Just how much did (Insert Author) get away with?

[Thanas]

What about Edward Gibbon? The view that the Roman Empire fell because of moral decay is still a view that is upheld by many people in the general public, who have not read any books beyond what Gibbon wrote.

Gibbon gets a pass because he was writing at a time when no real research existed. Also, keep in mind that his arguments were actually an improvement because it broke the old "the Empire fell because it was not christian enough" viewpoint which had been prevalent before.

In that context, Gibbon's point of view, while wrong from our perspective today, are a marvel of critical thinking.

[Samuel]

What about Edward Gibbon? The view that the Roman Empire fell because of moral decay is still a view that is upheld by many people in the general public, who have not read any books beyond what Gibbon wrote.

Gibbon gets a pass because he was writing at a time when no real research existed. Also, keep in mind that his arguments were actually an improvement because it broke the old "the Empire fell because it was not christian enough" viewpoint which had been prevalent before.

In that context, Gibbon's point of view, while wrong from our perspective today, are a marvel of critical thinking.

Wait... they thought the Roman Empire fell because it wasn't Christian enough? How did they think it managed to conquer and expand in the first place? Or were they still in the habit of thinking states succeded and failed based on divine providence?

[Thanas]

Wait... they thought the Roman Empire fell because it wasn't Christian enough? How did they think it managed to conquer and expand in the first place? Or were they still in the habit of thinking states succeded and failed based on divine providence?

Yes. If history is only written by monks, what do you think happens?

That said, this issue is very complex and quite hard to summarize. Witness Augustine himself - at the one end he claims there is a seperation of the earthly empire and the empire of God, on the other hand he goes to great lengths to show how God saved christians during the sack of Rome.

[PainRack]

The guns were facing the wrong way and the British had no plans to defend Malaya....

This even though one can picked up books by Labour opponents in the 1950s acknowledging that the British planned to fight in Malaya(blaming the failure on Churchill with his non funding of the British naval base and failing to fund defences) or etc.

The guns is a particular favourite of mine, because you can find such myths in old Singaporean documentaries and indeed, one of the archive plates on the WW2 batteries about how the guns were facing the wrong way/couldn't fire on the Japs.... then have a tour pointing how the guns were firing on abandoned British installations in Singapore.
I mean, 4 years of brutality under the Japs apparently wasn't sufficient ammunition for pro independence propaganda, you HAVE to allude to British incompetence and British brutality too. Pity the two seems to conflict with each other........

[thejester]

Lloyd George is a good example. He had a feud with Field Marshal Haig and constantly blackened Haig's reputation. A lot of the "lions led by donkeys" mythology of WW1 is the direct outgrowth of Lloyd George's campaign. It's only now that a new generation of historians are looking at the actual historical record and beginning to realize what the commanders of the BEF really managed to achieve.

Something of a derail, but I'd certainly appreciate a rough outline of what is meant here.

Up until his death Haig's reputation - a victorious professional soldier, albeit not with anything like the kind of adulation of Wellington, Marlborough or even the heroes of the Victorian Era - remained relatively intact, despite the revulsion at the slaughter in the trenches and the emergence of the pacifist movement post-1918. It wasn't until the '60s that the popular public image of him as a butchering incompetent holdover from the Victorian army (best exemplified, I suppose, by Blackadder) began to take hold. Lloyd George's extreme dislike of Haig (which in any other context would have seen him removed) made the later a rich source for later historians who attacked Haig - notably Alan Clark in The Donkeys. Clark's wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the various controversy that raged around The Donkeys that also demonstrates the support Haig had in academia - notably from John Terraine, who wrote what is now considered a fairly favourable biography of Haig around the same time.

That said a lot of the trashing of Haig also had to do with changing public opinion, notably the view in the '60s and '70s of the 'soldier as victim' and generals being the architects of their demise. Denis Winter wrote a biography that's basically been discredited but took a line similar to this. Another is John Laffin, who was reasonably well read while he was publishing but is basically considered a joke now; he combines the soldier as victim mentality with an Australian nationalism that sees him bemoaning the fact that Monash wasn't given command of the BEF in 1917.

