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Pseudohistory

Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohistory derived from the superstitions intrinsic to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap. Although pseudohistory comes in many forms, scholars have identified many features that tend to be common in pseudohistorical works; one example is that the use of pseudohistory is almost always motivated by a contemporary political, religious, or personal agenda. Pseudohistory also frequently presents sensational claims or a big lie about historical facts which would require unwarranted revision of the historical record.[3]

Another hallmark of pseudohistory is an underlying premise that scholars have a furtive agenda to suppress the promotor's thesis—a premise commonly corroborated by elaborate conspiracy theories. Works of pseudohistory often point exclusively to unreliable sources—including myths and legends, often treated as literal historical truth—to support the thesis being promoted while ignoring valid sources that contradict it. Sometimes a work of pseudohistory will adopt a position of historical relativism, insisting that there is really no such thing as historical truth and that any hypothesis is just as good as any other. Many works of pseudohistory conflate mere possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did.


Notable examples of pseudohistory include British Israelism, the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Irish slaves myth, the witch-cult, Armenian genocide denial, Holocaust denial, the clean Wehrmacht myth, the 16th- and 17th-century Spanish Black Legend, and the claim that the Katyn massacre was not committed by the Soviet NKVD.

Definition and etymology[edit]

The term pseudohistory was coined in the early nineteenth century, which makes the word older than the related terms pseudo-scholarship and pseudoscience.[4] In an attestation from 1815, it is used to refer to the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, a purportedly historical narrative describing an entirely fictional contest between the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod.[5] The pejorative sense of the term, labelling a flawed or disingenuous work of historiography, is found in another 1815 attestation.[6] Pseudohistory is akin to pseudoscience in that both forms of falsification are achieved using the methodology that purports to, but does not, adhere to the established standards of research for the given field of intellectual enquiry of which the pseudoscience claims to be a part, and which offers little or no supporting evidence for its plausibility.[7]: 7–18 


Writers Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman define pseudohistory as "the rewriting of the past for present personal or political purposes".[8]: 2  Other writers take a broader definition; Douglas Allchin, a historian of science, contends that when the history of scientific discovery is presented in a simplified way, with drama exaggerated and scientists romanticized, this creates wrong stereotypes about how science works, and in fact constitutes pseudohistory, despite being based on real facts.[9]

The arbitrary linking of disparate events so as to form – in the theorist's opinion – a pattern. This is typically then developed into a postulating a hidden agent responsible for creating and maintaining the pattern. For example, the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail links the Knights Templar, the medieval Grail Romances, the Merovingian Frankish dynasty and the artist Nicolas Poussin in an attempt to identify lineal descendants of Jesus.

conspiracy theory

Hypothesising the consequences of unlikely events that "could" have happened, thereby assuming tacitly that they did.

or shock value

Sensationalism

or "law office history", evidence that helps the historical argument being made and suppressing evidence that hurts it.[13]

Cherry picking

Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that:


Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke prefers the term "cryptohistory". He identifies two necessary elements as "a complete ignorance of the primary sources" and the repetition of "inaccuracies and wild claims".[11][12]


Other common characteristics of pseudohistory are:

As a topic of study[edit]

Courses critiquing pseudohistory are offered as undergraduate courses in liberal arts settings, one example being in Claremont McKenna College.[117]

 – Propaganda technique

Big lie

List of pseudohistorians

Pseudoscientific metrology

Disinformation

Program in the History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

"Pseudohistory and Pseudoscience"

entry at Skeptic's Dictionary

Pseudohistory

The Hall of Ma'at

from the American Skeptic magazine.

"The Restoration of History"