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[<sgian AT netscape.com>]

>Another good read questioning the accuracy of history as we were
taught it is "The South was Right".


Deo vindice!



The problem with history as we know it is that it is seen strictly as being a 
function of who is in political or military power (and often this is 
synonymous with ecclesiastical power).  Before recorded history, all our 
history centers around what people ate, what kind of houses they lived in, 
what sort of tools they had, ect.  But just as soon as political exploits 
began to be written down (Sumer and Ur) history by its very definition 
becomes the history of kings and political power.

And this continues unabated to the present day.

I once did some research into what was kitchen and small holding gardening 
like in the middle ages.  There is some scant information written down about 
grain agriculture and animal husbandry since these had to to with political 
wealth and military preparedness.  But there is very nearly no information at 
all recorded about common homestead, householding  gardening.  Almost all 
conclusions come from the side illustrations of biblical and political 
paintings where the artist would, for example, paint a picture of the fall of 
the Tower of Babble anachronistically, putting 12th century garb and 
artifacts in the painting.  There would often be pictures of cabbage gardens 
and such as a detail.  And from this unintentional (as therefore probably 
more accurate) depictions we get some small glimpse into what common people 
did.

Even today people's emphasis is not on the common everyday activities and 
decisions determining their prosperity and security.  Instead (as the recent 
example) all our problems were because of Bush and all of them would be 
solved if we only had Obama in office.   How many times does that have to 
flip back and forth before we realize we are, even right now, writing our own 
false history and ignoring the real history around us.

James


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