Is "history written by the victors"?

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What are your thoughts on the idea that the victor writes history?

By that question, I do not necessarily mean the victor of the physical portion of a conflict alone, rather, I mean that of which the victor wins the ideological war (could even be said about the ideology of history professors that dominate university campuses).

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Personally, I agree. I've found too many instances in various history textbooks that show a clear bias toward one viewpoint and skew the material in favor of that viewpoint and the positions of the textbook's author, reinforced by the instructors that teach its contents. Even though the full scope of history is not destroyed, the victor is able to publish the material that will be received by the masses and influence the masses to favor their views, even if it's only partially true or takes historical content out of context.

An example would be the American Civil War, specifically Abraham Lincoln himself. Most of you probably agree with what has been taught by the victor for the past century and a half, and so did I, until I did extensive research and dug into the primary sources myself given as much context as possible, as well as give a chance to authors that have published academic works that go against the mainstream narrative of the subject. In short, all I can say is, Abraham Lincoln was not the "Great Emancipator" that we were taught in school. Many primary sources that I came across, as well as academic publications and some book reading, reveal that he was not liked by the abolitionist movement, and that the abolitionist movement was very small and had low influence during his presidency. Side note: he really did not like melanin. Lincoln himself is quite a bit of a topic, who is part of the larger subject of the American Civil War, but I just wanted to use that as my example as that's where I've poured most of my reading time into for the past few years.

It can’t be any other way. If you control the present, you control the past.

Here we go again.

Another desperate apologist for the old Confederacy.

Problem one: you offer only two choices. Yes and no. No other and more nuanced options. Obviously in the short run the victor has the advantage in controlling spin. So we have no choice to pick "yes" in your slanted poll. But that doesn't change the fact that sometimes the right side wins. SOME times good triumphs. And even when the bad guys win in the long run sometimes the pov of the vanquished good guys does emerge sometime later.

Problem two: After all of your labors into "the primary sources" of history all that you did was learn what all of the rest of us already know (sorry to tell ya that). We all know that only a minority of Northerners were flaming abolitionist, (just like only a minority of southerners were rich enough to be slave owners), and we all know that the flaming abolitionists were somewhat fringe and radical by the standards of their time and because of that they were all frustrated by Lincoln playing to the mainstream with moderation and pragmatism (but it was that moderation and pragmatism that won the day).

The northern abolitionists may not all always have loved him, but the Southern slave owners were certainly all terrified of him. So terrified that he was gonna take away their human property that they all got their states to bolt from the Union the moment he was elected POTUS before he had a chance to even do anything as POTUS.

The only thing newsworthy you have told us is this:that Lincoln was not "the great emancipator".

Four million Americans were slaves when he entered office. Zero were slaves after his term. So he "emancipated" four million people. So how was he not a "great emancipator"?

I'm just gonna ignore everything you wrote except for the top line: I'm not an apologist. Reason for ignoring everything else is because it's clear you do not have any good intentions in having a good discussion. So, if you want me to take you seriously, you will need to be polite for starters.

Edit:
I also forgot to mention something important: I was using Abraham Lincoln as an example, and not to be a topic of discussion on this thread, rather, I would be interested in engaging in the subject of the Civil War.
Also, I guarantee you assume that I think the South should've won. Never make assumptions about people. On a personal side note, I would not exist since my whole existence is due the Korean War.

Yes; Churchill wasn't a saint, the soviets weren't great allies, the US weren't entirely devoid of committing war crimes, etc.

This is probably the biggest example, since it's the most impactful globally. However, I can't fully agree that history is always written by the victor. If it were, we wouldn't even be able to challenge the notion that they were entirely allies / representative of the public.

It also concerns me that stating yes could potentially give holocaust deniers and the like some vindication, and I'd rather that not happen. I think there needs to be a "somewhat" option.

The victor often gets to control the dominant narrative that will be reflected in things like official history books, public art depicting a past battle, legal codes, etc. But rarely does the victor control the narrative fully. In some situations, aspects of a defeated group’s culture and beliefs will be taken up by the victorious group. In other situations, an alternate narrative will be kept alive in the oral traditions of the defeated group, possibly to resurface as a dominant narrative after a future uprising.

