorting to personal attacks, slogans, and rhetorical fallacies. It is however woefully apparent that some people have no clue about critical methods and etiquette, but are walking encyclopedias of preposterous ideas (either their own or attributed to fictitious opposition), personal attacks, political slogans, and rhetorical fallacies. THAT, my friends, is what really makes me worried about the education system - far more so than the supposed encroachment of revisionism.

[tater]

I would never pretend not to be biased. Being human, I can't help it. All one can do (if they even wish to) is to try and make it more subtle.

My bias is going to always be clear where "death by government" is concerned. Put 2 countries next to each other, and the one with the bigger democide body count is worse (bigger by number, or ratio of population). The US killed at least a few hundred thousand civilians that might not have been killed, but the japs bumped off millions (and that's without going into bombing actually saving net lives, which it very likely did (doesn't suck less if you're the one getting bombed, though)).

As for "professionals," it's more a matter of time than anything else. Primary sources, for example. I'm very well read in a few areas of history (ww2 in particular), and I am long past "popular" mass-market books in ww2, anyway. Still, I simply don't have the time or inclination to look at primary sources much except for some stuff on the net now (many of the post-war interrogations of japanese officers are now online, and are fascinating reads). It clearly gets far more complex as you get farther back into ancient history, as you need to start thinking about archeology, etc. "Primary sources" would be a dream come true for many areas/eras, no?


History is NOT a "science," however.

[MH]

And often when reading these forums I find myself being very happy for it. :yep:

With me its quite opposite.
That's why i don't ignore jerks like Tribesman.

That's again may be due to lack of academic tools on my side.:haha:

[Randomizer]

"Revisionist History" is not necessarily a bad thing as new evidence emerges due to the declassification of documents, accessing previously unused sources or for any number of reasons.

All history is subjective and bias inevitable. Dig deep and most historical accounts of anything are riddled with mythology, propaganda and the apocryphal accepted as "Truth" or "Fact". Few historians have matched Thucydides for objectivity.

Here at SubSim some of the most respected historical works that are constantly referenced by respected Members of the Forum are in many respects "revisionist" in how their interpretation of event differ from the conventional account.

Shattered Sword rewrites the Battle of Midway in a manner that answered many of those nasty little logical contradictions in the mainstream narratives.

Hitler's U-Boat War changed the narrative of the Battle of the Atlantic by concentrating on the convoys that got through instead of the traditional merchant ship body-count and feasting on the Allied disasters that featured in most popular works.

Currently great work is being done on the history of World War 1 as German records believed lost in Allied bombing raids or carted off into captivity in 1945 are discovered in archives where they have laid for decades. More English language historians are using French, Belgian, Austrian and Russian documents previously ignored or unavailable and these are challenging the orthodoxy of the common accounts of the war and backing up the new narrative with some impressive evidence.

There are certainly some schools of thought that intentionally project their political or social agendas into history. Rather than raving about them, one should identify their bias, deconstruct their arguments and offer up evidence that suits your agenda. Because you know you have one: we all do somewhere.

It's a great time to have an interest in history if one can keep an open and skeptical mind.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

And often when reading these forums I find myself being very happy for it. :yep:
With me its quite opposite.I agree with both of you. Here in interwebz I don't mind that trench warfare to which discussion here often go (atleast with formula politics+usa). Face-to-face I prefer more hegemonic people.That's why i don't ignore jerks like Tribesman.I try not to but sometimes temptation is quite high. Its good that discussions with Tribesman happen here in boards and not face-to-face.

[Hottentot]

History is NOT a "science," however.

Elaborate, please.

[August]

Elaborate, please.

According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."

How do you test history using scientific methodology?

[GoldenRivet]

Want an unbiased account?

Read "flyboys"

War is hell, WWII in the PTO was a unique special kind of hell on earth.

I'll never read that book again. :cry:

[August]

Want an unbiased account?

Read "flyboys"

War is hell, WWII in the PTO was a unique special kind of hell on earth.

I'll never read that book again. :cry:

I read it. There may have been worse places to get shot down over than Chi Chi Jima but none come to mind.

[Hottentot]

How do you test history using scientific methodology?

What does the dictionary say about "social sciences"? I'm genuinely curious.

Just for the record since I'm not a native speaker: the Finnish language doesn't in normal use make a distinction between the sciences. We naturally have a term for natural sciences as well as social sciences, but refer to these generally just as "sciences", for example "history science". If your definition of science in English concerns natural sciences, then I can understand the point.

However, if you exclude social sciences completely from the scientific field, then I must disagree.

[MH]

How do you test history using scientific methodology?

You mix it with theological one sometimes.
To be good historian you need to be analytical and psychologist and have some good knowledge of the period in time and its mentality.
Then you make educated guesses(like in archaeology) when no concrete evidence exists-which is the fun part and problematic one also bias prone.
Some so called facts can be interpreted differently and given different wight therefore outcome can vary.
The question then is if those so called interpretation are within the established academic norm that also may vary in between between different institutions in some cases.

[Stealhead]

Boy I am I glad that I get my historical information from the most trusted source The History Channel.:D

Personally I think any "historian" is going to have some bias one way or another which is why the person digesting the information needs come in expecting there to be some angle this is why it is best to read about a given topic from multiple points of view(short of blatantly biased stuff) if you read every angle you can better understand the "truth" as they say.

I always like accounts written by ones that where there such as E.B. Sledge
just a person telling what they saw and did nothing more.

By they way some what related to the topic has anyone every seen the film "City of Life and Death" it is about Nanking in 1937 it a Chinese film but the Japanese
are all Japanese actors interestingly enough.

I don't know if this is the case with every Japanese but my friends wife is Okinawan and she obviously went to Japanese schools and they are taught a very revisionist
view on Japans role in WWII.

[August]

double post

[August]

What does the dictionary say about "social sciences"? I'm genuinely curious.

Just for the record since I'm not a native speaker: the Finnish language doesn't in normal use make a distinction between the sciences. We naturally have a term for natural sciences as well as social sciences, but refer to these generally just as "sciences", for example "history science". If your definition of science in English concerns natural sciences, then I can understand the point.

However, if you exclude social sciences completely from the scientific field, then I must disagree.


The science label is thrown around pretty loosely these days but you should agree that there is a rather large difference between the natural and social when it comes to demonstrating cause and effect.

[Hottentot]

The science label is thrown around pretty loosely these days.

History, as in the research of the past, is an academic discipline taught in (Western) universities since the 19th century. It has formed its methods of systematically gaining knowledge of the unknown. It is as dedicated to this goal as any science should be. It changes when new discoveries are made and discussion is based on new interpretations of old theories. It aspires for knowledge of the past, while it may not ever be completely possible.

