History: Fiction or Science? by Anatoly Fomenko

[InvisibleBallots]

Everyone wrongly presumes that the reconstruction of the past is simple. One takes an ancient chronicle, translates it into contemporary language, and that's it. History is reconstructed.

Alas, that is not so!

Ancient history is first of all, a written history based on the following sources: documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artifacts. When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great in years X, Y, Z have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources. Seemingly simple questions do not always have clear, unambiguous answers. When were these sources written? Where and by whom were they found? For each of those two questions, the answers are very complex and require in-depth research to reflect the true answers and historical events.

It is further presumed that there are numerous carefully preserved ancient and medieval chronicles available, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses to their fantastic conquests, which are kept today in the National Library of Mongolia or Greece; in the Library of Congress or in the private collection of Microsoft.

That also, is not so.

Only fairly recent sources of information are available, having been written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events. In most cases they have been written in the XVI-XVIII centuries, or even later. As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. It is a well-documented fact that at the same time, innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts, like heresy, for example, were destroyed in Europe .

Of course, some real events were the source of most written documents, even those that were later falsified and manipulated. However, the same real event could have been described in chronicles by authors writing in different languages and having contradictory points of view. There are many cases where such descriptions - found in sources reliably dated before the invention of printing - are plainly unrecognizable as the same event.

The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries. The exact same name could take on an entirely different meaning in different historical epochs. Geographical locations were clearly defined on maps, only with the advent of printing. This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes in the fields of the military, navigation, education and governance, etc. Before the invention of printed maps, each original map was a unique work of art, both non-exact and contradictory.

Historians from Oxford say: «... everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C. Do you really doubt it ?» Yes, we really do. For us, this statement is only a point of view that is totally and utterly dominant today. But it is one of many possible points of view until the fact is proven without a shadow of a doubt.

In turn, we will also ask these historians some simple questions, «Where did you get your information? From a textbook? Not good enough. Who was the first to say that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.? What book, document and/or manuscript can you quote as a primary source? Who is the author of this source? When was this primary source written down, if you please ?»

We do not accept «the textbook says so» type of answer as proof. As soon as you dig for proof slightly deeper than the school textbook, the adamant grounds for the totally and utterly dominant point of view suddenly evaporate. Poof! As a matter of fact, not only you, but the whole world community of professional historians will not be able to come with up irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar ever existed, be it on paper, papyri, parchment or stone. Idem for all great names of Antiquity. The proof is unavailable!

http://www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/01098.htm

P.S. - I'll make the joke now, to save everyone some time - "Did I mean to post this in Books: Fiction? :eyes:

[lutherj]

1. Just because we have no documents from the period of ancient

Rome, doesn't mean they never existed. There are multiple references to Caesar in the works of various ancient historians as well as contemporaries, such as Cicero. We also have writings by Caesar. You might say that doesn't prove he existed, but isn't it a more reasonable inference than that all this stuff was made up by some cabal for future generations? After all, what proof do we have that George Washington existed? Just a bunch of papers and anecdotes. That could also have been made up.

I think historians understand that the further you go back into history the more difficult it is to separate fact from legend. Moreover, all history is created by historians to a certain degree. Historians have to choose what facts and details are relevant, and come up with plausible cause and effect scenarios that are necessarily a matter of interpretation.

For my part, I'm perfectly willing to accept that Julius Caesar existed. By the way, there is an excellent new book out by Michael Parenti, called the Assassination of Julius Caesar. It deals with the biases of historians, and tries to reconstruct Caesar's life by reading between the lines. I recommend it.

[InvisibleBallots]

2. actually, there is a big, big difference

It works like this - we have records on George Washington from his contemporaries, and an unbroken record about him starting from contemporary times of his life, to his death, to the present day.

For the ancient chronicles, these were supposedly "forgotten" for 1000 years (the dark ages) and then mysteriously "discovered". There are NO supposedly ancient historical manuscripts that were in use during the middle ages (except for possibly some biblical ones) - the entire ancient history was "discovered" thousands of years after the fact.

So instead of comparing it to George Washington, it would be more like this: Someone finds an "ancient manuscript" about some Native American king from 1000 years ago, and then starts portraying this as one) authentically ancient, and two) describing real historical events, as opposed to mythology or fiction. See the difference?

From the 1500s on, we have an unbroken, consistent record - before that, we do NOT.

