Search Results

Argentina's two pantheons: from mitrismo to revisionism

in Argentina's Partisan Past: Nationalism and the Politics of History

This chapter sets the stage for the subsequent four by discussing how the leaders of the period of ‘national organization’ used history for the purpose of nation building, through to the emergence of ... More

This chapter sets the stage for the subsequent four by discussing how the leaders of the period of ‘national organization’ used history for the purpose of nation building, through to the emergence of revisionism as a counter-narrative. It first examines the institutional bases upon which Argentine historians constructed their accounts of the past, and how politics and history related to each other in the process of their emergence, and then analyses the kind of authority from which writers of history derived their right to take part in debates. The aim is to set revisionism in the context of historical debates in Argentina from a long-term perspective and to explain the reasons behind the rise, from the 1930s onwards, of this divisive nationalist version of the past.Less

High Society: Historical Revisionism in Justice Society Comics

Andrew J. Friedenthal

in Retcon Game: Retroactive Continuity and the Hyperlinking of America

The beginning of cohesive comic book universes can be traced to the first team-up between heroes, in the form of the Justice Society of America in 1940’s All-Star Comics #3. In years since, the ... More

The beginning of cohesive comic book universes can be traced to the first team-up between heroes, in the form of the Justice Society of America in 1940’s All-Star Comics #3. In years since, the Justice Society has gone through a variety of changes and revitalizations, including a multitude of retcons. It was in the letters page of a 1980s Justice Society-centered book, All-Star Squadron, that the term retroactive continuity was first published and, thus, directly and publicly discussed as a narrative technique. This chapter focuses on the writer/editor of All-Star Squadron, Roy Thomas, and the ways in which his scripts, along with his interaction with readers, helped to define exactly how retroactive continuity could be utilized in long-form narratives. More importantly, Thomas’ work on All-Star Squadron shows most clearly the direct and potent link between retroactive continuity and historiography/historical revisionism that serves as the basis for this book’s argument.Less

The deepening polarisation: the proscription of Peronism and Its politics of history, 1955–66

in Argentina's Partisan Past: Nationalism and the Politics of History

This chapter examines the implications that changes in narratives about national history and identity between 1955 and 1966 have had for the understanding of nationalism in twentieth-century ... More

This chapter examines the implications that changes in narratives about national history and identity between 1955 and 1966 have had for the understanding of nationalism in twentieth-century Argentina. Bent on eradicating what they saw as the cancer of Perónism from Argentina's political culture, yet lacking a popular mandate to do so, the uncompromisingly ‘liberal’ leaders of the Liberating Revolution turned to the most formulaic version of mitrismo to legitimize their power. Their discourse rested on an association of Perónism with nacionalismo, which, in the light of these currents' conflictive relationship before 1955, was exaggerated but, thanks to Aramburu and Rojas' policies, became increasingly real. In reaction, the Perónist rank and file began to appropriate revisionism for its own purposes, employing it as a political weapon to counter official narratives. By 1958 the dividing lines between these contrary discourses were sufficiently entrenched to hinder the newly elected President Frondizi from successfully moulding an ‘integrationist’ synthesis. The politics of history were thus both symptom and cause of a deepening crisis of political legitimacy.Less

A Hyperlinked Past: Theorizing Retroactive Continuity

Andrew J. Friedenthal

in Retcon Game: Retroactive Continuity and the Hyperlinking of America

This is a brief introduction to the major themes and topics that will be covered by the book. It defines retroactive continuity/retconning and connects that narrative technique to the prevalence of ... More

This is a brief introduction to the major themes and topics that will be covered by the book. It defines retroactive continuity/retconning and connects that narrative technique to the prevalence of hyperlinks in today’s online media, particularly Wikipedia, and the growing cultural acceptance of historical revisionism. It concludes with a chapter outline.Less

Playing the Retcon Game

Andrew J. Friedenthal

in Retcon Game: Retroactive Continuity and the Hyperlinking of America

This conclusion returns to the differences between retroactive continuity and politically motivated historical revisionism. In so doing, it discusses how retconning is most often celebratory in ... More

This conclusion returns to the differences between retroactive continuity and politically motivated historical revisionism. In so doing, it discusses how retconning is most often celebratory in nature, and represents an embracing of the mutable past rather than an Orwellian erasing of it. It returns to the metaphor of a “hyperlinked America” in order to show how the narrative game of retroactive continuity has helped to create a more fluid, changeable, and dynamic world.Less

Defending Truth: Holocaust Denial in the Twenty-First Century 1

Kenneth Lasson

in Genocide Denials and the Law

This chapter is organized as follows. Part I describes the background and nature of Holocaust denial, tracing the Nazis' adoption of a plan for the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” through the ... More

