Centuries Later, Henry V’s Greatest Victory Is Besieged by Academia

Revisionism used to be a well respected term by historians from what I've read. Once they started applying it to Irving and his ilk however it aquired a certain taint.

 

History has to be revised to represent new levels of knowledge, there's no argument about that.
But doing it to represent one political viewpoint is a different thing entirely. This is a bunch I'm wary of-
http://www.ihr.org/main/about.shtml
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v09/v09p353_Brecht.html

 

Thanks Urqh.....If I knew how to salute on computer, I would. How does one "aquire" salutes from other site users?

Can we call you DON URQH?

Nice to see people coming forward with a view or two, whether we are in agreement or not. That, in my humble view, is what sites like this are all about!

 

That is pretty much what all history is. We are pretty lucky when we look at WW2 because there is a great wealth of souce material there for us. Hell, many of us can just go and talk to someone who was there if we want to. Obviously the further back you look the tougher it gets until eventually you are left with wild extrapolations. Look at our understanding of the 'rise' of Saxon Britain, based until recently on a mixture of Bede and supposition. When dealing with limited evidence however you have to make an educated guess, to say 'this is all I have to go on, from it this is the best conclusion I can draw.'

What annoys me is when 'historians' (usually on TV) dress up supposition as fact, all of history is extrapolation from evidence, essentially guesswork based on whatever evidence is available, you have to accept that and remember it rather than deciding that two pieces of pottery and a shoe indicate a thriving cultural hub (ever seen 'Time Team'?).

S.W.A.G is still a fantastic principle though.

 

yes stefan and its always good when evidence comes along to challenge and change old perceived facts. Thats a good thing..what isnt a good thing is changing supposition with more supposifion..just because we can.

 

True enough but that is the basis of historical study, 'we think the saxons invaded because this book written a couple of centuries later says they did' followed by 'actually we've found evidence they were here before that, here is our best guess on how that could be...'

At the end of the day though, as intelligent, thinking folks it can't be a bad thing when someone comes along with a vague supposition to challenge what we think of as facts because it forces us to reassess and adjust our previous views. Rather than simply accepting the accounts of Agincourt we have been handed by generatons before us because they sound good, what's wrong with saying 'well this is an alternative, how strong is this theory?' Even if the conclusion is 'nope, our old theory is stronger?

I guess one way to think about it is to compare it to science, the wacky, off the wall ideas that went against conventional wisdom and challenged accepted dogma were so often the ideas that led to great advances, why should history not be the same?

 

It all depends I suppose on who you are..or rather the requirements of the person receiving the history..Do we want our history chonilogical and wherever possible backed by physical evidence ..or does the person want his history based on educated supposition of today as we are better educated today and are in a much better position to judge times and events than at the time. Thats acceptable if you can offer evidence to change the boring chroniclers writings ..if you cant offer evidence then you offer no more than them. Just your view. History should be investigated and revised.but with approprate evidence to back a revised claim. Iguess your left with history as a chronilogical writing or history for those that crave an explanation and some who will insist their explanation they crave is the right one because I say so...without new evidence we have the chroniclers of old or the I say soers.