[imenja]

7. there is no such thing as an "unbroken consistent record"

Whose history are you writing and from whose perspective? No source is without it's biases and omissions. Sometimes the silences in the document can say as much as the words themselves. Today, historians look at kinds of sources than no one considered fifty years ago. Even political history is understood and told quite differently from how it once ways. To know what George Washington wrote in his own papers and said in public speeches does not tell us everything we need to know about, for example, how he treated his slaves. How did those slaves feel about our first president? Did they see a contradiction in the revolutionary heroes' discussion of liberty in a land of slavery. Did they anticipate Washington would free them upon his death? Did Jefferson's slaves know he would not?
On one hand, you're saying that history isn't factual enough, yet you're criticizing it from an empirical point of view. History is a conversation. It is a serious of questions, and those questions are continually evolving. If is not a definitive answer.

[InvisibleBallots]

9. er, that's not the issue really

I'm not discussing biases or perspectives - I'm discussing simple facts. Certain sources posit facts such as "X lived during date Y and date Z" - this has little to do with someone's bias. It's a simple statement of fact, that can be true or false.

"To know what George Washington wrote in his own papers and said in public speeches does not tell us everything we need to know about, for example, how he treated his slaves. How did those slaves feel about our first president? Did they see a contradiction in the revolutionary heroes' discussion of liberty in a land of slavery. Did they anticipate Washington would free them upon his death? Did Jefferson's slaves know he would not?"

This is a different issue altogether - how people "felt" is a different issue than simple facts about times, dates, and places.

"On one hand, you're saying that history isn't factual enough, yet you're criticizing it from an empirical point of view."

How so?

[lutherj]

21. So are you saying that some incredibly prodigious and uncannily

brilliant medieval scholar wrote: Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, the pre-Socratics, Sappho, Lycidas, Aesop, Euclid, Xenophon, Virgil, Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch, Cicero, Josephus, Horace, Catullus, Caesar, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, etc., (to name a few), created various dialects of ancient Greek to correspond to different geographical locations and different time periods, created linear B fragments and scattered them so they could remain undeciphered until the 1950s, buried the rosetta stone in northern Africa, and went around writing latin graffiti on roman ruins (including those buried by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius), built a bunch of pyramids and stele in Egypt and covered them with hieroglyphics to be deciphered in the 19th century, just to make it all look convincing?

[InvisibleBallots]

22. what, one scholar?

Of course not. Most of the writings you mention, of course, were "discovered" buried or lost in monestaries somewhere. No one in Europe had ever heard about any of these authors, then various groups of people start "discovering" ancient manuscripts.

"buried the rosetta stone in northern Africa, and went around writing latin graffiti on roman ruins (including those buried by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius), built a bunch of pyramids and stele in Egypt and covered them with hieroglyphics to be deciphered in the 19th century, just to make it all look convincing"

I don't think you are being serious now. Can you give us solid dates for these artifacts? By that I mean publically available, peer reviewed dating for these artifacts?

And just for the record - during the Renaisance era writings, books, scuptures, paintings, and statues were "discovered" and sold as ancient - and exposed as frauds by the contemporaries. There is a long, long history of frauds done the Renaisaance - mentioned by people such as Isaac Newton, Acilla, etc.

It's a very interesting litany you have there - have you actually looked into any of this primary historical evidence for yourself - or did you read about this in abstracts and encyclopedias? Seriously.

Much of this hasn't even been looked at since the 1800s, when the standards in science and archaeology were very very primitive...

[InvisibleBallots]

23. So you are saying that Star Trek is FICTION???

We have thousands of books about the Star Trek universe - videos, films, from the early days of Captain Kirk and Spock to the later days - even a Klingon to English dictionary - millions of plastic replicas of the star ships and the characters - and you people claim that the entire story of Star Trek is really FICTION??? :eyes:

[imenja]

3. history is an art, neither science nor fiction

History is an art, it is one of the humanities. Very few historians living today imagine history to be the unvarnished truth. We know that it is subject to interpretation, reinterpretation, and evolves in relation to the political/cultural context of the society in which we live. The Civil Rights movement, for example, spawned great interest in social history--studies of the poor, women, disenfranchised groups. With the break up of the USSR and subsequent divisions over ethnicity and nationalism, far more historians are now examining the concept of nation itself and the role ethnicity and race plays in imagining the nation.
A textbook is a general source written by one or more historians for classroom use. Nothing more. Pick up any two textbooks on a given field and they will vary in their discussion of an issue. Those variations are precisely what history is. History is not a script to be memorized, it's a series of problems to be debated and explored.
Ask any college history professor about whether they consider history to be absolute, unbiased "truth" and all but a very small minority will tell you they do not. All don't make their views of the discipline explicit when they teach students, but it is nonetheless implicit in how they prepare their lectures, class discussions, and assignments.

