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2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Salmon

Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) was one of the earliest and strongest critics of what he saw as the British government’s attempts to control the past through the writing of so-called, ‘official histories’. His famous diatribe against the ‘pitfalls’ of official history first appeared in 1949, at a time when the British government was engaged in publishing official histories and diplomatic documents on an unprecedented scale following the Second World War. But why was Butterfield so hostile to official history, and why do his views still matter today? Written by one of the few historians employed by the British government today, this important new book details how successive governments have applied a selective approach to the past in order to tell or re-tell Britain’s national history, with implications for the future. Providing a unique overview of the main trends of official history in Britain since the Second World War, the book details how Butterfield came to suspect that the British government was trying to suppress vital documents revealing the Duke of Windsor’s dealings with Nazi Germany. This seemed to confirm his long-held belief that all governments would seek to manipulate history if they could, and conceal the truth if they could not. At the beginning of the 21st century, official history is still being written and the book concludes with an insider’s perspective on the many issues it faces today– on freedom of information, social media and reengaging with our nation’s colonial legacy. Governments have recently been given many reminders that history matters, and it is Herbert Butterfield above all who reminds us that we must remain vigilant in monitoring how they respond to the challenge.


2021 ◽  
pp. 379-407
Author(s):  
Greg Youmans

In 2018, the US Park Service finally deemed the informal artist colony Druid Heights, in California’s Marin County, eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. There is no act of preservation that can do justice to everything Druid Heights was and is, and it remains to be seen which aspects will get fixed as official history and which others will fade away or be left to haunt the place in unexpected ways. This chapter analyzes three films that staged competing visions of sexual freedom at Druid Heights: James Broughton’s experimental short The Bed (1967), the Mariposa Film Group’s gay and lesbian interview documentary Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977), and Ed De Priest’s heterosexual pornographic feature Skintight (1981). Together, these films present a valuable case study for understanding the role of cinema in political contestations over the meaning and use of space.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-519
Author(s):  
Eduard V. Kaziev ◽  

Research objectives: To ascertain the time and circumstances of the As people’s incorporation into the service of the Great Mongol Qa’ans. Research materials: Biographies of the As military commanders presented in the official History of the Yüan dynasty (the main source), the narratives of John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, the chronicles of Vardan Areveltsi, Kirakos Gandzaketsi, and Grigor Aknertsi, Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles, the Hypatian Codex, notes of Chinese officials Peng Da-ya and Xu Ting on the Mongols. Results and novelty of the research: The paper clarifies one aspect of the author’s previous research of the problem under consideration. It partially refutes a prior conclusion that the As entried into the Mongols’ military service only during the Western campaign. On the contrary, this paper substantiates the traditional assertion that the As joined Mongol service during the reign of Möngke Qa’an. Besides, it indicates that this argument finds its substantiation in the information found in the As military commanders’ biographies in the History of Yuan which are usually overlooked on this issue. The assumption is also put forward and argued that the enthronement of the rulers of Alania took place in the Caucasus, and they did not need to go to the capital of the Mongol Empire for this purpose. In addition, it is noted that in the related sources, analyzed by the author in both papers on this topic, there is no information that would allow for asserting or suggesting the possibility of the arrival of the As to serve in Mongolia and China after the beginning of the process of the actual division of the Empire into independent uluses following the death of Möngke Qa’an in 1259.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (01) ◽  
pp. 213-220
Author(s):  
Yog Raj Lamichhane

On 15 August 1947, the glory of Indian Independence has introduced with a political hubris, dividing British India into two separate independent nations: secular India and Islamic Pakistan. The partition brings trauma in the life of millions; nevertheless, this trauma itself becomes the victim of nationhood and community both in official history and literary writing. In this background, the study examines how a Hollywood movie Partition directed by Vic Sarin in 2007, exceptionally surpasses that tendency of dividing the community into ‘‘as’’ and ‘‘others’’ imparting Indian partition trauma politically. While analyzing the behavior and action of major characters along with the overall imparted theme of the movie, it rethinks the customary archives of community and nationhood depicting partition memory objectively. The protagonist never pronounces a single word of communal intolerance even when he has been mocked and tortured in the name of religion. Conversely, some characters in the movie always attempt to massacre the truth of trauma spreading communal bile; however, the overall essence and message of the movie keep that alive. Rethinking cultural trauma and using the approach of memory, the study concludes that this in-between movie appears as “West Running Brook” that exceeds the common communalization and perpetual politicization in the history of depicting Indian partition. Eventually, the study establishes that sharing pain seems to work as a healer among victims to overcome their trauma on one side and uniquely it adjoins the British as a party in Indian partition trauma in the next, which has been blurred considering insignificant in the one-to-one conflict between two giants.


(an)ecdótica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-182
Author(s):  
María José Ramírez ◽  

In 1931, Nellie Campobello published Cartucho. Nine years later, in 1940, a second edition appeared, about which not much has been said. With the exception that it is usually mentioned to assert that Campobello modified it under the influence of the author of El águila y la serpiente, the 1940 edition was left somewhat erased by the third edition (1960), in the same way that each edition’s corresponding characteristics were also erased. This piece reviews some of the features that characterize both editions, with the intention of showing what was already present in the first edition, and what the author added or enhanced afterward. It also presents the context in which the second edition emerged (Campobello’s interest in history, her relationship with Austreberta Rentería, the publication of her book Las manos de mamá), and it questions the author’s motives to propose Cartucho (1940) as a set of “true tales” in opposition to the revolutionary “legend” stated in official history. In the conducted analysis, we can appreciate the expansion of some of the literary strategies present in the first edition (the multiplicity of testimonial voices and the contribution of women as witnesses to the facts) and the permanence of others that appeared in 1931 (the infantile narrative voice, the poetic images associated to the war and to the infantilization of the men that fought in the Mexican Revolution). The premise in this article is that both editions defy the concepts of truth, history, and fiction, in the way we usually conceive them, but that in 1940, Campobello expanded some of the literary strategies that she used in 1931 as a function of the emphasis that she put in the testimonials of a multitude of women and men that lived the civil war in the North and to whom, in the process of officialization and institutionalization of the Mexican Revolution, the truth of their own history had been denied, according to the author.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-41
Author(s):  
Cintia Velázquez Marroni

As public (state-dependent) institutions, history museums in Mexico are viewed as embodiments of official history, unable to present history as contested and constructed. This article offers a detailed explanation of how and to what extent official history operates in the construction of historical narratives and visitors’ experiences of two history museums in Mexico City. Results showed specific omission strategies, divergences, and inconsistencies in the historical discourse, as well as peoples’ autonomous and creative meaning-making of the past, both of which provide strong evidence to advocate for an understanding of official history not as one, but as several competing narratives produced at different times by institutions and professionals affiliated (either directly or indirectly) with the state.


2021 ◽  
pp. 62-92
Author(s):  
Matilda Greig

Peninsular War veterans often faced a difficult transition back into civilian society after the conflict, receiving inadequate pay and little official commemoration. This led to a common fear, expressed explicitly in their memoirs, that their stories had not been and would not be properly told. This chapter demonstrates that many soldiers-turned-authors deliberately used their autobiographies to take issue with the academic, historical record of the war. It reveals that, in Spain, the first official history of the Peninsular War was written by a group of veterans, who helped to choose the Spanish name for the conflict: la Guerra de la Independencia. It then shows how veterans’ memoirs contributed to the creation of distinct national narratives of the war in Spain, Britain, and France, examining different representations of the ‘Other’, depictions of the guerrilla war and its leaders, and praise or criticism for the regular army.


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