Rewriting History.

[tiaradesmarais]

In writing history texts books sometimes pieces are left out to avoid offending people. A text book written in Texas left out Thomas Jefferson. And Mr. D’s dad helped write a text book, he wanted to include the accurate truth but the publisher would not allow certain things to avoid controversy. Mr. D asked us whether we think you benefit from rewriting history or is it better to have it written EXACTLY as it happened. I believe its better know the complete truth even if some of it may be offensive to some. Many people say that the reason to learn about history is so we know what works in society and so that we can learn from our ancestors past mistakes. If we leave out controversial issues from history text books, how will we ever learn from those certain mistakes? Why do people think its okay to rewrite history? Personally I think history should be remembered exactly as it happened.

[Mr. Delainey]

Well said, Tiara.

You're correct when you observe some people might be offended by including "this" or "that" in the historical narrative. However, no one person has the right to hide "this" or "that" from another person. Everyone has a right to hear all the details.

With that said, some people are critical of history. Critics say that history is just a story made up by the conquerors to describe the conquered; or it's just the story of "white males" and leaves out the contributions of everyone else. These criticisms are valid to a certain extent. Also, historical events can sometimes be misrepresented, i.e. In the case of Christopher Columbus as I mentioned before in class, e.g. Historians from 1870 to about 2010 have used Washington Irving's The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus to create their history regarding events concering Columbus; however, Irving's book has proven to be in the end quite unreliable. However, the damage is done, i.e. According to Irving the debate between the Catholic Church and Columbus was whether or not the earth was round. In reality, the debate was the SIZE (not whether it was round) of the earth. This is an important distinction.

But to return back to what you were saying regarding Thomas Jefferson....people don't like the man because he represented a world-view or set of values that they dislike. So they don't want their children to learn about him. I'm curious how you could omit the third president of the USA, the author of the Declaration of Independence AND the American Constitution, etc. and still think you're telling history. I'm like you, in that, I want to know exactly what happened and I refuse to believe in mythology just because it makes feel happier. Give me cold brutal facts and I'll give you an accurate picture of what actually happened.