The historical profession is nowhere famous for its tolerance, but there are not many countries where historians can expect to pay for their opinions with penal servitude or the firing squad.
Norman DaviesRead
Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how differing perspectives on history can be manipulated to justify agendas.
Norman Davies emphasizes that various sides in a debate or conflict often attempt to validate their positions by revisiting historical events. This can involve selectively highlighting certain occurrences or even fabricating history to support their narratives, illustrating the complexity and subjectivity in interpreting the past.
Themes
HistoryManipulationPerspectiveNarrativeTruth
In practice
Example use cases
In a history class discussing how different countries interpret World War II.
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Nowadays, it is no longer possible to maintain that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 was a fiction invented by bourgeois-imperialist enemies. Everyone has seen the film clips of Herr Ribbentrop landing in Moscow, and of Stalin smiling broadly as Ribbentrop and Molotov signed up side by side.
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Why are some things remembered and others forgotten? That is the theme I want to pursue about the Second World War.
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Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today.
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One might have thought that 70 years was time enough to work out what really happened in 1939. It isn't the case. Misunderstandings and misinformation abound.
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