How is that not scientific?

Sorry, I replied before you edited. You are right, there is a clear difference between social sciences and natural sciences. It is much more easy (at least according to my layman knowledge of natural sciences) to prove that 1 + 1 is 2, than to prove what Julius Caesar thought when the invaded Britain. History can also use more definitive methods such as statistics, but it's still often based on the best material we can work with and in the end is always subject to interpretation because we can't ask Caesar directly.

I would consider history a science more because of the things I wrote in the first paragraph. Especially if you compare what "history" and writing it were before evolving into a more scientific direction.

[CCIP]

The definition of natural science and evidentiality is also a problematic one. In the end, the tricky thing is that no science is free of values and observer bias - even the 'hardest' and most natural, which by the way are some of the more problematic ones philosophically precisely because of claims to positivism.

Historiography as a field of study exists exactly for that reason - to develop forms, norms and measures for history. In that sense, history is even somewhat more reflective than many other sciences on its methods, because it constantly returns to questions of "why" and "how", and doubts itself more readily.

[Tribesman]

That's why i don't ignore jerks like Tribesman.

Yet when your bunkervision clicks in you are just as ranting as the OP is, just as devoid of sources, and just as focused on mythical conspiracies.
In fact your blind "patriotism" on histrory and current events is pretty much the same as that of the OP.

[tater]

If social science is a science (I don't consider it one, myself (nor does anyone I know in hard science)), it's only barely there (it's about like the science of proving witchcraft scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

History is not at all a science. Not even a little. You need to be able to understand (and model) the mechanisms for it to be a science.

In geology, for example, you might observe that distance between places have changed, or maybe that Africa and South America look like they fit together. That is "history." Coming up with plate tectonics? That's science.

I love history, but it isn't science---that doesn't mean you don't sometimes use the scientific method, everyone uses that almost every day. Historians or archeologists just use it a little more rigorously.

[MH]

Yet when your bunkervision clicks in you are just as ranting as the OP is, just as devoid of sources, and just as focused on mythical conspiracies.
In fact your blind "patriotism" on histrory and current events is pretty much the same as that of the OP.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XiAbtdG1Qz4/TjV5FFwEXmI/AAAAAAAAFAQ/rPlZhGluno0/s1600/funny-pictures-kitten-is-excited-about-bacon.jpg

[Tribesman]

Yes MH, that picture contains better information than your usual rubbish, its even got a source:yeah:

[MH]

Yes MH, that picture contains better information than your usual rubbish, its even got a source:yeah:
Follow The Source then....

[Tribesman]

Follow The Source then....
But thats the media which is all part of an intellectual conspiracy because cats hate jews:rotfl2:

[MH]

But thats the media which is all part of an intellectual conspiracy because cats hate jews:rotfl2:

What?
You have some sort of fixation about Jews?

Now...lets continue talking about history and would you please stop your animal farm piggish behavior toward people that express their personal views.
However they may seem contrary to your piggish norms.

[Bilge_Rat]

"Revisionist History" is not necessarily a bad thing as new evidence emerges due to the declassification of documents, accessing previously unused sources or for any number of reasons.

All history is subjective and bias inevitable. Dig deep and most historical accounts of anything are riddled with mythology, propaganda and the apocryphal accepted as "Truth" or "Fact". Few historians have matched Thucydides for objectivity.

Here at SubSim some of the most respected historical works that are constantly referenced by respected Members of the Forum are in many respects "revisionist" in how their interpretation of event differ from the conventional account.

Shattered Sword rewrites the Battle of Midway in a manner that answered many of those nasty little logical contradictions in the mainstream narratives.

Hitler's U-Boat War changed the narrative of the Battle of the Atlantic by concentrating on the convoys that got through instead of the traditional merchant ship body-count and feasting on the Allied disasters that featured in most popular works.

Currently great work is being done on the history of World War 1 as German records believed lost in Allied bombing raids or carted off into captivity in 1945 are discovered in archives where they have laid for decades. More English language historians are using French, Belgian, Austrian and Russian documents previously ignored or unavailable and these are challenging the orthodoxy of the common accounts of the war and backing up the new narrative with some impressive evidence.

There are certainly some schools of thought that intentionally project their political or social agendas into history. Rather than raving about them, one should identify their bias, deconstruct their arguments and offer up evidence that suits your agenda. Because you know you have one: we all do somewhere.

It's a great time to have an interest in history if one can keep an open and skeptical mind.

agreed about Shattered sword and Hitler's U-Boat war, but that is a different type of revisionism where an author looks at a story from a different point of view, goes back to primary sources and can argue a different interpretation based on a solid set of facts. I have no problem with that since these are the types of works which keeps history alive.

other examples are the works of David Glantz on the eastern front and Terry Copp's two books "Fields of Fire" and "Cinderella Army" which re-examined the performance of the Canadian Army in NWE 44-45.

[flatsixes]

All history is revisionist to some extent. The historical "truth" of any great event lies hidden away for decades (or buried for eternity), and anecdotal recollections are self centered or (as often as not) self-serving. Over time dogged research can uncover many lost fragments of the story which can be pieced together to provide us with a clearer picture of events.

But scholarship isn't simply providing the reader an after-action report; it's interpreting a picture of the past for the present, in the present. That's is a hell of a lot easier to say than it is to do, or at least to do without bias because, after all, the present has the benefit of knowing how the past turns out. But because we can never get an absolute fix on historical "truth" we speculate about the missing pieces. Why did the Japanese bother attacking Pearl Harbor when they could have just swept down the coast and snapped up British and Dutch colonial possessions? Why did 2/3 of the IJA remain garrisoned in China and Manchuria even as the Empire's eastern defensive perimeter collapsed? As a parlor game, this can be great fun (see, e.g., The History Channel), but as history it's unfair. The players made their decisions based upon the facts as they understood them at the time. We have the luxury of pronouncing which decisions were "brilliant" and which "mistakes." How noble we are.

Anyway, I recall in introducing his history of the closing days of the Pacific War ("Retribution") Max Hastings wrote about how that war was an event so large, so widespread, so violent, and touching so many peoples and cultures, that any "history" of it would necessarily be too curtailed or too overwhelming. Instead, he said he wanted to write about (paraphrasing) "what was done and why, how it was done, who did it, and how doing it felt to those who did it."

That's a pretty good description of historical writing, and a laudable goal for historians.

