MENU: 4.1. History: which facts?
HISTORIANS WEAVE THEIR TALES
FROM A MYRIAD OF FACTS,
INEVITABLY OMITTING MOST
So history is subjective
(like any kind of reporting),
but some views make much more sense
than others
- We are used to choice for identity...
Poster at the Louvre
 |
Washington crosses the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, 1851 / zoom |
An image displayed in American classrooms
- ...or to promote a form of society
.jpg)
The life of George Washington: a farmer at Mount Vernon by Juliux Brutus Stearns, 1851, painting at the Library of Congress / zoom
 |
Lenin mobilizing the proletariat (Soviet illustration without further information) / zoom |
But we are not used to interpreting change
through the lens of its economic base.
Economic forces determine who wields power
and lead to deciphering the interests
that lie behind slogans and philosophies.
History seen from that angle is subversive,
which explains why it is suppressed. *
* In the United States that suppression coincides with the Cold War. When I majored in the intellectual history of modern Europe at Vassar College in the 1960's and went on for a Master's degree at the Soviet Union Program at Harvard, we were not assigned a single page of Karl Marx or of any of the historians who followed his lead. His philosophy of "materialism" was not mentioned even once.
In France where the effects of World War II brought a powerful left, the suppression coincides with the rise of multinationals.
# # #
An example of how emphasizing the economic base
changes our perception of change:
The French Revolution and its sequel,
the forgotten Revolution of 1830
|
Many people think the most famous work created in France celebrates the French Revolution, but it celebrates the Revolution of 1830, its overlooked conclusion.
In brief
- The French Revolution: Abolishing nobles' privileges lets capitalism take wing
- The Revolution of 1830: capitalism's forgotten triumph
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