[InvisibleBallots]

5. history can be true, or false - right, or wrong

History - in the sense of "this happened at this time and this place" can be true, or false. History should describe reality, at least in my opinion.

For instance, you can talk all day about the "meaning" of the Civil Rights movement. I guess you could call this cultural study or something - but if you said "Martin Luther King died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 80" - that's not art, that's simply a lie.

I think that history-as-an-art is a big waste of time, frankly, especially if it's based on untruths. How is this sort of "history" different than theology or astrology for example?

History should be based on facts, otherwise, it's meaningless.

[imenja]

8. obviously

but the question is what do those facts mean? The dates of Martin Luther King's life mean little if we don't seek to understand his importance. Such interpretations are continually evolving.
The very act of focusing on MLK as the center of the Civil Rights movement displays a certain bias toward the great man view of history. Great men are very important, but so are the legions of activists that made the movement possible. History continually grows and adapts as a discipline, and as a result our knowledge of the past expands tremendously.

[InvisibleBallots]

10. no, what those facts mean is a different question

Perhaps you should call that "interpretation of history" - because it's not history, and it's not science.

"The very act of focusing on MLK as the center of the Civil Rights movement displays a certain bias toward the great man view of history. Great men are very important, but so are the legions of activists that made the movement possible."

I'm not even discussing this sort of question, and neither does the Fomenko book I don't think. It's irrelevant to the question of Martin Luther King, when he lived, when he died, and what he said.

[imenja]

12. I'm afraid you simply don't know what history is

History is interpretation. Lists of facts may comprise a game of jeopardy or trivial pursuit, but not history.
I've spent the last twenty years in the field of history. I've read thousands of history books on different subjects published in different languages. I've also read many thousands of documents in my chosen field. I've met and talked with hundreds of historians. No one believes history is a list of facts. Some differ on the question of objectivity, but all realize that the interpretation is history.
Every time you set pen to paper, you are making an interpretation of some sort. Which documents did you chose to evaluate? How did you choose your subject of research? How do you frame the study? Why include certain material and not others. Where do you start the story? Where do you end it? This all plays a part in the writing of any history book.
Imagine yourself in an archives, pouring through thousands and thousands of dusty documents. You then need to take your notes and convert them into a book--a book, not a laundry list. It's all about interpretation. I'm sorry that those who taught you history in school did such a poor job communicating the basics of the field. That clearly is a serious shortcoming of the profession.

[InvisibleBallots]

14. oh, okay, then nevermind

"History is interpretation. Lists of facts may comprise a game of jeopardy or trivial pursuit, but not history. "

In that case, history isn't a serious discipline. If the "interpretation" of events that didn't really happen is history, than I have no interest in it. If all those "dusty documents" are just a bunch of fiction, who cares what someone's "interpretation" of them is?

I guess this sort of History is actually Literature then? I could write academic monographs on the plays of Shakespeare - that's not history, it's literature right? I could put a million footnotes :) in my paper relating to Othello, and the various scholars that have discussed that character, but it doesn't tell us much about what actually happened in the world does it?

[imenja]

16. as I began, history is an art

Is is the debate and interpretation that makes history fascinating. If it were nothing but a list of facts, there would have been no reason to continue reading and writing history. It's not the same as literature--sadly, it's usually not nearly as well written--because it requires evidence. Historians do their best to tell the truth as they see it, but few are arrogant enough to believe that theirs is the end of all inquiry into a subject.

Take the study of slavery, my field. Before 1957, the dominant view was that slavery was a benevolent institution and that slaves were treated well. Obviously that has changed radically. If the only concern was the dates slaves arrived, when it was abolished, how much cotton was produced, we would know next to nothing about slavery. And historians would not have bothered to challenge the Southern idea that the institution was benevolent. Historians have expanded greatly the questions they ask: they seek to know the experience of being enslaved, how slaves resisted bondage, their personal and family relations, and many other questions. Some new interpretations turn on their head existing arguments (eg. slavery was brutal and oppressive vs. being benevolent) whereas most new interpretations expand the kinds of questions asked.
All of it is enormously important to understanding the human experience. Contrary to your statement that history is meaningless if it not simply a list of facts, that history seeks to explore crucial questions about the human experience means that it is far more important that you imagine. Historians use evidence--facts--to tell human stories, but the way they approach those stories has broadened over the years.

[InvisibleBallots]

18. okay then, forget I said "History" - let's talk Chronology

The purpose of posting about this book was to have a discussion on primary historical evidence - specifically, what is called "Classical history" - i.e., Homer, Thucydides, Seutonius, Tacitus. We have a whole historical literature based on these writings, as if these writings were a) accurate, b) truthful, and c) written in the BCE era and faithfully copied or discovered in readable condition.