The obvious problem is that all these revisionist works were terrible pieces of scholarship that, at best, often took Haig out of context and at worse were simply outright, bizarro fiction. A huge number of historians since the '80s have given much time and effort to correcting 'mythical' views of the Western Front and Haig in particular - Gary Sheffield probably being the outstanding candidate in terms of restoring Haig's reputation in the literature. Sheffield and historians like him have written a lot about how 1918 was a great British victory that is viewed as a defeat precisely because of the populist works of the '60s and '70s. IMO this is stretching things a bit and I suspect that if more historians follow Doughty's lead and spend a lot of time in French, rather than British archives, this view will come under increased scrutiny. But for now, that's the school of thought that prevails.


As to the OP: the fact David Irving has yet to be mentioned is an embarrassment. Makes Fuchido look like an amateur. The fact he was taken even semi-seriously until the '80s is, I suppose, a tribute to his ability to bullshit. The Bombing of Dresden in particular is a masterclass in the ability of the intellectually dishonest to hide behind a footnote.

[CaptHawkeye]

How could I forget David Irving? A vehement neo nazi who invented the "British almost lost Battle of Britain" myth and has created a huge series of broken arguments supporting it.

[thejester]

How could I forget David Irving? A vehement neo nazi who invented the "British almost lost Battle of Britain" myth and has created a huge series of broken arguments supporting it.

Lol, what? Since when has Irving had anything to do with (let alone responsibility for) the idea that the BoB was a near run thing? And even if he did, don't you think it's a fairly small issue alongside his early efforts to deny Hitler's involvement in the Holocaust, his later Holocaust denial, his systematic misrepresentation of sources and his efforts at moral equivalency through The Destruction of Dresden?

[Zinegata]

That said a lot of the trashing of Haig also had to do with changing public opinion, notably the view in the '60s and '70s of the 'soldier as victim' and generals being the architects of their demise. Denis Winter wrote a biography that's basically been discredited but took a line similar to this. Another is John Laffin, who was reasonably well read while he was publishing but is basically considered a joke now; he combines the soldier as victim mentality with an Australian nationalism that sees him bemoaning the fact that Monash wasn't given command of the BEF in 1917.

The problem isn't just with Haig himself. It largely stems from his support of clearly incompetent commanders - Gough being the most prominent one. Historians are generally unanimous that Gough had little administrative skill and did not know how artillery worked, and remained committed to the cavalry breakthrough concept that was never gonna happen. And the guy commanded an army for most of the Haig's tenure. When Lloyd tried to have him replaced, Haig protected Gough in spite of his spectacular screw up in the aftermath of the Messines ridge victory (and Gough was only removed after the 5th Army was routed during the Spring Offensive).

By contrast, Currie and Monash had spectacular successes even as mere Corps commanders. Plumer - the victor of Messines ridge and possibly the best British Army commander of the war - had at best a strained relationship with Haig.

It's a bit telling that it was Plumer, and not Gough, who was invited to unveil the Menin Gate memorial, even though the a greater number of the honored dead served under Gough's Army and not Plumer's. It was then that the taciturn Plumer - who refused to engage in the debate over the generalship of the First World War - gave comfort to the families of the missing soldiers by telling them that, at last:

"He is not missing. He is here!"

[CaptHawkeye]

How could I forget David Irving? A vehement neo nazi who invented the "British almost lost Battle of Britain" myth and has created a huge series of broken arguments supporting it.

Lol, what? Since when has Irving had anything to do with (let alone responsibility for) the idea that the BoB was a near run thing? And even if he did, don't you think it's a fairly small issue alongside his early efforts to deny Hitler's involvement in the Holocaust, his later Holocaust denial, his systematic misrepresentation of sources and his efforts at moral equivalency through The Destruction of Dresden?

That was a shitty rush post. You're right that his writing on Hitler is absolutely sickening. It's really sad that people took him seriously for years and you can *still* encounter the random internet racist spouting his shit like it's NOT incredibly wrong.

For the most part though, I consider him a small fry at this point. Mainly because the shit he says is so incredibly off the wall most *normal* people, even if they know nothing about the war, know from the first few words he's full of shit.