Why Do So Many People Automatically and Angrily Condemn Historical Revisionism?
By Robert Higgs • Wednesday December 7, 2011 7:12 PM PDT • 40 Comments
Over the years, especially in writing for the general public, as opposed to my professional peers, I have been struck repeatedly by the frequency with which certain conclusions or even entire classes of conclusions elicit not merely skepticism, but angry denunciation. Again and again, I have been called a fool, a traitor, or an America-hater because of my commentaries on history and public affairs. Although I take no pleasure in these denunciations, I find myself not so much depressed by them as curious about them. I wonder why people react as they do, especially when my commentary rests—as I hope it generally does—on well-documented facts and correct logic.
I surely do not consider myself immune to errors, of course. But if my facts are incorrect, the critic has an obligation to say why my facts are incorrect and to state, or at least to point toward, the correct facts. If my logic has run off the rails, the critic has an obligation to state how I fell into fallacious reasoning. More often than not, however, the critic resorts immediately to name-calling and to wild characterizations of my statements and my person. Thus, I have often been called a socialist, a Marxist, a conservative, an apologist for corporations or the rich, a (modern left) liberal, or something else that by no stretch of the imagination properly describes me or my intellectual or ideological position.
Certain topics are virtually guaranteed to elicit such reactions. When I write about the welfare state and especially about government programs ostensibly aimed at helping the least-well-off members of society, I confidently expect that critics will assail me as a fascist or as an ivory-tower dweller who has no understanding of how poor people really live and no compassion for them. When I write about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in relation to U.S. economic warfare in 1939-41, I invariably attract angry personal abuse from people of delicate nationalistic sensibilities, from those chronically on the look-out for traitors, and from those who cannot imagine that the nation’s leaders, in general, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in particular, might have deliberately provoked a Japanese attack or refrained from warning U.S. commanders in Hawaii that an attack was coming.
When people are offended or otherwise greatly displeased by historical analysis, they often employ the term “historical revisionism” as a synonym for falsified, distorted, or doctored accounts that fly in the face of what they, their history teachers, and perhaps even the most respected university historians believe to have been the case.
The irony of such use of the term “historical revision,” which makes it practically a swear word, is that revisionism is and always has been an integral part of historical research and writing. As a rule, professional historians do not seek simply to pile up more and more evidence for what historians already generally believe. Historians who proceed in this way cannot expect to make much of a name for themselves. Instead, historians try to find new evidence and new ways of interpreting old evidence that change the currently accepted view. That is, they seek to revise the current orthodoxy. In doing so, they need not be ideological mavericks, although those who are may have an additional reason for their revisionist efforts. In short, revisionism is an unremarkable aspect of workaday historical research and writing. Why then do so many readers go ballistic about it?
One reason why revisionists are sometimes seen as subversives stems from the tendency of historians in general to accept the most fundamental aspects of their own society as right and desirable. So, however much political historians may dispute the details of particular campaigns, elections, and policy-making by elected officials—and such disputation runs rampant, to be sure—one hardly expects these historians to conclude that the democratic process itself is little more than a snare and a delusion, a vast apparatus for fooling the masses into believing that they have genuine control over how they are ruled. And however much military and foreign-policy historians may argue with one another about how various wars were entered into and conducted, one hardly expects these historians to conclude that wars almost invariably hurt the mass of the people and benefit, if anyone at all, only the national leadership, its supporting elite, and a ragtag band of hangers-on (which includes, we might note, the “court historians”).
When a historian strays outside the 40-yard lines within which the bulk of the historical writing and teaching takes place, however, he is likely to be met with the dreaded accusation that he is not an honest, competent, or “respected” historian, but a revisionist—a writer who seeks to propagate socially destructive and utterly unfounded ideas in order to rend the fabric of national unity and undermine the nation’s virtues. Thus, one who challenges the standard account of Pearl Harbor can expect not simply to be disbelieved, but also to be personally condemned and vilified. Readers will say that he dishonors the brave men who gave their lives to preserve our freedoms, and so forth. Many people possess a loaded ideological gun with a hair trigger, and the slightest shake suffices to cause them to fire away. Moreover, they shoot first and reserve their fact-checking and more careful thought for later, if indeed they ever reach that stage.