The author questions these three points about the classical history - is it accurate? Is it truthful? When was it written?

Most people seem to believe that these questions have been answered, and we have a lot of evidence to back up these answers. The book suggested that we do not have this evidence, and suggests that these writings are neither accurate, nor truthful, nor written during the time we think they were.

So, I guess I should have said "Chronology" not "History" - my apologies.

[imenja]

17. Please remember that education is meant to open your mind, not close it

Reading history, literature, theology, and science can help yours soar. Education is far more than memorizing facts. Understanding requires interpretation. Here I'm not arguing for a kind of absolute relativism. Studying history, for example, is crucial to analyzing current policy. To know that a coup took place in 1954 Guatemala does not help one consider the consequences of the Iraq War. To understand the arguments surrounding that coup, it's causes and consequences, does. Truth is more than a list of facts. It is about justice and humanity. History is one of many disciplines that elucidates truth.

[InvisibleBallots]

19. really? The purpose of education is NOT to close your mind?

Thanks for reminding me, I nearly forgot.

"Truth is more than a list of facts. It is about justice and humanity. History is one of many disciplines that elucidates truth."

No, truth is not about justice, nor humanity. Truth is about objective reality, not ideology.

[imenja]

20. Octavio Paz

I see your point about the ancient texts. Historical documentation is often complex and sometimes doesn't establish convincingly what some historians claim it does. Criticism can be waged about any set of documents, and I have no particular issue with yours. Why I responded to your post is that you made a general declaration about the discipline of history as a whole. History is not a science, nor do historians claim it is. Some universities group history departments with arts and humanities, others with the social sciences (the whole concept of "social" science is absurd, in my view). None classify it as a natural science.

I'm afraid I don't see evidence that your mind is open to different ideas. The problem with the concept of objectivity is that it dismisses as "false" all interpretations that differ from the speaker's favored point of view. Positivist empiricism presents a race and class based interpretation as "objectivity." By pretending no other argument is possible, it distorts the truth and perpetuates domination by the few.

Octavio Paz is instructive here:

"Cold objectivity in the face of injustice is a form of complicity"

[InvisibleBallots]

24. "I don't see evidence that your mind is open to different ideas"

imenja, if this is the level of discussion you are going to engage in, let's just stop now, okay?

[imenja]

25. fair enough

I hope you think about some of what I've said, even if you don't agree with it. I believe considering differing ideas is central to knowledge. I always examine evidence that contradicts my own point of view and will change that view if the facts and arguments warrant it. That sort of open mindedness is critical to intellectual growth.
Disagreement on an issue is not necessarily an attack on your person. I obviously phrased that last response poorly and for that I apologize.

[imenja]

4. also, the source information you rightly request is available in footnotes

Academic works in history are not published without footnotes. The sources a historian uses are at least as important as her conclusions. It is integral to the profession. Now, if you are reading popular history books published by commercial houses, you will not see the notes (because they believe most readers find them tedious) nor will the book have gone through the extensive pier review system that university presses use. If you are concerned with sources, as you should be, limit your reading to academic monographs with proper citations. They are available by the thousands from any university press. Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com also sell them. Look for the name of the publisher and look to see that you are buying a monograph rather than a textbook or popular history.
Also, textbooks are the most tedious form of history printed. No one enjoys reading them. Their use is as a general text for classroom use. That's it.

[InvisibleBallots]

6. hey, Ann Coutler has lots of footnotes in her books!

So what? Unfortunately, the "sources" often used in modern history are not factual sources. The simple example - much, much of the "scholarly studies" of ancient Rome are just rewrites of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - footnoted as such. Doesn't really mean much at all.

Now as to going back to the "original sources" of history - for instance, Thucydides - the question remains - is Thucydides history, or mythology? Did the events described in Thucydides actually happen, or were they mythological, or fiction? Was Thucydides actually written during the time we suppose it was? What evidence do we have for this claim?

An academic monograph that's based on Thucydides will be 100% FALSE if Thucydides is in fact, mythology and fiction, as opposed to an actual record of facts.

[imenja]

11. Ann Coulter is not a historian

She does not have a PhD in history and her book is not subject to pier review. Look at the publisher involved. That's a key starting point. Hers recent book is published by Crown Forum. If you want a serious book, you need to look for academic presses (Duke, North Carolina, Oxford, Cambridge, NYU, Stanford, etc...).

