200 Years; Revising History

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society this as rex we're for two hundred years this week we will be talking about revising history with us are robert de vie en professor of history at the university of texas at austin george forty assistant professor of history at university and robert talks also an assistant professor of history at ut austin will open the discussion today with one question for the whole panel just why is history revised up to forty history first of all he's not an official cat in which needs to be diverted from by the succeeding generation

they're always competing explanations for any given historical event written by fallible man riding subjectively about complex materials also i don't mean to be cynical about this history's written by men who are historians by profession professions require that they write history you would get nowhere as a historian by writing what other historians have written before you lost your religion isn't as it were built into the teenager writing history but brooks what really keeps turning point in addition to simply looking at his family i think there are also other reasons occasionally new facts come to life i recall reading about a new diary on the alamo is a new interpretation of what happened or the alamo people writing about that in the future we'll have to look at this new diary and another reason is occasionally new techniques become available which we can look at old evidence evidence with a new light the most important i suppose in history last decade has been used

the computer which allows us to find out things we never dreamed about the past well i think no the president changing president forms argue the past the present change is another view of the past i might feel diplomatic is to hear the report argued last two years the origins of cold war i've restored to horse riding in was the nineteen fifties the answer very clear the russians to record a question about no arguing about recently in the sixties vietnam again a sobering him shelves our basic assumptions and now today in america poverty reduction do i think now or you're saying things are very different light in this way to changing present it as commanders and get you there we answer the next question i'm really interested in partially and others who have as its history and we might add to that is improvise because of the resistance of males who wants to tackle that what you mean by the criticism of

well as celeste it limited it was visiting illustration and i'm in the field of speech and patrick entering ostensibly gave a speech before the house of bridges the speech that he gave was not written down and it was some six weeks later i think that it was a numbers or another gentleman's other is really quite a bit of a question about the exact wording in that speech although we have talked for years nearest to her schoolchildren learn the trick and i made this specific speech before the house of artists my own field is the nineteenth century around the middle of the nineteenth century and historians then it is it is clear valued historical truth with a capital t very highly that is what actually happened as far as it could be reconstructed but they also valued moral truth very highly and it was just as important at the past be used to teach a moral lesson even if that meant filling a little bit with with the fire and the nineteenth century was

notorious for inventing speeches that were made by the founding fathers and clearly putting into their words mouse that would would think about that it's to the writings of george washington so in that sense fairly new one succeeding generations created a myth which a more which a generation more devoted to the so called scientific explanation of history feels that it must correct and we're really and doing the work of previous stories of justice toward the religious right and eighties sudden the startling partner of harry truman today was professional storyteller shannon be of a certain temperature almonds play give him hell harry potter or a lot of a merle miller as both a contest the sacredness of richard nixon some innate of folk hero harry truman stories be contending that was and probably won't work here's the moment in the

realm of popular culture of the way the president concerns change that prospective about the past an unrelated example which are going to be having to do with the rest of our lives of course the watergate and here is a case of the problems of revisionism right from the start what happened at watergate how do we know what happened we're going to get various versions mr nixon is writing his version is that the history of watergate we would hate to think so i suppose even in advance word in bernstein version the history of watergate there will be competing explanations of made by people with certain passions are involved in what happened they will die more dispassionate people will replace them and drawbridge to make a synthesis but then new facts from memoirs and elsewhere will work absolutely the process is never ending and in that regard as long as anyone is interested in an event yet the emotional and all that he'd be awarded a somewhat richard nixon writing about a woodward bernstein and emotion all the competitive at all because it was originally designed for the next generation comes along your arsenal crystal stay there been told

that they they're not experienced a narrow wasn't up with a good look at mosul a dispassionate view that we're really isn't really gets underway the next generation a lot of weight in a receiving government in provence something on watergate also influences the way that this generation looks not at watergate the past events are needed the presidency at the other extreme runaway president cesar having me just begin as his new book on the imperial presidency which he announces things which he himself probably ten years ago would have been much in favor of your rising sun faded and other events along these lines of course be the vietnam war as professor divine mentioned which has had rippling effect not only over the cold war but over all american wars calling even the most sacred avoid like a civil war or world war two and the question the values values put forth and justifications put forth

by the keyboard and who are in them and then the civil rights movement of course reopen the whole problem of racism and the role of racism and in the american press people discover to their car in the nineteen sixties a lincoln was a racist so those have never been known in the question and the question then becomes whose values become important here sri lankan be judged according to the values of his own time and he was certainly far ahead of his time that he was behind our time in that particular case his lawyers should control the historic has to contend with grown to jefferson classic example they're not even the puritans are the same problems but by by contemporary standards and so so lily myers and yet you don't want to live this curricula the story so it's a kind of battle within the focused the time focus the present but what is historical truth is it is such that it is historical truth of rei loneliness isn't much as an angle of vision a very skeptical and says this is the way

