This tends to be true on the scale of nations, but not necessarily at the scale of the individual. People who wrote histories (before the advent of history as we know it today) were frequently people who were forced out of power after some personal failure or through no fault of their own, and then wrote a history defending themselves.
If you are alive in 2023 and you haven't yet noticed, ALL history is historical fiction. Imagine how easy it is to create a mainstream narrative that doesn't fit the facts today. Now go back in time to the forties, when you had 3 newspapers and two radio stations "of record". Now go back to 1800. To 300 A.D. History is the fairy tale story of the rulling classes. Always.
That is exactly what history isn't so. History, as written by historians, is applying source criticism to primary sources. that understanding changes over time. What you describe is meme-based pop history at best.
WW2 history based on WW2 Generals' memoir's, as opposed to unit diaries, is a prime example of that trap.
> History, as written by historians, is applying source criticism to primary sources.
Unfortunately, most "source criticism" is absolutely atrocious and developed primarily as part of the publish-or-perish paradigm, of such low quality that "X was motivated to believe Y, therefore Y was probably not true" without additional evidence is a common theme. Perhaps worse, much of our modern "source criticism" simply consists of applying whatever moralizing ideological lens is currently in vogue. Even historiography is largely fad-driven. You can absolutely learn more about historical events by reading the primary sources yourself. Historians are not blessed with some rare critical talent that can only be developed via a history degree.
It's obviously true that reading only WW2 general memoirs is going to get you a very specific and limited view, but they aren't the only people who were writing at the time, and either way, within the limited parameters of military history, it's better to read what someone actually thought rather than reading what someone else thought they thought. Of course you will sometimes be misled, but at least you'll be misled in similar ways to people of the time, rather than being misled by 21st-century ideas. That's not to say there are no good modern histories, but the best are ones that quote very, very liberally and give you lists of the best primary sources, which you should still read.
You want to read what, to stick with the example, WW2 Generals thought? Read their diaries, unit diaries, orders and other war diaries. The memoirs were all written after WW2, and show exactly that: what those Generals wanted others to think of them. Aggravated by the perceptive of being Cold War propaganda, the former Wehrmacht generals portrayed themselves as anti-communist fighters (as opposed to Nazi-enablers, sympathizers or outright Nazis), the Western allied Generals wanted to outplay each other (especially the US and UK ones, as vividly shown between Patton and Montgomery) but they all agreed to down play the Soviets war effort (Cold War, communists and all that, hence WW2 was won on D-Day and, maybe, Stalingrad).
And yes, historians aren't above criticism, but by virtue of education they are better qualified then the average layman and / or history buff. Education matters, something we tend to forget way to often in fields outside of our own expertise.
Sure, clearly diaries would be even better being closer to the time in question, no argument there.
Better educated than the average layman? Certainly. Than the average history buff? Maybe. Depends on the historian and the history buff. Going through a degreed program doesn’t guarantee that you get some esoteric knowledge unavailable to the general public - it just usually gives you a really good survey of existing knowledge. It’s very easy for amateurs to get to the same approximate level of knowledge in many times and places. If they focus on primary sources rather than secondary sources, they’re often better off.
It sounds like you have a beef against academic historians? In any case, anybody doing historical research can be termed historian. Doing your own research is great as long as you have the necessary qualifications, but for most laymen the language barriers alone will prevent them from reading first hand sources.
Considering one of the best-known and well-regarded classicists of the 21st century admits she has enormous difficulty reading Latin texts she hasn't read before, I don't think reading mostly translations sets you any worse off than the average academic, especially if you take the time to acquire at least some rudimentary knowledge about the language in question, and particularly if you can locate an edition with side-by-side texts, like the Loeb editions for ancient Rome and Greece.
> It sounds like you have a beef against academic historians?
Somewhat, in that the average[1] modern academic output in the humanities is not worth writing home about (often absolute garbage) and the expertise relative to a sufficiently dedicated amateur (not a layman) is highly overrated. While many (but not all!) scientific fields have evolved to a level of complexity and depth requiring education and equipment not accessible to random amateurs, history is generally speaking in the same position it was a hundred years ago: anyone can read enough on their own to acquire expertise in some particular niche and possibly even make new connections, if the ground hasn't already been over-tilled.
[1] Average is an important word here. Obviously at the high end this becomes less and less likely to be true.
Given philology is also part of the humanities, who do you think produce these perfect unbiased translation which are just as good as reading the actual primary sources?
You're right. But what was described isn't pop history, that trivializes the magnitude of its impact. For most the world most of the time for all of history, that _was_ how the past was understood.