What do you mean most "sources" used in modern history are not "factual sources"? Which sources would that be? Which works in particular? And what are "original sources." I don't research or teach ancient history, but I know it to be a serious discipline with respected academics. I can't comment on their source material, but I have read many thousands of works of "modern" history. I'd like to know what you are talking about in terms of "false sources." \

If you are comparing Ann Coulter to historians, you're not even in the right universe. If you want some serious work on ancient history, go to the database World Abstracts (available through university libraries) and search for articles published in the field that interests you. You could also search a university library (not a public library) for recent books. Make sure that you draw from books published by academic presses. I'm wondering if you have ever read an academic monograph? Your critique of the history profession doesn't seem to be based on an understanding of the field.

[InvisibleBallots]

13. please read my post again

"What do you mean most "sources" used in modern history are not "factual sources"?"

I don't think that what I said.

" If you are comparing Ann Coulter to historians, you're not even in the right universe."

Don't be silly. You made some comment that I should look for footnotes - as if I don't know what a footnote is, so I made a joke about Ann Coutler. Please.

"I don't research or teach ancient history, but I know it to be a serious discipline with respected academics. "

So, how do you know it's serious, if you don't research it? How is history any different than, say, theology for that matter? Theology was once a "respected academic disciple" too?

"If you want some serious work on ancient history, go to the database World Abstracts (available through university libraries) and search for articles published in the field that interests you. You could also search a university library (not a public library) for recent books. Make sure that you draw from books published by academic presses. I'm wondering if you have ever read an academic monograph?"

Are you trying to insult me? Do you think I don't know what a university library is, how to do research? Come on, please. And just becuase something is published by an "academic press" doesn't mean it's true, now does it?

[imenja]

15. Academic presses, truth, sources, and Ann Coulter

"Because it's published from an academic press doesn't mean it's "true." :

I guess that depends on what you mean by "true." The book will have been pier reviewed by experts in the field, so it will have to have consulted important source material and advance an argument that somehow makes a contribution. The book will be in large part factual. The historian may or may not have made factual mistakes, but the vast majority of the information will be accurate. Whether his argument holds water or is particularly useful is another matter. Historians debate these things all the time.

If the book gives good citations, which professional historians must do when they publish with an academic press, it gives YOU the opportunity to evaluate it by checking the historian's claims against the kind of sources he or she uses. I've written reviews of books in which I argued that a historian's documentation did not allow her to make the point she claims it did. The advantage to footnoting, is that it allows you to examine such things. Of course, if one hasn't been to the archives in question and doesn't know the type of source material used, it is more difficult, but not impossible.
I don't know how I could have suspected your comment about Ann Coulter was a joke. It seemed serious given the rest of what you were saying.

I know ancient historians are serious because I know the requirements and standards of the history profession. I haven't read any ancient history since college, because it is far removed from my own research, but the standards don't differ greatly from one field to another. Given what I know about the history profession today, I would imagine recent studies that use Thucydides focus on analysis of the text itself rather than the "factual" issues you raise. The influence of post-modernism has been such that many historians now examine bias and meaning in narrative rather than what happened, where and when.

By the way, theology is a serious academic field. I don't know why you've decided it isn't.

Here I'm recopying your post about modern sources. You'll need to explain what you mean by it. The point was yours.

"Unfortunately, the "sources" often used in modern history are not factual sources."

I can't even calculate the hours I've spent looking at such "not factual sources." Every historian knows that his source material contains biases. The responsibility of the historian is to use that source in a productive way. No source is complete. All have their shortcomings. Historians today use kinds of sources you have probably never even imagined.

I certainly didn't mean to insult you, rather to correct some misconceptions. Yours are ideas I hear from students all the time. They have been taught since grade school that history is a set of facts. Of course, their high school teachers aren't historians. The popular view of history is very one dimensional. Frequent criticisms are that historians don't study the poor and oppressed, African Americans, etc... Such studies have been common for decades and are not even remotely novel. Unfortunately, the primary and secondary schools and the popular version of history is remarkably impervious to innovation.

I'm sure you know what academic presses are, but I suggest you choose a recent book and read it carefully. Find one that has been well reviewed in an academic journal. Closely evaluate the footnotes. As a thinking person, you will find flaws and disagreements with the author. That is good, because it is critical reading. But critical reading needs to be informed. Dismissing something out of hand is no different from swallowing it whole.

If you are at all interested in Latin American history, slavery, Brazil, or US African American, Labor, or Immigration history, I could recommend something. I could also recommend some readings on early modern Europe, or the French or Russian revolutions. I can't help with ancient history, but I encourage you to search for some recent studies if that interests you, and proceed to evaluate them carefully.