[August]

History, as in the research of the past, is an academic discipline taught in (Western) universities since the 19th century. It has formed its methods of systematically gaining knowledge of the unknown. It is as dedicated to this goal as any science should be. It changes when new discoveries are made and discussion is based on new interpretations of old theories. It aspires for knowledge of the past, while it may not ever be completely possible.

How is that not scientific?

Sorry, I replied before you edited. You are right, there is a clear difference between social sciences and natural sciences. It is much more easy (at least according to my layman knowledge of natural sciences) to prove that 1 + 1 is 2, than to prove what Julius Caesar thought when the invaded Britain. History can also use more definitive methods such as statistics, but it's still often based on the best material we can work with and in the end is always subject to interpretation because we can't ask Caesar directly.

I would consider history a science more because of the things I wrote in the first paragraph. Especially if you compare what "history" and writing it were before evolving into a more scientific direction.

I'd say the main difference between history and sociology and the natural sciences is repeatability. One of the forum academics can probably explain this better but as I understand it is in order to validate a theory you see if you can repeat the result in a controlled situation.

Now you can perhaps repeat some parts of a historical event to see if something was even possible, Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition for example but that doesn't prove whether ancient South Americans peopled Polynesia.

[CCIP]

Now you can perhaps repeat some parts of a historical event to see if something was even possible, Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition for example but that doesn't prove whether ancient South Americans peopled Polynesia.

Ah, but here you're mistaking repeatability and proof - and therein lies the issue. In this sense natural sciences aren't THAT different - they also build theories based on the best recurring evidence, but repeatability can never be 'proof' unless you have a very narrow positivist mindset. Rather, it can be used to build theories - more or less credible based on accepted methods and observations - but you have to be careful about viewing them as absolute. They are not. Recent advances in theoretical physics alone should be enough of a reminder as to why even the best theories are just that - theories.

So, in that sense, history does much the same, and theorizes based on observed patterns - just that it usually can't be done through experimental methods. However experimental methods are not inherently more 'scientific' and in themselves present a whole slew of methodological issues. Historiography is no less methodical, in that sense, than any other science's approach to gnosiology and epistemology. The emerging methods may be different, but in the end - any science produces theory, not absolute truth.

[MH]

Now you can perhaps repeat some parts of a historical event to see if something was even possible, Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition for example but that doesn't prove whether ancient South Americans peopled Polynesia.

Assuming that most logically or simplest explanation for Polynesia to be populated is that somehow S.American got there by sea, the experiment enforces the claim as technically possible.
Question is what other viable options are there?

[tater]

Any use of theory with "just" is usually a misuse of the scientific term. "Just a theory" is what we see when religious people talk about theories. (I know you aren't doing this, but it's a pet peeve)

A theory is a model that explains known observations, and can predict new observations.

History has no real "model" (I won't hold my breath for Asimovian psychohistory), and cannot really make decent predictions.

Theoretical physics is absolutely predictive. Particle accelerators looking for predicted particles, or watching eclipses to check on general relativity. When first proposed, they are hypotheses. "Theory" is actually a high bar compared to the common english meaning (relativity is now called a theory, but when written it was the "principle" of relativity).

[Randomizer]

agreed about Shattered sword and Hitler's U-Boat war, but that is a different type of revisionism where an author looks at a story from a different point of view, goes back to primary sources and can argue a different interpretation based on a solid set of facts. I have no problem with that since these are the types of works which keeps history alive.

other examples are the works of David Glantz on the eastern front and Terry Copp's two books "Fields of Fire" and "Cinderella Army" which re-examined the performance of the Canadian Army in NWE 44-45.
I tend to respectfully disagree somewhat and think that any history that contradicts the received wisdom is by definition, revisionist. Types of revisionism and whether a new account is accepted or not is entirely in the mind of the readers. New data is not always necessary, often the conventional version is chock full of inconsistencies that have always been there but passed off or ignored as their existence might effect any propaganda, heroic legends or political spin that have gained the status of "Fact."

Shattered Sword and Hitler's U-Boat War gained acceptance in many (but not all) quarters because they are superbly researched and also address many unspoken logical contradictions in the accepted narratives of their respective subjects. Clay Blair's contention that the U-Boat war was never really the decisive threat that 50-years of historical works had made it out to be was not received with unanimous agreement in all quarters however. It should be recalled as well that Blair built upon the research of Jurgen Rohwer's seminal statistical studies on the U-Boat war that brought at least some of the inconsistencies to light.

Ironically, the data had been there all along but nobody used it...

Haven't read Shattered Sword recently enough to comment but other "revisionist" works like Andrew Gordon's reassessment of the Jutland controversy in The Rules of the Game and Terrence Zuber's Battle of the Frontiers have also met with mixed reactions because they are so creditably effective in slaughtering some person's sacred cows.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Thomas B. Marquis' version of the Battle of the Little Bighorn entitled Keep the Last Bullet for Yourself: The True Story of Custer's Last Stand. Despite having an impressive bibliography Marquis' conclusions that Custer's men committed mass suicide when the ammunition ran low is full of inconsistencies, contradictions and questionable inferences that to my mind, is a fine example of why revisionism is scoffed at in many quarters.

Seeing any book that contains the words True, Truth, Facts or the Real Story Of in the title should be cause to fire up the BS detector so the author had better done their homework scrupulously.

Haven't read Copp, the Western Front in WW2 is not high on my interest list but will probably take a break from my Great War studies and borrow them from the library. He post dates LCol John English's damning indictment of Harry Crerar and the General Staff in his Failure in High Command; The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign. This book was not well received in segments of the Army at the time because it assaulted many of our cherished wartime myths so many wrote it off as "revisionist tripe". Now I understand it's a text book at RMC.

Wow, my 2000th post and it contains no Cat picture...

[Tribesman]

What?
You have some sort of fixation about Jews?

No, thats one of the mindless rants which you spout.

Now...lets continue talking about history and would you please stop your animal farm piggish behavior toward people that express their personal views.

Animal farm??????It is you that is always spouting the "party line" like a good sheep.:know:
As it happens it is spot on topic, sources.
You are an example of why it is important to use Israeli sources(especially official ones) to knock down the rubbish you post when your bunkervision clicks in.
It does leave you floundering all the time doesn't it.:yep:

[CCIP]

Clay Blair's contention that the U-Boat war was never really the decisive threat that 50-years of historical works had made it out to be was not received with unanimous agreement in all quarters however. It should be recalled as well that Blair built upon the research of Jurgen Rohwer's seminal statistical studies on the U-Boat war that brought at least some of the inconsistencies to light.

