The Decolonisation of Military History
Jeremy Black MBE is a British historian, writer, and former professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, US.
He is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as “the most prolific historical scholar of our age”. He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882-1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).
About History Reclaimed
Our Mission
The abuse of history for political purposes is as old as history itself. In recent years, we have seen campaigns to rewrite the history of several democratic nations in a way that undermines their solidarity as communities, their sense of achievement, even their very legitimacy.
These ‘culture wars’, pursued in the media, in public spaces, in museums, universities, schools, civil services, local government, business corporations and even churches, are particularly virulent in North America, Australasia and the United Kingdom. Activists assert that ‘facing up’ to a past presented as overwhelmingly and permanently shameful and guilt-laden is the way to a better and fairer future. We see no evidence that this is true. On the contrary, tendentious and even blatantly false readings of history are creating or aggravating divisions, resentments, and even violence. We do not take the view that our histories are uniformly praiseworthy-that would be absurd. But we reject as equally absurd the claim that they are essentially shameful.
We agree that history consists of many opinions and many voices. But this does not mean that all opinions are valid, and certainly none should be imposed as a new orthodoxy. We intend to challenge distortions of history, and to provide context, explanation and balance in a debate in which dogmatism is too often preferred to analysis, and condemnation to understanding.
Who We Are
We are an independent group of scholars with a wide range of opinions on many subjects, but with the shared conviction that history requires careful interpretation of complex evidence, and should not be a vehicle for facile propaganda. We have established the History Reclaimed group as a non-profit making company limited by guarantee; the directors and co-editors are unpaid.
30 сен 2024
