Peter wrote:
> But then a recent hollywood film shows that the Americans with the help of
> Mel Gibson captured the German Enigma encryption machine and cracked the
> code thus saving the world. The machine was in fact captured and cracked by
> the Brits before the Americans even entered WWII. Only American forces took
> part in the D Day landings didnt they? (Saving Private Ryan). The rest of
> the world is getting used to Americans rewriting history. Anyone seen
> "Braveheart" (Mel again)- an interesting adventure movie but little
> foundation in historical truth.
Don't think all "Americans" (citizens of USA) are sanguine about this trend,
Peter. Speaking my myself, it absolutely drives me crazy. Perhaps the worst
single exemplar is the wretched Oliver Stone, who is allowed to make
pseudo-factual movies about real historical events that have very little
relation to discoverable facts and which completely disrespect something
that all historians learn to grapple with--namely, the extent to which
things aren't known. It's irresponsible history, irresponsible journalism,
and irresponsible didacticism. He's the worst, but he's far, far from the
only--there's even a category in publishing known as "faction" which means
that you pretend to write about factual events but fictionalize whatever you
parts of it you want. Dreadful. To me this sort of thing is subversive in
the extreme, both in terms of the actual information conveyed and in terms
terms of communicating intellectual values.
Idly speculating myself now, I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact
that in the USA, you are "allowed" to believe anything you like--less
educated and discriminating people take this to mean that all beliefs are
valid. As if it's up to us personally to "decide" what happened to John
Kennedy and thereby "know" it...or UFOs, or God, or the government, or
D-Day, or the Enigma device, or scottish history, or whatever. (I think we
as a people also have a fundamental confusion over the different concepts
"all men are created equal" and "all men are equal." But that's another
story.)
Well, in a similarly grandiose and unrealistic vein, I'll presume to speak
on behalf of every educated, intelligent north American and say..."sorry!"
<g>
To bring this back on topic, I think corporate history is particularly
difficult to write, because every corporation is a closed book, every
corporation creates its own propaganda and has no sanction against doing so,
and every member of the corporation who knows the facts is beholden to
disseminate the propaganda and suppress truth if asked. If a real historian
could look carefully at the history of camera design, manufacturing, and
marketing, I for one believe that the composite picture that would emerge
would be significantly different from most of the "history" that is
circulated today, which is, in reality, a mishmash of corporate propaganda,
advertising copy, rumor, conventional "wisdom," and speculation. With, of
course, a little fact mixed in.
--Mike
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