One is tempted to suspect that such quick-draw reactions reveal an underlying lack of confidence in their own beliefs. If my views are so manifestly stupid and anti-social, why respond to them at all? Is it not more sensible to ignore them than to spend time in lavishing calumny on their author? In the age of the Internet, however, many people seem to get their kicks by denouncing and insulting anyone who offends their own sensibilities and their own cherished beliefs. Anyone who seeks examples of ad hominem arguments may easily collect them by the thousands and perhaps by the millions at the websites that feature news and commentary on public affairs. Every other species of logical fallacy may be found there in abundance as well, but my guess is that the ad hominem fallacy occurs more often than any other. Moreover, few people—even seemingly well-educated people—seem to be able to stay on point. So if a revisionist’s argument cannot be refuted, his critics freely set up and knock down straw men that they represent as the offender himself. Careful reading is not the most notable activity of those who engage in such flailing away. Many attackers do not even complete their reading, but begin their assault on an author immediately, after having read only a few sentences or paragraphs, as they sometimes admit.
Well, nobody ever promised the revisionist a bed of roses, especially if he challenges ideas that are widely accepted and valued. Americans want to believe that their nation is the greatest that ever was, that they themselves are better than other people in almost every way, including morally. They want to believe that at least some of their government leaders were virtuous and heroic, that their soldiers sacrificed more nobly than the enemy’s did, that their country is the last, best hope of humanity, blah, blah, blah. Much of this catalogue of taken-for-granted outlooks and beliefs is ludicrous, but woe unto the writer who laughs out loud at it. “Revisionist, revisionist!” the mobs will cry, expressing the demand that he “get out of the country” and the hope that every species of bad luck and personal misfortune will befall him. If I were one of those social psychologists who enjoy labeling any ideological trait they dislike as a form of mental illness, I might declare that the hair-trigger enemies of historical revisionism are a gaggle of sickos.
Tags: American History 
As a Ron Paul supporter, I feel ya, bruh.
daddysteve | Dec 7, 2011 | Reply
Robert.....What you are experiencing is the end result of one of the many tactics used by practitioners of Cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxists strive to control the Main Stream Media,Public Education and Academia. Their efforts are designed to slant knowledge,especially historical knowledge,in such a direction that it bolsters their collectivist views with the general public. When you come along and refute many of their historic slants you throw a monkey wrench into their machinery of education. Instead of debating each subject objectively these statists,both of the left and right,try to discredit their opponents personally and by extension their opponent’s “revisionist” insights into history. In other words,they do not attack the idea but,instead,attack the person. To paraphrase George Orwell,”In times of deceit,to tell the truth is a revolutionary act.” In you own way you are a revolutionist. All I have to say is that a little revolution now and then is a good thing. Keep it up.
Libertarian Jerry | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Very well put, but this automatic dismissal of historical revisionism is hardly an American phenomenon. It is very deeply rooted in many other countries, including my own: Sweden. And, in fact, before I started reading and seeking truth on my own, I rejected historical revisionism flat out as some nasty, [always] politically driven attempt to *distort* rather than revise.
I am not sure where this view that revisionism is distortion and evil comes from, but I would guess it is a result of many years of schooling, in which the pupil/student is told The Truth. We read the stories of fantastic, brave men who saved countries and were cherished by the whole people. At least, that’s how we learn history in Sweden: the Swedish king always, somehow, is a hero and extremely wise. If he weren’t king, nobody would be able to. The only bad things a king could do is to lose a war (and trust me, Sweden was a very blood-thirsty kingdom for most of its 1,000-year history).
My own, very amateurish, theory of why people dismiss historical revisionism flat out is that history is used so fundamentally as a tool to create a mystical high moral ground based on the nation-state. In my case, it is that “we are Swedes” and that counts for something – we’re superior in many ways, and we have the history to prove it. (Which, by the way, is often quite anecdotal and more of fairytales than facts.)