Ironically, the data had been there all along but nobody used it...

You could also argue, though, that Blair somewhat discredits himself by really pressing an agenda onto the data - his research is excellent, but the way in which he writes it up is very aggressive and seeks to undermine and break down any and all achievements by the U-boat force, to the point where he really comes off as seriously anti-German. All the more so because of his writing on the US Submarine campaign (which is far better as writing goes, IMO), which further hints at that bias. That's really a shame from my perspective, because his writing makes his excellent data seem more suspect (due to his apparent bias) than it should be. I really wish his writing were more neutral and balanced- it'd only strengthen his main point, not undermine it. The data already speaks for itself, he really didn't have to push it as hard as he did.

[MH]

It does leave you floundering all the time doesn't it.:yep:

Yes IT does...you are absolutely totally correct;)

You know what... forget what i wrote above... you are fun guy...hard to ignore.
Why don't you open some "Israel this.. or that..." thread, and we will exchange our thoughts.:haha:
This is actually very nice thread and i enjoy reading some posts it would too bad to drag it down.

:salute:

(the party line...good catch:har:...you read a lot:rotfl2:)

[Randomizer]

You could also argue, though, that Blair somewhat discredits himself by really pressing an agenda onto the data - his research is excellent, but the way in which he writes it up is very aggressive and seeks to undermine and break down any and all achievements by the U-boat force, to the point where he really comes off as seriously anti-German. That's really a shame from my perspective, because his writing makes his excellent data seem more suspect (due to his apparent bias) than it should be. I really wish his writing were more neutral and balanced- it'd only strengthen his main point, not undermine it. The data already speaks for itself, he really didn't have to push it as hard as he did.
I would agree with this but suspect that like many WW2 Veterans, he harboured an anti-German bias that he might not even have been fully cognisant of having. Particularly as he spent most of his career as a journalist and analyst where objectivity should have been his stock and trade.

On the other hand it could be an intentional counter-point to the existing U-Boat mythology and the standard German Ubermensch narratives that denigrate many Allied successes.

[CCIP]

On the other hand it could be an intentional counter-point to the existing U-Boat mythology and the standard German Ubermensch narratives that denigrate many Allied successes.

Yeah, I mean, considering how much of that we have (a look at a lot of the discussions on SH3 forums is enough), I could see how that's the voice that was missing in the debate. In that case I'm probably just not the target audience for the book I guess - telling me to be skeptical of the German super-weapon (and anyone's super-weapon) mythology is preaching to the choir.

[August]

Assuming that most logically or simplest explanation for Polynesia to be populated is that somehow S.American got there by sea, the experiment enforces the claim as technically possible.
Question is what other viable options are there?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080117-polynesian-taiwan.html

[August]

Ah, but here you're mistaking repeatability and proof - and therein lies the issue. In this sense natural sciences aren't THAT different - they also build theories based on the best recurring evidence, but repeatability can never be 'proof' unless you have a very narrow positivist mindset. Rather, it can be used to build theories - more or less credible based on accepted methods and observations - but you have to be careful about viewing them as absolute. They are not. Recent advances in theoretical physics alone should be enough of a reminder as to why even the best theories are just that - theories.

So, in that sense, history does much the same, and theorizes based on observed patterns - just that it usually can't be done through experimental methods. However experimental methods are not inherently more 'scientific' and in themselves present a whole slew of methodological issues. Historiography is no less methodical, in that sense, than any other science's approach to gnosiology and epistemology. The emerging methods may be different, but in the end - any science produces theory, not absolute truth.

Well see the link in my previous post. Experiments like Heyerdahl's however repeatable just aren't the same thing as a substances reaction to heat or how fast a particular ray travels in a vacuum. History is about intentions and beliefs and motivations. Rather nebulous things compared to a chemical composition and therefore a lot more open to interpretation.

[Hottentot]

OK, I got some shut eye and see that this thread has evolved into a very interesting discussion. I again find I have little to add what CCIP has said, and in the end it also seems that when I call history a science, I do it partly because of the language difference that I explained earlier. For me in everyday use it's always "history science" not "history social science". Something I hadn't thought when I started writing in English.

However, I still insist on the term "history science" as opposed to mere "history". History needs a (social) scientific approach, methods and ethics. It needs people who are trained in these exactly because the past is easy to interpret and because it's open for anyone to interpret. Early in this thread Skybird provided an example of how politicians too can write history (however true the example is). The journalists were also mentioned. I also have a few books in my shelf written by people who haven't spent a single day in any college or university.

All of these people can claim they write history and in a way they are right. History in its simple form is, as I summarized on the first page of the thread, the past --> researcher --> history. However, as someone studying the field (and therefore in that way biased), I reserve the right for the opinion that there is "good" history and "bad" history. Just because anyone can study the primary sources doesn't make them historians. Sources by themself are useless if you don't possibly even think how to approach them, ask something from them and have a method for a meaningful answer.

I'm not saying that only the academic historians can do this. Some people can be naturally more oriented for honest and methodological research than the others. But I'm saying that there is a reason for why the PhDs study for years before they become researchers. And I'm saying that having an academic, scientifically oriented training doesn't make anyone a worse historian. And I would use the word "historian" therefore very carefully. Likewise while I can unclog my own toilet, I'm not a plumber.

[Tribesman]

Why don't you open some "Israel this.. or that..." thread, and we will exchange our thoughts.
Bunkervision prevents you from thinkining, thats the point , that is why you are often the same as the OP.
This is actually very nice thread and i enjoy reading some posts it would too bad to drag it down.

It is a nice topic, lets see if you can click some grey cells back to life.
It should be easy enough as we can keep it so you don't have a pie on the table so you don't get blinded by your pie.
What is the "ACCEPTED" :03: view of history regarding the Japanese involvement in WW2?
Or for another one.....What is the "ACCEPTED" date when WW2 in the far east started?
Now here is one that might actually be possible to answer properly....In your opinion how many decades would someone have to go back and cover to get a reasonable historical background on the causes for that conflict?

[MH]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080117-polynesian-taiwan.html

:salute:

As you can see new more accurate tools allow for some theories to change.
Still this theory seems to be with a lot of degree of uncertainty as well.
I support your claim that there is lots of guesswork and imagination work to fill the gabs regathering ancient history.
That's what makes this fun too.

..:wah:.


:up:

[Tribesman]

MH it is you that is going ..:wah:all the time, which is why you are just like the OP.
What's even better is that due to your location you will soon demonstrate again just how closed minded you are and how much of a revisionist you have to be to try and argue your point.:up: at which point you will cry about "liberal conspiracies", "the media", "anti semitism" and "intellectuals" because you simply cannot think beyond your sheep like mantra, isn't it funny that your national rants can be adapted to all the tags this fruit loop OP had.