As judged by whom? By the US? Seldom do victors find themselves guilty. In addition to their versions of history, victors get to impose their morals. That’s why nothing is more virtuous than winning and nothing is more nefarious than losing.



That only means we the public are still here and haven’t been vanquished yet.



That’s an ad consequentiam argument. The truth doesn’t depend on whether you like the consequences of acknowledging it.

I don't believe history is written by the victors. That supposition assumes that historians are objective and without bias and historical accomplishments are recorded based on their own merit. Historians and academia in general is certainly biased.

Trump will be a great example of this. Long after we're all dead, historians will get their revenge on him. Any accomplishments will be largely omitted from historical records. You can "take that to the bank".

Disclaimer: I'm not a Trump fan, don't own a MAGA hat, not even a republican.....so before anyone starts slinging any mud at me. Nah, go ahead. If you makes you feel better, sling away. Yawn, I can take it.

This quote contains putative facts about the past; we call this "history". If history were written solely by the winners, then where did this "losers history" appear from?

[@Mythos: Not criticising you or addressing the question solely to you; the quote was merely conveniently to hand for illustrating my point. ]

The losers of yesterday are the winners of today. For example, now that minorities are getting a larger voice (having won the war of civil rights -- at least partially), history is told from their perspective more rather than how it used to be told, from the perspective of non-minorities. Also, history is too complex to be solely told by the victors, so a little bit of the losers' history is sometimes told, even though the winner's history is the dominant narrative.

^ Exactly!

So; yes, history is written by [some of] the victors... ...and some of the losers, and some of the bystanders...
And what they write may contain any combination of objective facts, opinions, lies, delusions...
They may also have left other kinds of artefacts besides words.

At many different levels, and for many different reasons (some deliberate, some accidental) different selections from this are being made. The dominant culture in a particular area gets most power to influence what parts of it we may read, and our personal beliefs influence which parts of it we do read. If we're lucky we can uncover evidence to support one reading or another, otherwise we've just got to take our pick - copying your peers, is of course, the most socially convenient way to choose!

It should, but it doesn't necessarily happen that way.

Case in point: America's Civil War

Southern states are allowed to paint the war as "The War of Northern Aggression" rather than as a traitorous act of treason.

They were also allowed to build and keep monuments honoring the traitors who tried to overthrow the US government.

If the Union had fully taken over when they should have, part of me doubts there would be as many Confederates running amok as there are today. We should have handled that problem like Germany handled the Nazis. Heck, Germany maybe learned their lesson from our mistake and they did to the Nazis (silenced them) what we should have done to the Confederates.

It aint my fault for "making assumptions". Its your fault for not taking responsibility for how you look to the reader.

Maybe I should take that back. It might be that you are just an outsider who is not aware of how to survive on a an American website like this.

On another thread you said that you are a Korean and not a US person. Or at least that's what you seemed to have been saying. In no post (including the one quoted above) are you being clear as to who you are and about where you are coming from. So I am forced to just fill in the blanks myself.

So I will assume that you are a South Korean, raised in South Korea (and to you the US is a foreign country). So if that's the case then you're not from either region (north or south) of the USA. So your interest in our civil war is purely academic, and not partisan. Which is fine and dandy. The trouble is that you should be aware that you cant just blindly and innocently wander into a Website that has a majority American membership and start just talking about a topic like our civil war without being aware that you're stumbling into a hornets nest with us locals. You shoulda known that you were gonna get stung for doing that. Just like there are probably divisive issues in Korean society that an outsider, like an American, might unwittingly bumble into and trigger emotion in the locals (every country probably has internal issues like that ).

But the point is that you looked like you were being a partisan American. Therefore it was on you to write disclaimers explaining that you are not that. Its not on me to be psychic and to read your mind.

History is too complex a thing for yes or no answers.
Yes, the winning side can and does get to write the official version, but that hardly means that the official version is necessarily wrong. And when it is wrong, as with America's original version of the wars of conquest against Native tribes, ultimately the sense of fairness and right we Americans attribute to ourselves wins out, and we admit to our own Holocaust American Style.

That's OK, I agree with what you say anyway. That's actually something I pointed out later in what I wrote. I don't, and can't, believe that history is entirely, inarguably swayed by those that have the advantage. If it was, we wouldn't be in a position to question it.