My first real experience of learning that it is not this simple, is when talking to Finish friends. I had learned that all of Finland was grateful that the Swedish king crushed the Russians (as we often did back then) and threw them out of Finland (a country that throughout history has been subjected by occupying powers, Sweden and Russia taking turns to be their masters). In fact, Swedish history books clearly state that the Finish people were much better off under Swedish rule, so they cheerfully greeted the Swedish king when beating the Russians. Not so, said my friend – “we were always better off under the Russians.” It didn’t fit at all with what I had learned, but I couldn’t flat out say that he was wrong in the history of his own country...
The fact that the European Union is investing hundreds of million of euros to produce a “European” history textbook to use in school – explicitly made to create a common European culture – tells me history is very consciously used by the ruling class to brainwash the young. So revisionism is often and quickly pointed out as a bad thing. The only attempts at revisionism I remember from when I was a kid, was *always* people claiming there was no holocaust (or any such historical event/belief held way beyond criticizability, and which is an ingrained part of political correctness). So any other revisionism is automatically sorted into the same “camp”: neo-Nazis covering up after Hitler. So is it that strange that people tend to dismiss revisionism flat out? That’s what they’ve been taught to believe.
Per Bylund | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
How about historical revisionism is up there with those who argue that the cure for cancer exists but the government is hiding it to keep the population down. If such historical controversies really existed then it make news. Instead it’s a retell of how Libetarian wish history and make perfectly evil those they hate:
“F.D.R. wasn’t simply the admirer of Hitler and wanted to replicate his system in the U.S. but he also secretly started a war with the innocent Japanese and feigned surprise to the publice when the poor Japanese merely defended themselves to get all the public support and funding he needed.”
After all, when it was discovered the Luisitania was indeed carrying arms it made the news around the world.
Gil | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
The title of your article asks, “Why Do So Many People Automatically and Angrily Condemn Historical Revisionism?”
Answer: because so many people are stupid and/or ignorant.
Paul | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Paul is correct: it is because so many are ignorant and/or stupid, yet arrogantly have an “opinion”.
Additionally, if so many accepted the reality, as opposed to the lie put forth always, they might actually have to do something...change...
and that can’t be.
kirk | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Bob:
It’s as Jorge Quiroga said during his introduction for Mario Vargas Llosa at our 25th Anniversary Gala at which you were also honored. The Trotskyists can’t refute him with words, so they throw sticks and stones. Your critics can’t refute your superior scholarship with reason, so they hurl invective.
But we shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set us free!
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
The masses are ignorant, gullible, arrogant, and infantile. Expect ad hominem comments, etc. , from all.
richard | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Robert,
I think one of the biggest problems is that many people tend to take certain aspects of our history a matter of faith, and when you challenge or question that “faith”, they invariably feel personally affronted. This is similar to how many of those same people will feel when someone questions their religious beliefs, etc.
Much of this goes back to the way in which history is taught in the US, as a social science rather than as a philosophical science. As a social science we tend to use our history to justify our public policy choices, which means that we need to write it in such a way that, for example social security and medicare can be made to sound like core components of what the founding fathers wanted. Then when you challenge that “belief” with the facts you will be condemned for wanting to kill old people.
If we viewed the study of history as a philosophical science, as a study in the evolution of thought and society, of the interaction between acts and consequences we would be able to have the type of rational discussion you strive for, rather than the emotion-laden fits of name calling we end up with.
Frank | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
@Mark and Jerry,
It is not just the Trotskites or the Cultural Marxists that engage in this behavior. Unfortunately, just as many people on the right – Evangelicals, Christian Conservatives, Tea Partiers, etc. behave in the same manner.
Frankly, I think it this constant “us versus them” mentality – equally prevalent on the right and the left – that create this atmosphere of “being offended” every time someone dares to publicly discuss the facts of our history.
Frank | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Perhaps the nasty reactions to your articles are not so much to the arguments as to the tone which seems to imply that anyone disagreeing is either stupid or evil. I would still like to see some of your evidence for the following (from your previous article):
“Because American cryptographers had also broken the Japanese naval code, the leaders in Washington knew as well that Japan’s “measures” would include an attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet they withheld this critical information from the commanders in Hawaii, who might have headed off the attack or prepared themselves to defend against it.”