[MH]

Told you...just open some thread to discus Israeli national issues.
Biases in academy and in international or local media...let it be left or right or whatever is everyday open subject here.
In media as well as in academy.
You can look it as sort of self regulations when people talk about their biases or supposedly lack of them.
I'm sorry to hear that is such a big deal for you i'm even more sorry that those things are not on the table where you come from.

Tribesman i use you only as a pet not a partner for discussion...and you been lot of fun in dull hours.:haha:

[Tribesman]

Told you...just open some thread to discus Israeli national issues.

They will crop up on their own, it goes with the territory, you will of course then go into bunkervision because "no one understands:wah:."

Biases in academy and in international or local media...let it be left or right or whatever is everyday open subject here.

An open subject you don't do very well in, like kneejerk...":wah::wah:its anti Israeli bias" when the source is the Israeli government or the Israeli defence forces, or... ":wah::wah: its leftist intellectual anti-semitic propoganda" when the source is an extremist settler newspaper.:yeah:

I'm sorry to hear that is such a big deal for you i'm even more sorry that those things are not on the table where you come from.

:har::har::har::har::har::har::har:
Clueless
Those things have been on the table since long before the creation of the state:doh:

Tribesman i use you only as a pet not a partner for discussion...and you been lot of fun in dull hours.
MH discussion is not possible with someone of a closed mind like yours, it won't stop me from pushing at your closed mind all the time though as it is funny to see you run in circles, take an occasional real step then run in circles again when the shutters come down.

[MH]

An open subject you don't do very well in, like kneejerk...":wah::wah:its anti Israeli bias" when the source is the Israeli government or the Israeli defence forces, or... ":wah::wah: its leftist intellectual anti-semitic propoganda" when the source is an extremist settler newspaper.:yeah:
.

Here it is you drag all this issue down again.:haha:
You should stop reading this crap unless you look for confirmations of your jerk off views in those papers.
Its a common pattern...

[Hottentot]

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3640/57310110a.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/221/57310110a.jpg/)

[Tribesman]

Here it is you drag all this issue down again.
It is in the vein of the opening post.

You should stop reading this crap unless you look for confirmations of your jerk off views in those papers.

:har::har::har::har::har::har:
If you don't know what the idiots on both extremes are saying you have no idea where the middle ground may lie.
It is why you screw up on sources as you shoot blindly in ignorance according to simple bigotry.
It would be like someone over here in the "hegemonic world" following the republican line of history and current events and claiming that anything that doesn't fit that pattern is unionist bias and imperialist propoganda..or viceversa .
When the truth is that either approach is simply dumb closed minded idiocy which is normally dressed up as "patriotism" or "nationalism", which are of course "jerk off views" pretty much like you follow

@Hottentot, it is on topic.

Out of interest can you answer....

What is the "ACCEPTED" :03: view of history regarding the Japanese involvement in WW2?
Or for another one.....What is the "ACCEPTED" date when WW2 in the far east started?
Now here is one that might actually be possible to answer properly....In your opinion how many decades would someone have to go back and cover to get a reasonable historical background on the causes for that conflict?

[Bilge_Rat]

You could also argue, though, that Blair somewhat discredits himself by really pressing an agenda onto the data - his research is excellent, but the way in which he writes it up is very aggressive and seeks to undermine and break down any and all achievements by the U-boat force, to the point where he really comes off as seriously anti-German. All the more so because of his writing on the US Submarine campaign (which is far better as writing goes, IMO), which further hints at that bias. That's really a shame from my perspective, because his writing makes his excellent data seem more suspect (due to his apparent bias) than it should be. I really wish his writing were more neutral and balanced- it'd only strengthen his main point, not undermine it. The data already speaks for itself, he really didn't have to push it as hard as he did.

CCIP, I would disagree with your assessment. I have read both works and have seen no evidence of a anti-german or pro-U.S. bias. Both works are written in a dry, Time-corporate "just the facts, ma'am!" style, but that is not surprising since he worked as a Time journalist for a long time.

In his blurbs on individual patrols, he is respectful of individual skippers and crews, whether German or American. He is critical of the German high command for several reasons, but he is equally critical of the U.S. high command for their mistakes in the Pacific.

Most of the criticism of Blair comes from the fact that he never saw the U-boats as a serious threat, but the facts are there and uncontested, 99% of all ships that sailed in convoys made it safely to port. In any event, that discussion is a very small part of the 2 books, 99% of which is a narrative of the U-boat war.

I have read many books where the author has a clear bias. I don't put Blair in that category at all, his research is solid and he keeps his opinions to a minimum.

[Hottentot]

Out of interest can you answer....

What is the "ACCEPTED" :03: view of history regarding the Japanese involvement in WW2?
Or for another one.....What is the "ACCEPTED" date when WW2 in the far east started?
Now here is one that might actually be possible to answer properly....In your opinion how many decades would someone have to go back and cover to get a reasonable historical background on the causes for that conflict

War history and the Pacific front are hardly my fortes. I can reply to the best of my understanding, though.

The "accepted" date of the involvement in WW 2 has been taught to me as beginning from Pearl Harbor. On the other hand I get your point on the second question. Such dates can be questioned since Japan was involved in Asia and in war far before Pearl Harbor. I have heard a similar one being made about the whole beginning of WW 2: when did it become a World War and to what point it was just an European conflict?

As far as how far back you should go, I can admit that I'm not familiar enough with Japan and Asia to answer that question in a way I could be proud of. Usually you still go pretty far, so that's what I would also begin with if I was researching the subject. Since I don't know much about Japan and Asia, I would go at least to the beginning of the 20th century, but I'm not claiming that the reasons for conflict lie there. I would simply want to know.

For example, I have heard the roots of German mentalities before WW 2 being taken not only to the peace of WW 1, but to the actual unification of the country in 19th century: a relatively young country, from the beginning feeling itself surrounded, then humiliated in WW 1 and along comes Mr. Mustache promising great future.

[Tribesman]

The point being Hottentot is that in those first two cases there isn't really an accepted answer, much less an "ACCEPTED" answer .....unless lots of parameters are set out beforehand.
On the third part really the only possible answer is another question as its a cause and effect string and each step back you take to get an answer opens up another whole new bundle of old strings.

I have heard a similar one being made about the whole beginning of WW 2: when did it become a World War and to what point it was just an European conflict?