roll call that's next on a single perspective and about there's a way that occurred in and agreed to a limited extent i think you can talk about historical truth when you're really something close to that we talk about what actually happened you know that such and such happened on a certain day generally speaking and these are precisely the kinds of things that historians stop writing about the kinds of things that for example we know that lincoln was shot in the back of the head by john wilkes booth on april fourteenth nineteen sixty five and we now leave that to the popularizer to dramatize the kinds of questions about the civil war which interest historians are the kinds of questions to which there is really no factual answer and it becomes your role to be to reconstruct and are you in such a way as to be convincing but there's a built in half left and historians like to think that we were objective and unbiased the country richard nixon woodward and bernstein but we have our own biases or hang ups what we would call a factor in the kennedy assassination is george lee harvey oswald

fired a shot or not that's funded o'connor fact that that was critical of militias does not in his office thought this is great you about the moment when the news of the lincoln assassination well it's i don't know your rights says the case is that people learn in law school about five people witnessing an automobile accident course five people with a completely different than some historians have to contend with ms orlean provable arguments were really depends on a pointed beard position that really caught in gate was in some ways was not written down the iron a letter in every one of the dog in the this is going on forever of the role of the new approach army so we planned attack exposed think the japanese to attack or defeating the get out even defeated easily with your right and then he was always a funny way i got fired from a tank the smoking gun sort of

course the way that you interpret that particular event with a friend roosevelt had any influence on the coming world war two is a term and not so much by franklin roosevelt was by your own attitudes toward secular it was to get all the videos are opposing the time to wait forty over i drove here to a beginner first let's start but the fact that roosevelt did not explicitly evidence free aids a vacuum and touring which historians can can enter into which they can enter and that's exactly where the story like tanner the owner isn't any real hard evidence for the historians imagination has to reconstruct what happened based on evidence to be sure of it has to go beyond that and historians don't just backtrack center out their mind has to impose itself on it something like your job was with a few bones the ancient animal that he has to get all of those two thousand members quote speculation or rearrange them know to historian at this and that was his final looking at the often is analogous he's oftentimes very confusing to students if

a historian presents to them different versions that historians have come up with about what's happened in the past they will often come up at the end of the class into what really happened sometimes teens are very impatient with this says varying approach to history and subjective approach to history and ride art historians as people finally just talking talking to themselves and i think that's one of them on the problems the profession constantly have before it can we take certain specific events are periods but in the founding of the country and decide which heroes or everyone to categorize and have the least bit of factual data available for us too three years ago the farther back you go the less hard factual and it you have that then the same time i don't feel american revolution there's certainly a great deal of factual data there and

it's one of the most controversial all varied in american history to why it happened and what the motives of the people who brought about words that the shrewdest it again twenty essential viewing point of the brief love paper in mass quantities you have witnessed too much of the fun historical truth and sometimes it's too much of this event is to use imagination and find out what's really significant answers questions i thought of the tale teller patterns workers or really add up to the best or the specter we asked nick the stand back ten twenty years a century or more can be in the season things that contemporary could not sleep elliott reports if you begin to see that well isn't there also prominent twentieth century law decisions are made over the telephone operator now you there she was a nineteenth century state various look good on that promise

that phenomenon is true some pre history to the latest minute people are debating about when the indians lived in north america and what they were doing what kind of society is oren on society's what kind of attitudes toward land title for example the head and there is a problem no evidence they have to reconstruct and almost a woman will never ever in the world and i think that's a great part of jobs for them and jerry was no one objected <unk> was there with his family at work or we'll be reduced to just spouting off partying once recent version was there and he may be as good this question the wrong way as in any particular period in american history of which there's more general agreement and other periods but sometimes get neglected some leftist revolutionaries neglected to was entitled it will involve actually welcomes the importance of it it is a war effort at the centennial cut off the head of greeks are leaving

for fraud visit the fashion certain trees because they're more relevant for reconstruction of the civil rights in southern in very important in a lot of books and writing about the age and sixties and seventies mitchell reiss and colonial history probably that's true but also it's we have to remind ourselves sometimes that happens about half of american history occurred before the american revolution and yet the volume of writings about american history would not reflect that in the last ten or fifteen years there's been a renaissance of studies involving colonial life in la a large were opposed to what you mentioned earlier that the computer we have people been able to reconstruct certain aspects of the lifestyles of inarticulate that had he wouldn't we riding on the records of people who were lining the seventeenth century on the basis of things like wills and these texans millions and that couldn't have been done before before the computer and all of the patients as the recent