Jake | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
I totally agree. I might add, the school system(s)are very guilty of promoting such fixations. An excellent and refreshing article.
Dan
DANIEL W. DYKES, MSGT, USAF RET | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Gil, that’s a strawman. I’ve never heard anyone refer to the Japanese empire as “innocent.”
And most news of the holes in war propaganda hardly makes a splash. It’s covered in newspapers of record on the seventh page.
Anthony Gregory | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Why do people get angry at revisionist history? For the same reason some people get angry at revisionist science, or literature. I think the reason is simple; so simple that it would not occur to you. Mr. Higgs, YOU are an honest man who has an actual desire to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You will gladly give up what you mistakenly know if it will get you a little closer to the truth. Most people do not have that desire. They like the feeling of competency and power that comes with knowledge but they do not actually care so much about actual truth. Appearing correct — and thus smarter than the rest — is what they really want. Whether what they think is what the facts are, is not important to them. When you find some closer approach to the truth, they don’t want to hear. To them, it is like you are saying, “You did not know this, you are not so smart, not so wise. You are a poser.”
They don’t care about the truth, they care about self-image. When you tell them the truth, they feel like you are attacking them.
Jason Calley | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
I enjoy reading history books rather than fiction and I am an avid reader. What really bothers me is that some authors take public attitudes for granted and make broad statements in their American history books about racism, Indian affairs, empire building, etc... without proving it or presenting the other side of the story. They inject their opinions instead painting a picture with facts and letting me, the reader, make up my own mind about it. It annoys me to the point that when I browse through books in the bookstore, if I see that on the flap or while I’m flipping through it, I put it down and move on.
Bonnie | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
When we think of something as true and good, it helps to secure us, anchor us to the oak tree so to speak. Revisionists are more often than not false conspirators trying to rock the boat with their own agenda, reasons. So, when someone comes along with truth, we are justifiably suspicious and not so readily accepting.
jock anderson | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
“After all, when it was discovered the Lusitania was indeed carrying arms it made the news around the world.”
Gil, you do realize that there was AMPLE purely historical evidence for the Lusitania carrying arms as soon as the ship sank, don’t you? There ought never to have been any real doubt. Not only that, but even today there is supposed “debate” over whether the millions of rounds of ammo-not just documented but found-should technically be considered munitions-the myth is still trying to hold, despite overwhelming evidence.
You pick a strange example.
Mike Stahl | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
No, Mike, there was no evidence that the Lusitania was carrying arms because the wreck was discovered relatively recently. It’s akin to saying there’s plenty of history evidence that a alien craft crashed in Roswell in that many two-bit crackpot have written articles and books about it. Your “evidence” amounts to taking the Germans’ words over the British’s words, i.e. a contrarian stance that just happened to be right – correlation not causation.
Gil | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
Yes, Anthony, according to Libertarians the Japanese were innocent to Libertarians because they simply retaliating against U.S. provocation for which the U.S. had absolutely no business being in. Heck it’s even be suggested U.S. pigheadness in China help give rise to Mao.
Gil | Dec 8, 2011 | Reply
I would like to thank Gil for providing evidence in support of my theory.
Paul | Dec 9, 2011 | Reply
“according to Libertarians the Japanese were innocent to Libertarians because they simply retaliating against U.S. provocation for which the U.S. had absolutely no business being in”
This assumes that one side in a war is always in the right. Libertarians tend to believe a war can easily involve two or more governments in the wrong. The Japanese should not have attacked the United States. The United States should not have attacked Japan. In both attacks, innocents died — making both attacks murderous and unlibertarian.
“Heck it’s even be suggested U.S. pigheadness in China help give rise to Mao.”
And what’s wrong with that interpretation?
Anthony Gregory | Dec 9, 2011 | Reply
Robert,
Keep up the good work in the midst of regime uncertainty.
Tom E. Snyder | Dec 9, 2011 | Reply
How to know which version of history is more accurate? How do we avoid confirmation bias
and Hindsight bias – sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect or the tendency to see past events as being predictable at the time those events happened(sometimes phrased as “Hindsight is 20/20″ as in the case of Roosevelt’s so-called foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor.