Yeah I was helping one of my kids with some homework on WWI, her teacher had said it started on August 4th 1914.(see thats the old imperial hegemony at work:rotfl2:) . I wonder if the OP thinks it started on April 6th 1917?

[MH]

War history and the Pacific front are hardly my fortes. I can reply to the best of my understanding, though.

The "accepted" date of the involvement in WW 2 has been taught to me as beginning from Pearl Harbor. On the other hand I get your point on the second question. Such dates can be questioned since Japan was involved in Asia and in war far before Pearl Harbor. I have heard a similar one being made about the whole beginning of WW 2: when did it become a World War and to what point it was just an European conflict?

As far as how far back you should go, I can admit that I'm not familiar enough with Japan and Asia to answer that question in a way I could be proud of. Usually you still go pretty far, so that's what I would also begin with if I was researching the subject. Since I don't know much about Japan and Asia, I would go at least to the beginning of the 20th century, but I'm not claiming that the reasons for conflict lie there. I would simply want to know.

For example, I have heard the roots of German mentalities before WW 2 being taken not only to the peace of WW 1, but to the actual unification of the country in 19th century: a relatively young country, from the beginning feeling itself surrounded, then humiliated in WW 1 and along comes Mr. Mustache promising great future.

Japan has signed mutual defence treaty with Germany and Italy in 1940 so technically was on opposite said of equation l before attack on Pearl Harbor.
USA pressure on Japan and toward its war in Asia aided with sanctions led to attack on Pear Harbor further escalating the conflict.
When the ww2 in far east/asia started may be matter of definition but it turned global in practice with attack on Pearl Harbor.

[MH]

The point being Hottentot is that in those first two cases there isn't really an accepted answer, much less an "ACCEPTED" answer .....unless lots of parameters are set out beforehand.


. I wonder if the OP thinks it started on April 6th 1917?


just wow....pinnacle of academic thinking.

[Hottentot]

The point being Hottentot is that in those first two cases there isn't really an accepted answer, much less an "ACCEPTED" answer .....unless lots of parameters are set out beforehand.

[snip]

Yeah I was helping one of my kids with some homework on WWI, her teacher had said it started on August 4th 1914.(see thats the old imperial hegemony at work:rotfl2:) . I wonder if the OP thinks it started on April 6th 1917?

These two paragraphs show a common problem encountered when discussing history. On one hand you are right and I agree: as soon as you say that something is "accepted", someone will give you a truckful of sources and arguments for why you are wrong, dumb and smell bad.

On the other hand, it is common to discuss history on "yes or no" basis. That's partly because people want it: they need "accepted" dates and theories so that they could be right and point out the others are wrong. The other part is that the school system at least in Finland reinforces this. When you are asked in an exam "when did war X start", you don't get points for saying "well it depends..." You give the date that was in the book. You get a good grade. You remember for the rest of your life that it was that date and woe to anyone who is wrong.

Now who makes these theories that get accepted and written in books? The historians do, and they discuss them among themselves. The stuff that gets written, analyzed and discussed in the academic world doesn't necessarily ever get published. Only once it gets published and becomes common to everyone, it becomes history in sense of the society. The society isn't interested in "well it depends", it wants yes or no answers. This is evident almost whenever a reporter is interviewing a professor.

This paradigm becomes accepted because at the moment it's the best we have. Unless someone challenges it convincingly enough and the science moves forward likes sciences do.

[Tribesman]

Japan has signed mutual defence treaty with Germany and Italy in 1940 so technically was on opposite said of equation l before attack on Pearl Harbor.

Errrr...mr pinnacle of academic thinking:rotfl2:
1. mutual defence treaty...terms and conditions apply, it ain't in play unless those terms and conditions are met and the parties agree that they are in play.
Its like saying Britain was at war with France when Russia and Japan were argueing over Manchuria and Korea in 1904:doh:
2. explain how how any of the countries at war with Germany or Italy before Pearl Harbour were at war with Japan?:doh:
Oh sorry you don't do thinking do you,:har::har::har:




These two paragraphs show a common problem encountered when discussing history. On one hand you are right and I agree: as soon as you say that something is "accepted", someone will give you a truckful of sources and arguments for why you are wrong, dumb and smell bad.

This paradigm becomes accepted because at the moment it's the best we have. Unless someone challenges it convincingly enough and the science moves forward likes sciences do.
Thats the point, there isn't really an "accepted" version and it is never stable as it is always evolving and there is always new information coming to light.
Take for an example the AVG, I think it was during Clintons time that they finally got there full service period recognised and got all their dues that were owed.
Does that recognition that they were at all times serving US miitary personel working for the US government mean that the US was really at war with the Empire of Japan in China before Pearl?

[MH]

Thats the point, there isn't really an "accepted" version and it is never stable as it is always evolving and there is always new information coming to light.
Take for an example the AVG, I think it was during Clintons time that they finally got there full service period recognised and got all their dues that were owed.
?
Wow

Does that recognition that they were at all times serving US military personel working for the US government mean that the US was really at war with the Empire of Japan in China before Pearl?

So what is your point at pointing out the obvious technical details here?
You really disappoint me here.
So was USA engaged in Battle of Britain or Russia in Spanish civil war vs Germany?
So History is complex and some relations and definition can be fluid and disputed.
Question is if the points you brought up are worth it anyway because they can be covered in discussing relations between given countries at that time.
This again bring us to the point that history is fluid in interpretation....try not to bring settler to the subject.

My point is that its very nice that you use your head but you also need to know how far you want to go with your mental exercises.
History wise it depends what point you try to prove.


.............

[flatsixes]

Take for an example the AVG, I think it was during Clintons time that they finally got there full service period recognised and got all their dues that were owed.
Does that recognition that they were at all times serving US miitary personel working for the US government mean that the US was really at war with the Empire of Japan in China before Pearl?

I would think not. As I recall, the AVG did not fly its first combat missions against the Japanese until the week following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The AVG was not disbanded and brought into the U.S. armed services until July 1942. The 1990's retroactive reinstatement of the Group's status of US servicemen was for the seven months between December 1941 and July 1942.

On the other hand, I would have to agree that Roosevelt's posture towards supporting the Chinese against the Japanese was indeed "warlike."

[August]

What is it with these double posts lately?

[August]

In an attempt to get beyond the Trollsman/MH circle jerk I found this article which seems to illuminate the topic fairly well:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9045587/Barack-Obama-is-trying-to-make-the-US-a-more-socialist-state.html


What was it everybody used to say about the United States? Look at what’s happening over there and you will see our future. Whatever Americans are doing now, we will be catching up with them in another 10 years or so. In popular culture or political rhetoric, America led the fashion and we tagged along behind.

