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Line 155: The above seems to be speaking of modern history. Finding a text by the losing side in ancient history is extremely rare. Furthermore, there is no law that states Written by the Winners and Lost Cause tracts are mutually exclusive - each side might get their viewpoint across, both will be biased. If there is actually a person that disbelieves this trope happens in Real Life, then I have a bridge over some swamp-land in Florida on the moon to sell them. Suetonius and other Roman histories are cases of losers (ie: the Senatorial Elite) writing the history which is no small part of why the first twelve Caesars come across as such villains. From classical times onward losers have been very good about getting their side into print - at least in the West. The Soviet Union of course was another story. * Some of the most early works of history can be seen as aversions and subversions: [[The Histories\|Herodotus]] was from Halicarnassus, which was part of the Persian Empire, although he wrote his ''[[The Histories\|Histories]]'' for the Greek victors. And Athenian Thucydides wrote ''the'' history of the Peloponnesian War, which Athens lost. Perceptions of the trial of Socrates are largely shaped by the accounts by Socrates' student Plato. Josephus Flavius, who had commanded a fortress in its defense against the Romans, wrote the main account of the Jewish War (which probably still was coloured by his personal attachment to the Flavians). Many books of the Bible also can be seen as aversions, as most people will know the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah from the Old Testament, not from the accounts of the empires that conquered them. And then there's a huge gap between what scholars know and what the population believed. Up until recent times when scholars studies are more readily available to the general public, it is not at all strange to think this trope is in play in lots of real life cases. ** As noted in ''[http://zenpundit.com/?p=53624 History is Written by the Losers]'' by T. Greer, Thucydides names few Spartans more than once… except Brasidas, because of course the more awesome Brasidas was, the less embarrassing it was to get beaten by him. {{quote\|Those who rule do not have the time to write about it. Occasionally history produces a Caesar or a Mao, men who can lead the masses to war on the one hand, while serving as prolific propagandists for their cause on the other. The greater part mankind is not so talented. Sima Guang would never have finished his history had he not been shunted out of Song court politics. Had Thucydides defeated Brasidas, he would be known today not as a historian, but as a military strategist, a strategist who never had the time to travel the world and collect the material needed to write his history. Even winning historians need time in defeat to write their histories—had Churchill’s party not been kicked out of power by British voters after the Second World War was over, Churchill’s famous account of that war would never have been written. When high position is stolen from you, and access to the heights of wealth and power denied, there is little one can do about it—except write. History is thus rarely a “weapon of the weak.” The judgments of the historian do not serve the margins. They do not even serve the masses. They are a weapon in the hand of defeated elites, the voices of men and women who could be in power, but are not. }} * Regarding Israel, there are multiple Egyptian stelae from multiple eras noting how one Pharaoh or another "completely destroyed" them. * From a class perspective as opposed to a national one: Most of history (at least until modern times) focused on ruling and upper class males because ruling and upper class males dominated society, were generally the ones who knew how to write history, and were only interested in the affairs of their peers (i.e. other ruling and upper class males). There are remarkably few historical works that focus exclusively on women, members of the peasant classes, or the bourgeoisie.

Written by the Winners: Difference between revisions