It’s a sad fact that rewriting history has been used for political purposes since the dawn of civilization. Many times those in power have rewritten history books in order to justify their own dubious schemes. Just like getting a legal precedent in a court of law, history that is reinterpreted to support one’s own political ambitions has been used to provide moral justification for basically anything.
In their great article Jack O’Brien and Elford Alley on Cracked.com, they summed it up pretty good: “When it comes to the birth of America, most of us are working from a stew of elementary school history lessons, Westerns and vague Thanksgiving mythology. And while it’s not surprising those sources might biff a couple details, what’s shocking is how much less interesting the version we learned was. It turns out our teachers, Hollywood and whoever we got our Thanksgiving mythology from (Big Turkey?) all made America’s origin story far more boring than it actually was for some very disturbing reasons.”
You can read the whole article here: 6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America.
Like a Prussian General Claus von Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” Well said. Too bad the bad guy in The Rule of Ranging, Johan Kopf or the infamous “Totenkopf” took it to heart.
(Image courtesy by Grant Davis from an article by Colonial Williamsburg.)