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

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.

Sky... should we here in Finland start developing MRBMs to deal with Germany? :hmmm:




:O:

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?

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.

Left wing revisionism.
9/11 1973 anyone ?

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

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:

Chilean coup d'état?

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

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

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.