credit card go with some help from the underside of american history not just through taxes and putin has picked up on some of the people were saying and doing or not the leaders not the victors samantha vanquished movie the indian women or blacks of slaves who covers the political perspective of the truck that is another problem having to do with that and sometimes the evidence is so obvious like the life of women that it never occurred to two to you to ask whether there's something historically significant about this until women themselves assert certain rights then this as with the war in vietnam as were the civil rights movement these things begin asked historians really historians to ascertain that's what where women doing what were women think they've got to admit i think that most history is about men there may be reasons for that are still history most astute about men that we read there are two

books just come out on women in american revolution ten years ago five years ago pro lot to win and even occurred to serious scholarly research and because of that the new emphasis on women announce a soviet changes that we see in our society today you are reflected the un and on our own you're going to generate as new questions ask about the past and that there is what some radicals drawn to succeed her to search for usable person looking for castaways to reinforce in and support our views or take the president was looking for an argument it is a viable business is a lot different than the concept that the platforms and the nineteenth century when people are trying to make history or example sure is it tends to use the past are probably only five min jun on the path of self so today than historians are concerned with the lawyers and david two prove their own

concepts are to prove their argument to point rather than the moral structure of the i think summer stories are they as this as a prayer computer radical story you know the late sixties and also to some extent on caucus night but i think they would probably asserts that they believe that this is the way it was also explicit what they want to show can force with what happened and that's where the problem of evidence and collecting evidence again becomes very real one of the concepts that you can limit been discussing or have these concepts filtered down into history a manhole every classroom level rather any changes there well it i think there is some of that change in too much of it is legit away from study this do for its own sake of the study of history where salt pepper called social studies approach and come to fore and history can magically do that and so that leads to

frustration and to the question of is this really relevant do we need to do this and i'm afraid it leads to disillusionment and i think it's all based on a misconception of oil what his true history is not functional in that sense history should i suppose your perspective in some sense of past experience it provides comparisons of people in the present situation so the people power situation and at just didn't sing on it to see with some meals in a similar situation of as the present is the instant solution that maybe a lot of people regard history and now is partly here not a story also is it is a bad idea so it is about white people what are some of the more dishes concert people in history a progressive i'm at the munich analogy i see a better off in vietnam the evidence thought that or a creator forbidden stop leukemia so simply

and imagination it was so there's been all kinds of victories one company felt everyone falls in your chair at these ideas have a magical the lessons the past we learned that it didn't the story it had the most stores all the teach it had huge advantages because you need some sense it cannot do you just simply dislikes than political from anyone suggest that munich itself resulted from the people in that generation trying not to repeat the mistakes were or one and they were saying we can be got to do this and we don't go back and have what happened in four years of bloody trench warfare which includes a look at what happened to all the wrong lessons so then what we study is we all the alternative remains uncertain of direct personal experience of life but beyond that we study is getting a lot of experience to see an endangered time different places and the situations in how they

react and it broadens our own experience far beyond anything they could experience personally and our everyday life exactly our lives are fine and they will go x number of years into the future but historians can live in desperately they can extend their lives and that's going back into the past i think yeah i think that's a very valid argument the argument that more knowledge is better than less knowledge is is this very hard to quote that i suppose one of the rest of it is true because it's fun it enjoyable i like to get paid well what kind of trends can we anticipate and now and the future you mentioned the computer would do that this will bring increasing know you concepts to determine one of us trade but they just aren't are things in it or a car he has to a certain extent because the stories to re evaluation of the assumptions that they had computers the reservoir fed isn't involved a computer to book but i think it's certainly agree with her

longtime the route perhaps the shortage of energy into running out of natural resources may ask does lead us to ask questions about the past that we've taken for granted so up till now for example when the frontier came to an enemy at night people suddenly became aware of something that was taken for granted that there was a front here after all american instrument this have made a great difference i think in a way as saunders have been suggesting we're at the mercy of coming events and though what tomorrow's newspaper will say maybe we determine what kinds of questions historians and be asking about the past a few years ago about a horrible people plotting and just hold on this is a real pianist ever experienced american history that twenty years later a summer replacement songwriter people of poverty isn't few houses of change emergency so they're not believed might anticipate that history is really at the mercy of what happens tomorrow not only specifically an event that the kind of questions that we will ask

in the future also at all all human beings are two cents a history and there is a human experience of today we've looked at revisionism in history how do we read history whether we change our concepts of history and what kinds of concepts will we find in the future our panelists have included robert divine professor of history at the university of texas at austin george forty assistant professor of history at the university and robert oaks also an assistant professor of history at ut austin this is what we're for two hundred years two hundred years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years is produced by katie

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