Well, so much for that. Barack Obama is now putting the United States squarely a decade behind Britain. Listening to the President’s State of the Union message last week was like a surreal visit to our own recent past: there were, almost word for word, all those interminable Gordon Brown Budgets that preached “fairness” while listing endless new ways in which central government would intervene in every form of economic activity.

Later, in a television interview, Mr Obama described his programme of using higher taxes on the wealthy to bankroll new government spending as “a recipe for a fair, sound approach to deficit reduction and rebuilding this country”. To which we who come from the future can only shout, “No***8209;o-o, go back! Don’t come down this road!”

As we try desperately to extricate ourselves from the consequences of that philosophy, which sounds so eminently reasonable (“giving everybody a fair share”, the President called it), we could tell America a thing or two – if it would only listen. Human beings are so much more complicated than this childlike conception of fairness assumes. When government takes away an ever larger proportion of the wealth which entrepreneurial activity creates and attempts to distribute it “fairly” (that is to say, evenly) throughout society in the form of welfare programmes and public spending projects, the effects are much, much more complex and perverse than a simple financial equation would suggest.

[CCIP]

While that's an interesting view, I think it's fair to say that the article has nothing to do with the topic.

Of course, Obama is the topic of every thread in GT, so maybe I'm wrong :roll:

[August]

While that's an interesting view, I think it's fair to say that the article has nothing to do with the topic.

Of course, Obama is the topic of every thread in GT, so maybe I'm wrong :roll:

It certainly wouldn't be the first time you were wrong. :roll:

[CCIP]

No, really, I don't see how :-?

It's an opinion piece about the failure of socialist welfare policies in Europe and how Obama is wrong to look up to them. It has nothing to do with historical revisionism, America-bashing, or the causes of war with Japan.

The only thing it has in common with the OP is that the author sees red the moment the terms "left wing" and "socialism" appear on the horizon, although unlike the OP the article at least rationalizes its disdain for the left.

Other than that, I'm not seeing it.

[mookiemookie]

No, really, I don't see how :-?

It's an opinion piece about the failure of socialist welfare policies in Europe and how Obama is wrong to look up to them. It has nothing to do with historical revisionism, America-bashing, or the causes of war with Japan.

The only thing it has in common with the OP is that the author sees red the moment the terms "left wing" and "socialism" appear on the horizon, although unlike the OP the article at least rationalizes its disdain for the left.

Other than that, I'm not seeing it.

I'm with you. I'm not really seeing the connection here....

[tater]

Yeah, the topic is about bias in history texts. For example, A People's History Of The United States by Zinn is terribly biased to the left. Zinn said as much about it. He claimed it to advance a social goal. It is also used as a standard text all over. THAT is bias in history.

"Histories" that make the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan have time and time again, repeated partial information, making it look as if Japan was trying to surrender, and we knew it. What they had was 1/2 the conversation. The Ambassador to the CCCP was cabling home to say they SHOULD surrender, what they do not tell the reader is that the cable back to him basically said, "No. We will bleed them on the beaches first to secure a better deal." So bias gets in there sometimes, and unfortunately, you need to be well read to see it sometimes.

BTW, up the thread someone mentioned Costello's book. I read about 1/3 to 1/2 through one of his, and had been correcting so many errors in my head as I read, I decided I knew more than he did (some of it really dumb stuff like the wrong types of planes being named, etc).

[Tchocky]

Quoted off th'article.

. It is bizarre that Obama should be regarded (or should regard himself) as a kind-of European He's only regarded as such by political opponents who use it as a perjorative.

See Romney, Gingrich, et al

...who is trying to bring a sophisticated kind-of socialism to American economic life, complete with government-run health care and ***8220;fair***8221; (high) taxes on the wealthy. If his European credentials were up to date, he would know that this was precisely the social model that is causing the EU to implode, and whose hopeless contradictions the best economic minds on the Continent are attempting, unsuccessfully, to resolve.The current EU problems have little to do with tax rates and nothing at all to do with healthcare policy. As a percentage of GDP goes, the generic EU share for healthcare is massively below that of the US. Problems of fiscal independence conflicting with political and monetary union (and with a inflationary hawkish central bank) are totally unique and can't be handwaved away as a "social model". Nevermind the exact details of the Greek tragedy or the Irish/Portugese bailouts.

This writer does not know what she's on about. Standard Torygraph.

EDIT - Tater, just saw your post. I liked Zinn's History. Pretty clearly biased, but I learned about a couple of new things in it that a lot of other books skip over.

[August]

Well at least I broke the circle jerk. :)

[Tribesman]

I would think not. As I recall, the AVG did not fly its first combat missions against the Japanese until the week following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
what year did their boss get his job as a "banker/farmer" in china?

The 1990's retroactive reinstatement of the Group's status of US servicemen was for the seven months between December 1941 and July 1942.


The reinstatement was for "no break in service", which covers from each persons "resignation" till the units disbandment.

Of course, Obama is the topic of every thread in GT, so maybe I'm wrong
Well for balance since its history and Blair and Bush both said "let history be the judge of that" we can without a shadow of a doubt say that their stated aims for the war were lies, their "objectives" were mere fantasies and the outcome so far is pretty much exactly what was predicted by those who pointed out the obvious while Bush and Blair were still spouting their crazy plans.
Though of course the finer details of their ballsup will be fleshed out in the next few decades.
Or alternatively you could just look at the piece see that its written by a Murdoch&Barclay regular and write it off the same as you would an Al-Asqa publication.


In an attempt to get beyond the Trollsman/MH circle jerk I found this article which seems to illuminate the topic fairly well:

Well since the drive by troll wants to illuminate the topic lets take a really good example.
History WIKI and sources:know:
How many of the six large frigates the US authorised in 1794 got built?
how many were rated as 44s?
how many could be described as sister ships?
What did the WIKI say?
How many claims were made using WIKI as a link to back up those claims yet were contradicted by the very link provided as a source of the claims?
:rotfl2:
Good example really as the Constitution is a big part of a nations history and is on the local history tour as the big star, so really someone in that nation let alone anyone local should have the story of its basic history down pretty well.

[August]

I see that the trollman is back. I won't open his latest bit of hate and envy because frankly he's never been worth the skin he inhabits, but I assume that my attempt to derail his troll has not been successful.

Oh well somebody let me know if there is anything in there worth reporting. :yawn:

[Tribesman]

Tater, are you missing out the soviets role with the telegrams and diplomacy and their own aims by that time(which were not too different from their earlier aims or the pre-soviet aims).