And today, we still understand the present this way, and it takes time to gather critical sources and discover truth, and hopefully record it.
Herman Wouk's The Winds of War / War and Remembrance books, published long ago, are a corrective to the "We took Omaha Beach, and then we won the war" American narrative. They were quite popular and made into a TV series, and they made every effort to show what people thought then, from different perspectives.
They also made it clear that it was the Soviet Union that ground down the Nazi war machine.
Yeah, it really sounds like you did not read history books. Also, the forties left huge amount of evidence behind them. History books are not based primary nor solely on "papers of record". These are just one of many used data points.
Meanwhile, historical fiction is explicitly fiction. As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that.
> As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that.
Good historical fiction goes deeper than good, sourced, "factual" history. Proper history depends on written records; but those records were made exclusively by people who are literate (obviously), which for most of history was a tiny minority.
A lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff, based on a conventional version of history, telling tales we all (think we) know. The good stuff is made-up too, of course; but it's heavily researched, and informative. I'm thinking of stuff like Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth.
> lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff
All of it is made up. That is why it is called fiction. Authors are pretty open about that fact. It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history - because it uses sourced history as its only source of information about past.
Historical fiction writers read a lot of sourced history and then combine, modify, remove and add to make compeling story that would satisfy the audience.
> It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history
Honestly, I think that's wrong. "Proper" historians make up a lot of stuff; they tell stories, because otherwise their work would simply be lists of citations. What they do is called history, because they are professional acaemic historians. But professional story-tellers can make up stories based on the same citations.
> It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history.
OK, well I think "factual history" is a dodgy concept. "Facts" about the past change every decade or so. The past becomes foggy immediately, then it turns into legend, then into myth.
This is really not true. It is not even true that historical books would actually write stories.
Nor is it true that historical fiction would be limited to what was true about history. They literally intentionally make stuff up. That is what they are even expected to do.
One falsehood is that people through out history were illiterate. The second is to see historical fiction as anything ddifferent from fantasy, science fiction or other forms of entertainment.
History =|= historical story telling
Ken Follet wrote a novel about building a cathedral, he didn'r write a book about medival cathedral building. Very important difference.
Subtle mis-interpretations can be all that's needed to lead a perfectly true narrative, astray. The line between myth and fact, can be very finely sliced indeed.
There is not a single academic field free from fictionalizing Key aspects of the narrative to put someone in a more favourable light. Unfortunately.
That's just completely false:
Spanish civil war
Invasion of Poland
Stalin's victory in WWII
The Talibans
Iran-Iraq war
Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
The Crusades
No it didn't, it's a cute quip trying to play on how history is written by the winners but his version isn't actually true. There are plenty of examples where it's generally agreed that the "bad guys" won.
Even if you try to read it as good bad being subjective I don't think there's any fixed lens though which a history book would interpret the winners being the good guys in every conflict.
You also missed it. There will be varying accounts, but history written by the “bad guys” will frame things differently to make them seem like the good guys.
>Most wars are not the "good" guys vs the "bad" guys. In many of the cases you mention, I have no idea who you even think the good guys were.
Perhaps that's because you have no idea of the historic context for some of them? I completely disagree that "most wars are not good or bad". If you lived at the time of the wars in one of these countries you'd know very well who are the "good" and "bad" guys(sometimes, both sides can be bad like Stalin's Russia vs Hitler's Germany).
If you accept certain values as universal (freedom from tyranny, right not to get killed/raped/enslaved) it becomes pretty clear pretty quick which side (or sometimes both) are fighting to preserve some of these rights and which side is against. Which side has its soldiers motivated by an idea of making their country a safe place and which motivates them by letting them rape, pillage and having death squads right behind in case anyone tries to desert.
Also, how both sides treat civilians (own and opposing). For a recent example look at Hamas vs Israel. Hamas clearly states every Jew is a valid target for them, also they use their own civilians as human shields storing and launching weaponry from places like schools, hospitals etc. While Israel, when they are bombing residential blocks full of weapons do so called "knocking on the roof" (shooting on the roof of the building to give civilians a chance to escape). Often said civilians are blocked from escaping by Hamas.
If you have any doubts which side is bad, or good, or if both are bad find out what are they fighting for. Why did the war start? What values stand behind both sides.
> If you lived at the time of the wars in one of these countries you'd know very well who are the "good" and "bad" guys
Yes it is easy to tell. The good guys are those on your side, and the bad guys are the guys on the other side.