This chapter is organized as follows. Part I describes the background and nature of Holocaust denial, tracing the Nazis' adoption of a plan for the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” through the postwar Nuremberg Trials to the present day. Part II examines the tension between free speech and historical revisionism, presenting various arguments in deference to principles of liberty and opposed to group defamation. Part III addresses the quest for truth in a free society.Less

Introduction

in Argentina's Partisan Past: Nationalism and the Politics of History

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the interaction between nationalism and the politics of history in twentieth-century Argentina. It focuses on the ways in ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the interaction between nationalism and the politics of history in twentieth-century Argentina. It focuses on the ways in which intellectuals as well as more strictly political actors and the state have produced and used understandings of national identity by promoting, co-opting, or repressing historical narratives. The chapter also discusses the problems of existing literature on nationalism in Argentina.Less

Repossessing the Dead Elsewhere in Our Time

in Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials

Exhumations and reburials in modern times are pursued due to a variety of reasons, from nationalism in the decade following World War I to the rehabilitation of political reputations as a symptom and ... More

Exhumations and reburials in modern times are pursued due to a variety of reasons, from nationalism in the decade following World War I to the rehabilitation of political reputations as a symptom and symbol of anti-Communist fervor in Eastern Europe after 1989. Another motive is the desire for national unification, whether in China, Argentina, or Germany. Religion remains a major consideration because individuals revered as saintly often require a more appropriate interment than the one originally received. Prominent personalities who have figured in burial/reburial episodes for different reasons include Sun Yat-sen, Juan Manuel de Rosas, Che Guevara, Marcus Reno, Louis Napoleon III, Manfred Baron von Richthofen, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Cecil John Rhodes. This article also looks at exhumations and reburials in Hungary and argues that certain European episodes involved not only national reconciliation and rehabilitation of reputations but also historical revisionism.Less

The Character of Loyalty

Pamela Kyle Crossley

in A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology

In the historical revisionism of the later eighteenth century, the Qianlong commitment to loyalty became so abstract that Ming loyalists who had opposed the Qing onslaught were enshrined, while those ... More

In the historical revisionism of the later eighteenth century, the Qianlong commitment to loyalty became so abstract that Ming loyalists who had opposed the Qing onslaught were enshrined, while those who had deserted the Ming to join the Qing were in varying degrees condemned. When viewed through the lens of Ming philosophies of identity and loyalty, the cultural layering of Liaodong had had fatal consequences for Tong Bunian. When viewed through the lens of Qianlong idealism, it had fatal consequences for the culture in which Tong Bunian was raised. Nurgaci's khanate, in contrast to the Ming empire, made its primary distinctions culturally and geographically. The cultural representation of the population of Tong of Fushun became difficult after the conquest of north China. The continuing paradox was how to stabilize the identities of conqueror and conquered without creating legal, political, or ideological obstacles to continued incorporation of imperial servitors.Less

Conclusion: The Twilight of Ideals

in The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920

This chapter concludes with some thoughts of prowar compatriots who had hearkened to Woodrow Wilson's millennial promise; Debs and Addams had to come to terms after the settlement with the dashing of ... More

This chapter concludes with some thoughts of prowar compatriots who had hearkened to Woodrow Wilson's millennial promise; Debs and Addams had to come to terms after the settlement with the dashing of their prophecies of peace. The cosmopolitans wanted Americans to act like “democrats,” that is, to stand on moral principle, to mix freely with those above and below them, to view an attack on others' liberty as an assault upon themselves. They disassociated republicanism from martial and patriarchal virtues, rendering republicanism itself more “democratic” by emphasizing the moral strenuousness of safeguarding democratic principles. Debs and Du Bois, particularly, appeared concerned to defend a radical reading of the American past from a wave of historical revisionism that had swept through the nation's public school curriculum during 1890, and which threatened to transform the likes of Washington and Lincoln from stalwart defenders of principle into sentinels of the status quo.Less

Conclusion: Into the Personal Rule of Charles I

Michael Questier

in Dynastic Politics and the British Reformations, 1558-1630

Historians have often seen the advent of the personal rule of Charles I as the product of failure, and a harbinger of bad things to come. But it was equally possible for contemporaries to argue that ... More

Historians have often seen the advent of the personal rule of Charles I as the product of failure, and a harbinger of bad things to come. But it was equally possible for contemporaries to argue that things were the other way around and that the move towards an assured succession in the direct line, on the basis of alliance with a major European power, was the best way to guarantee civil peace, a peace which could not in the end be secured by the cause of pan-European Protestantism or by anything that looked like puritan zeal. Of course, such a view was brought into radical question during the civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century. At the very least, however, this adds a new dimension to the discussion of the causes of that conflict and for an analysis of the politics of the Interregnum and the Restoration.Less