I see that the trollman is back.

hate and envy
Look in the mirror you sad person

[tater]

Soviet aims are another issue altogether. The point is that I have read histories (popular ones, for the most part) that make the claim that the US knew through codebreaking that the japs wanted to surrender to us, and we bombed them anyway (because we wanted to test it, didn't want to wait a few weeks because of the Soviets, etc). They fail to mention that the higher level code used for outgoing commo to diplomats (or the codes we broke that allies and neutrals used) was unambiguous that Japan would not be surrendering to the US until after an invasion.

An attempt at a separate peace with the CCCP was also something they looked into (which the CCCP wanted no part of, as they planned to invade and take some of the far east for themselves).

Combined Fleet: Decoded (mentioned above) has some on this, as does the excellent book, Downfall by Richard Frank. Frank's book is particularly useful because it was done after many of the other codes broken had finally been declassified. The more biased histories were running with declassified code breaking, knowing full well that they (the authors) did not know the response, but the primary actors in the US military and government did know the responses, and said that they knew japan would not surrender. Franks could finally point out the actual replies, and show what we really knew.

[Randomizer]

Tater hits the high points and Frank's Downfall provides context to many of the one-sided arguments used by those who advocate that the Bomb should never have been used on a city.

Submit that Japan certainly brought Hiroshima and Nagasaki entirely upon itself. The junta in Tokyo could have ended the war at any time by accepting the Potsdam Declaration and refused to do so repeatedly. Also, diplomatic responses phrased in subtle manners requiring cultural insights that America was not likely to possess exacerbated the issue. Where clarity was needed the junta provided only obfuscation.

Whether Potsdam was the correct course of action for the Allies is a question entirely separate from the atomic bombings although it is common to lump the two together in order to victimize the Japanese and vilify Truman.

Japan had been well warned about what was going to happen, publicly and accurately so to invoke AM Harris' biblical imagery, having sowed the wind, Japan reaped the nuclear whirlwind.

[MH]

Document 62 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/62.pdf): "Hoshina Memorandum" on the Emperor's "Sacred Decision [go-seidan]," 9-10 August, 1945
Source: Zenshiro Hoshina, Daitoa Senso Hishi: Hoshina Zenshiro Kaiso-roku [Secret History of the Greater East Asia War: Memoir of Zenshiro Hoshina] (Tokyo, Japan: Hara-Shobo, 1975), excerpts from Section 5, "The Emperor made go-seidan [= the sacred decision] ***8211; the decision to terminate the war," 139-149 [translation by Hikaru Tajima]
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/hiroshima-4_thumb.jpg (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/hiroshima-4.jpg)An overview of the destruction of Hiroshima [undated, circa August-September 1945] (Photo from U.S. National Archives, RG 306-NT)
Despite the bombing of Hiroshima, the Soviet declaration of war, and growing worry about domestic instability, the Japanese cabinet (whose decisions required unanimity) could not form a consensus to accept the Potsdam Declaration. Members of the Supreme War Council***8212;***8220;the Big Six***8221;[46] (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm#_edn46)***8212;wanted the reply to Potsdam to include at least four conditions (e.g., no occupation, voluntary disarmament); they were willing to fight to the finish. The peace party, however, deftly maneuvered to break the stalemate by persuading a reluctant emperor to intervene. According to Hasegawa, Hirohito had become convinced that the preservation of the monarchy was at stake. Late in the evening of 9 August, the emperor and his advisers met in the bomb shelter of the Imperial Palace.
Zenshiro Hoshina, a senior naval official, attended the conference and prepared a detailed account. With Prime Minister Suzuki presiding, each of the ministers had a chance to state his view directly to Hirohito. While Army Minister Anami tacitly threatened a coup (***8220;civil war***8221;), the emperor accepted the majority view that the reply to the Potsdam declaration should include only one condition not the four urged by ***8220;Big Six.***8221; Nevertheless, the condition that Hirohito accepted was not the one that foreign minister Togo had brought to the conference. What was at stake was the definition of the kokutai (national policy). Togo***8217;s proposal would have been generally consistent with a constitutional monarchy because it defined the kokutai narrowly as the emperor and the imperial household. What Hirohito accepted, however, was a proposal by the extreme nationalist Kiichiro Hiranuma which drew upon prevailing understandings of the kokutai: the ***8220;mythical notion***8221; that the emperor was a living god. ***8220;This was the affirmation of the emperor***8217;s theocratic powers, unencumbered by any law, based on Shinto gods in antiquity, and totally incompatible with a constitutional monarchy.***8221; Thus, the Japanese response to the Potsdam declaration opposed ***8220;any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of his Majesty as a sovereign ruler.***8221; This proved to be unacceptable to the Truman administration.[47] (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm#_edn47)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/62.pdf

This sort of shows state of mind after drop of first nuclear bomb.
While there had been consideration for surrender before the first bomb the document still shows high level of stubbornness and lack of consensus.

As i see it its possible that if USA kept on fire bombing Japan conventionally while preparing for attack on mainland Japan might had surrendered without use of A bomb.
I'm not sure if the civilian damage would be lesser though or if allies could had known it for certain at the time.

[Tribesman]

Soviet aims are another issue altogether.
Not when they are acting as an intermediary in the process.

An attempt at a separate peace with the CCCP was also something they looked into
Tater. what seperate peace?
They were not at war.

[tater]

The jap ambassador was shopping around to use the Soviets to broker a peace. So yes, not a separate peace, I misspoke. The soviets shined them on (cancelled appointments, etc).

Separate from the normal process (contacting the US). Mea culpa.

Regardless, we knew what he was told from the home office because that code was broken as well. No peace until after invasion.

[CaptainHaplo]

History is written by the "victor". This doesn't necessarily mean facts are written in or out - though that does happen - it primarily goes to the issue of what perspective the facts are viewed in.

WW2 is a perfect example. Many point to the end of WW1 as sowing the seeds of WW2. In some ways it did. But to claim the Versaille treaty was "THE" cause of the war negates a big picture view. Japan is viewed as imperialistic and aggressive - and in many ways this was accurate. To dismiss the policies of the US however does remove valid factors from the equation.

No singular perspective of history, especially the history of a major conflict, is going to be entirely accurate. The wise scholar realizes this, and weighs the various factors in detail. This does mean that one opinion can be vastly different from the next when learned men discuss such topics, but to call a historical perspective "revisionism" can only be accurate if it intenionally denies / skips over relevant, documented facts.