When your side kills civilians, it is really indirectly the fault of the bad guys for fighting and not surrendering. When the bad guys kills civilians it is because they have no regard for human life. When your side rapes it is just a few bad apples blown up by enemy propaganda. When the bad guys rapes it is because they are like evil animals. When your side perform ethnic cleansing it is an unfortunate but necessary step to preserve peace and safety for the good guys. When the bad guys perform ethnic cleansing it show they will murder everyone if they are not exterminated.
Sure somtimes you will have the good guys inexplicable turn evil, like the rugged freedom-loving Mujahedeen suddenly turning into the evil Taliban, but just remember to examine the ideals they fight for to determine wheter they are good or evil today.
>Yes it is easy to tell. The good guys are those on your side, and the bad guys are the guys on the other side.
If "your side" targets civilians on principle and has its
written in its pamphlets it will continue to do so(or wants to "rid the earth of _insert-people-here_" your side is a bad one. As simple as that.
Look at any war in Europe in last 100 years. At least one if not both sides will openly say one or both of the above.
Distinguishing good vs evil is not that difficult. Most people learn the basics around 3 years old. But many regimes make it their priority to convince us words don't have concrete meanings and "everything is the same". No it isn't. Nazis using gas chambers on everyone that doesn't fit into their plan or Hamas slitting civilians and children's throats in Israel on purpose are not the same as combatants killing enemy soldiers.
I could even excuse Hamas shooting their dumb rockets at Israeli civilians, if they made an argument they don't have better guided ones, and to have any hope of hitting a military target they have to cover an area, but they don't make such claims. In fact we all know if they had better targeting capability they'd attempt to target softer civilian targets like schools, churches etc (exactly like what Russia does in Ukraine). Not military ones. We don't have to imagine. They tell us themselves in their constitution.
There is such a thing as a right and wrong and I explained how to distinguish one from another in the parent comment.
Good vs. Bad in war is tue rare exception, even WW2 is less clear cut than people think, isn't it? After all, Stalin was on the side of the allies.
And what Israel does right now in Gaza is as bad as it gets. And Inam almost sure exactly what Hamas wants them to do. By the way, bombing civilian infrstructure and laying siege to civilians are both violations ofbthe Geneva convention. "Door knocking" or not, the result is some poor folks house is destroyed.
Actually, despite being inevitable to a certain degree, the Middle East and all of its conflicts is a prime example of a conflict without good and bad sides, isn't it? Which makes it so damn hard to solve.
Just a general remark, because press and media in Germany seem to have a hard time with that at the moment, not all Palestinians are anti-semites, critizing Israel is not tze same thing as critizing jews. And one can easily feel compassion with the innocent people suffering on both sides of this conflict without siding with Hamas. We should understand that, because otherwise we risk pissing off each and every Muslim for no good reason. And that wouldn't help, would it?
FWIW, a quick google turned up only three results for that phrase, each of which was from Animats, but on Slashdot. Cool phrase, even if it's apparently not that old
It's from a novel, I think. It reflects battle results of legions against barbarians. One on one, the barbarians could win. A formed legion could take on a larger group of barbarians and win. See Gallic Wars.
Google's coverage of books is worse than it used to be. Search results from old books don't come up much any more.
Non composita legio heroum. Heroes sunt quos legio necat.
(Please tell me how I'm butchering my Latin here, still learning!)
Yeah, I get nothing from a quick search too.
I wouldn't even think to know who would have said something so mundane about the legions. Cesar would never have said something like that. The closest that I can think of would be Pompey, but such a saying would have been too glib even for him.
> Cesar would never have said something like that.
I expect "don't be a hero" would be a very, very common sentiment expressed to a legionnaire during his training. It's a little more pithy than "hold the line or you'll get killed and fuck things up for everybody else."
"Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" by Herman Wouk. Written in the 1970s, from the perspective of a Jewish-American family. He also earlier wrote Pulitzer-Prize-winning "The Caine Mutiny" in 1951, it was a good book but not as enjoyable as the other two.
He fought in the Pacific Theater during WWII and so lived it.
(I also remember his 1948 "City Boy" being a hilarious tale of a Jewish kid growing up in NYC/The Bronx.)
Since it's fiction, he has the opportunity to show what people thought then without benefit of hindsight. And he takes full advantage of it. Even the fictional German general Armin von Roon gets plenty of space to give the German perspective.
Red Sorghum is fantastic. Set in a Chinese village, it's a perspective I had really no idea about. It's very well written as well, in a matter-of-fact style that seems to translate well.