Consider the Tea Party.
Say the future consensus is that the Tea Party was a laudable movement for the reduction of government.
Revisionist history would point out their cockeyed view of history, the racism, the narrow understanding held by many of them of economics and current events.
On the other hand
Say the future consensus is the the Tea Party was a movement of right wing kooks.
The revisionist could point out the voices of sanity within the movement.
Both views can be undercut by revisionist history.
The best that revisionism can do is show how it is possible to have a different perspective on what someone else may consider incontrovertible empirical proof of a proposition.
Jim Gill | Dec 9, 2011 | Reply
Historical revisionists certainly aren’t immune from conformism and group-think themselves. They aren’t always open to conflicting ideas either, and often show the arrogance and self-righteousness of those who think they’ve found the truth. Revisionist interpretations can become an oppressive orthodoxy just like any other perspective. Consider lewrockwell.com, the site that pointed me to your article. Not much room for dissenting views about history there.
Alan | Dec 10, 2011 | Reply
Japan was innocent in if Libertarian the U.S. had no right to interfere. If the U.S. was the aggresssor than the Japanese were engaging in self-defence, period. All U.S. deaths were then rightful reliation for the Japanese.
Gil | Dec 10, 2011 | Reply
Dr.Robert Higgs, 12/10/2011
One revealing the truth can either be considered a Traitor or a Patriot!Being labelled a traitor,one is not free and will be vehemently attacked by those who prefer to live in the “Allegory of the Cave.”
Keep up the good work -
James M. de Laurier
James de Laurier | Dec 10, 2011 | Reply
Robert, I suspect that in a generation’s time or two from now, historians will look back at the 9-11 attacks with a revisionist perspective. Today, these revisionists are called conspiracy theorists and traitors, because of the close proximity to the event that caused so much anguish and hatred towards their perceived enemies. Once people understand how those of the ruling class operate, how they use such events to enrich themselves, and see the horrible results of such orchestrations, then there will be an honest investigation into the whole 9-11 spectacle. Even FDR understood that history doesn’t happen by accident.
David | Dec 11, 2011 | Reply
I think that history is really being constantly revised. The bare bones of history consists of dates, locations and brief descriptions of current interpretations of event. But to ‘flesh it out’ almost always requires extrapolation on those bare bones, and those extrapolations change with the interpreter and the ‘zeitgeist’. History written in the 1950′s reads much differently from history written in the 1990′s, whick is itself different from history written today. History should be a ‘living’ discipline; new facts are dug up long after the events occur, and patterns emerge in hindsight. No one living through 1929-1941 would have known what you were talking about if you reffered to The Great Depresion, nor would they know what you meant if you asked about World War One. On the other hand, historians should be very careful about ‘revisions’. The first question in my mind is, much like with the news, ‘Is there a political slant on this?’ Most of the ‘revisionist history’ I’ve seen is slanted toward some political outlook, i.e. Left or Right. If the revision is purely a matter of a new and, in the opinion of the historian, more correct interpretation of the known facts, I’m all in favor of that. It simply seems rare to find that kind of objectivism in ‘revisionist’ history. More often, it brings to mind images of the kind of ‘history’ described in Orwell’s 1984. So my final conclusion is that history has to remain open to ‘revision’, but that great care has to be exercised and every account, including the original, should be taken with a grain of salt.
Michael B. Jackson | Dec 11, 2011 | Reply
Revisionism is to History as Creative Destruction is to Economic Progress.
D. Saul Weiner | Dec 11, 2011 | Reply
Jake writes: “Perhaps the nasty reactions to your articles are not so much to the arguments as to the tone which seems to imply that anyone disagreeing is either stupid or evil. I would still like to see some of your evidence for the following (from your previous article):
‘Because American cryptographers had also broken the Japanese naval code, the leaders in Washington knew as well that Japan’s “measures” would include an attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet they withheld this critical information from the commanders in Hawaii, who might have headed off the attack or prepared themselves to defend against it.’”
I have not said, nor have I intended to suggest, that those who take angry offense at historical revisionism or who disagree with what I write in general are either stupid or evil, although I do not rule out the possibility that some of them are not terribly bright.
