Historical revisionism
What is Historical revisionism? What is Historical integrity?
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Historical revisionism

From Wiki:

Within the academic field of history, 
historical revisionism is the critical 
reexamination of historical facts, 
with an eye towards rewriting histories 
with either newly discovered information 
or a reinterpretation of existing information. 

The assumption is that history as it has 
been traditionally told may not be entirely accurate.

The pejorative use refers to illegitimate manipulation 
of history for political purposes, for example Holocaust denial. 

This meaning is described further in the 
article historical revisionism (negationism).

Historical revisionism

Those historians who work within the existing establishment and who have a body of existing work from which they claim authority, often have the most to gain by maintaining the status quo. This can be called an accepted paradigm, which in some circles or societies takes the form of a denunciative stance towards revisionism of any kind.

If there were a universally accepted view of history which never changed, there would be no need to research it further. Many historians who write revisionist exposés are motivated by a genuine desire to educate and to correct history. Many great discoveries have come as a result of the research of men and women who have been curious enough to revisit certain historical events and explore them again in depth from a new perspective.

Revisionist historians contest the mainstream or traditional view of historical events, they raise views at odds with traditionalists, which must be freshly judged. Revisionist history is often practiced by those who are in the minority, such as feminist historians, ethnic minority historians, those working outside of mainstream academia in smaller and less known universities, or the youngest scholars, essentially historians who have the most to gain and the least to lose in challenging the status quo. In the friction between the mainstream of accepted beliefs and the new perspectives of historical revisionism, received historical ideas are either changed, solidified, or clarified. If over a period of time the revisionist ideas become the new establishment status quo a paradigm shift is said to have occurred.

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." –Napoleon Bonaparte. Historians, like all people, are inexorably influenced by the zeitgeist (the spirit of the times). Developments in other academic areas, and cultural and political fashions, all help to shape the currently accepted model and outlines of history (the accepted historiographical paradigm). As time passes and these influences change so do most historians views on the explanation of historical events. The old consensus may no longer be considered by most historians to explain how and why certain events in the past occurred, the accepted model is revised to fit in with the current agreed-upon version of events. Some of the influences on historians, which may change over time are:

See details in the WIKI article.

Arnaldo Momigliano on Historical Integrity and the Historian

One is almost embarrassed to have to say
that any statement a historian makes must
be supported by evidence which, according
to ordinary criteria of human judgement,
is adequate to prove the reality of the 
statement itself.  This has three 
consequences:

1) Historians must be prepared to admit
in any given case that they are unable
to reach safe conclusions because the 
evidence is insufficient; like judges,
historians must be ready to say 'not proven'.

2) The methods used to ascertain the value
of the evidence must continually be scrutinised
and perfected, because they are essential to
historical research.

3) The historians themselves must be judged
according to their ability to establish facts.


p.7, ON PAGANS, JEWS, and CHRISTIANS
Chapter 1: Biblical Studies and Classical Studies
--- Arnaldo Momigliano, 1987


Shortly thereafter, Momigliano writes:


"Only a historian can be guilty of forging evidence
or of knowingly used forged evidence in order to 
support his own historical discourse. One is never
simple-minded enough about the condemnation of
forgeries. Pious frauds are frauds, for which one
must show no piety - and no pity."

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