Who is history written by

Some quotes are clever; some only superficially so. The victors can force their narrative down on the people. Actually, there could be multiple interpretations. So, I have made certain assumptions. To an extent, this happens. Mercedes had to apologize for tweeting a quote of Dalai Lama after receiving a backlash form the Chinese.

When new facts emerge, it gets revisited. The Wright Brothers, who were celebrities in their heyday, believed so strongly in their innovation that they never considered that they are crossing the line in enforcing patents.

Such was their stature that they won every major lawsuit. William Barr ignited yet another firestorm last week by dismissing all charges against former national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn. It turned out that the full quote was less cynical than the ubiquitous soundbite. It … upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.

My own view of the Flynn episode is that the former decorated general behaved poorly — by his own admission lying to the FBI — but the FBI behaved terribly, too. Flynn was caught up in a counterintelligence investigation that became a politicized criminal investigation without sufficient evidence of a crime. If the Romans conquered some Celtic backwater, the Romans wrote their history.

The victors in the settling of North America were clearly the European intruders, and for a while, the story of noble white men battling savages dominated.

The Project — which just won a Pulitzer Prize — was not exactly a story told by the winners. The suggestion, even with his caveats, that his decisions will only be vindicated by history if his side wins is disturbing. For instance, the Hollywood writers who lost their jobs during the McCarthy era were obviously not the victors.

But they ultimately got to write the history of their defeat. Standard textbooks today teach, and Hollywood constantly insists, that they were heroic martyrs of a fascistic moral panic over communism let me avoid a whole brouhaha by simply saying the actual story is somewhat more complicated.

Most days, I find it difficult to contain my skepticism about that. Indeed, even those who say it tend to avoid claiming that history will be kind to Trump himself. Unfortunately, in the case of the conquest of Mexico, there is only one genuine primary source written from Other sources are conventionally used as primary sources, although they were written long after the conquest.

Other accounts consist of Mexica and other Nahua stories and traditions about the conquest of Mexico from their point of view. Historians then use these sources to make arguments, which could possibly be refuted by different interpretations of the same evidence or the discovery of new sources.

For example, the Bentley and Ziegler textbook make several arguments on page about why the Spaniards won:. Ideally, under each of these "thesis statements," that is, each of these arguments about why the Mexicas were defeated, the authors will give some examples of information that backs up their "thesis.

Since the Bentley and Ziegler book does not provide any evidence to back up their main arguments, you can easily use the material available here to provide evidence to support your claim that any one of the above arguments is better than the others. To become a critical reader, to empower yourself to "own your own history," you should think carefully about whether the evidence the authors provide does in fact support their theses.

Since the Bentley and Ziegler book provides only conclusions and not much evidence to back up their main points, you may want to explore your class notes on the topic and then examine the primary sources included on the Conquest of Mexico on this web site. There are several ways to make this a successful assignment. First, you might take any of the theses presented in the book and use information from primary sources to disprove it—the "trash the book" approach.

Or, if your professor has said something in class that you are not sure about, find material to disprove it—the "trash the prof" approach and, yes, it is really okay if you have the evidence. Another approach is to include new information that the authors ignored. For example, the authors say nothing about omens. If one analyzes omens in the conquest, will it change the theses or interpretations presented in the textbook?

Or, can one really present a Spanish or Mexica perspective? Another approach is to make your own thesis, i. If you do work with the Mexican materials, you will encounter the harsh reality of historical research: the sources do not always agree on what happened in a given event. It is up to you, then, to decide who to believe. Was he painting an unusually rosy picture of his situation so that the Spanish King would continue to support him?

It is up to you to decide.