The historical evidence with regard to the breaking of the Japanese naval code is the main subject of Robert Stinnett’s deeply researched book “Day of Deceit,” which I have cited repeatedly in my own writings.
Robert Higgs | Dec 12, 2011 | Reply
Right On,
The evidence is compelling that FDR committed many acts of war against Germany and Japan prior to Pearl Harbor, and launched a multi-step plan to make sure that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor and not some US possession further west that might be inadequate to rally the US public for war. As another example, the US discharged multiple pilots so that they (as the “Flying Tigers”) could be used as mercenaries to bomb and decimate Japanese troops for a year prior to Pearl Harbor.
Sadly, this type of treachery and the use of False Flag attacks (both LIHOPs and MIHOPs) to rally public opinion to support a war of aggression has been used to launch United States involvement in every war in US history including the War on Terror, the War on drugs, the war on “enemies within” like “socialists” and “communists” etc. etc.
US history books are packed with historical falsehoods so that the American public will remain forever gullible and as reactive as possible against any true telling of history.
Jay
Jay Marg | Dec 12, 2011 | Reply
As you said, historians try to pile up new evidence that change the currently accepted orthodoxy. But that is not, in itself, a good thing. Sometimes the current orthodoxy is correct; sometimes it isn’t.
Malcolm Smith | Dec 12, 2011 | Reply
We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.
daddysteve | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
That last refuge of the scoundrel – patriotism -plus zenophobia tend to fuel the hatred of historical revision. I’m probably infringing copyright and it’s only just relevant to the discussion, but what the hell, Christmas is coming and we all need something to smile at.
These verses are from the Song of Patriotic Prejudice by the late Messrs Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. After slagging off the Scots, Welsh and Irish they continue...
And crossing the channel one cannot say much
For the French or the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch;
The Germans are German, the Russians are Red
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed.
The English are moral the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood
And all the world over each nation’s the same -
They’ve simply no notion of Playing the Game;
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they’ve won,
And they practise beforehand, which ruins the fun!
The English, the English, the English are best!
So up with the English and down with the rest!
It’s not that they’re wicked or naturally bad:
It’s knowing their FOREIGN that makes them so mad!
For the English are all that a nation should be
And the flower of the English are Donald and me!
The English, the English, the English are best!
I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest!
John Harrison | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Sorry! Typo in the second line of the last verse. It should, of course, be: “It’s knowing they’re foreign... etc”, not “their”.
John Harrison | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Prove that Santa Claus does not exist and you will be denounced. You have callously destroyed the emotionally comfortable beliefs of millions.
Barry Milliken | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Thanks for the Flanders and Swan quote! It is always good to me reminded of them.
In retirement, Calvin Coolidge said: “Why, if England, for instance, was in our position today, she would ‘take charge of Civilization for the benefit of Humanity’ within forty-eight hours!”
Today, we have done just that.
Jim Cooke | Dec 13, 2011 | Reply
Isn’t it ignorant to broadly paint people as stupid? Seems pretty harsh. Maybe they just don’t give a damn about the issue. I mean, if I would rather read about Justin Bieber, it would make more than a little insipid, but it would be my right...
John | Dec 16, 2011 | Reply
I think a lot of animosity toward those who dispute the received doctrine is simply because it upsets what we “know” to be true.
Cardinal Newman wrote a book called “An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent” in which he says that he thinks England is an island, but he doesn’t know this for a fact, but accepts it on authority that it is. He has never sailed around it to verify it for himself.
Much of what we know is knowledge of this kind. If you ask people how many whole days there are in a year, they will tell you there are 365. If you ask how they know that, they will say something like, “Everybody knows that.” If asked to prove it, they would be at a loss – I certainly would – to do so. The same would be the case if you asked, “Does the earth go around the sun or the sun go around the earth?”
If it was discovered that Matthew Brady had taken a series of photos just as Lincoln was being shot, but the killer was Thaddeus Stevens and not John Wilkes Booth, it would be disconcerting because we all “know” that Booth was the killer even though we weren’t there (or even born) at the time.
Chris Sullivan | Dec 17, 2011 | Reply