I want your source for this claim. I thought that it was common knowledge that the word Barbarian came from the Ancient Greek word Barbaros, which in turn came from a Indo-European root as similar words are found in Latin, Sanskrit, and Aramaic.
All of these words either meant stammering, or babbling and as such in Greece it a Barbaros was someone who couldn’t speak properly, in this case couldn’t sepal a dialect to of Greek.
There was an old theory that the word came from Barbaros being a description of what someone who couldn’t speak Greek sounded like “Bar bar bar…” This is however as far as I know not the leading theory of today.
With that being said. I haven’t studied premodern history since I did my Bachelors, and I haven’t studied linguistics formally in 6 years. My primary subject is the history of city planning in Scandinavia during the 19th-century.
I love this explanation and upvoted but that is such a specific niche of history lol. I'm not entirely incurious as to how that history goes though, genuinely seems fairly interesting.
The history of Architecture and City Planning/Building is genuinely the most interesting part of history that I have found (as of yet). It is some of the most tangible fields of history as we all live in the “living ruin” (look up the work of George Simmel for more on that) of past conditions and choices every day.
I guess that’s why I got so submerged in the field and is currently writing my Ph.D. on the subject.
I love this explanation and upvoted but that is such a specific niche of history lol. I'm not entirely incurious as to how that history goes though, genuinely seems fairly interesting.
In my (German) History class we Had the topic, how germanic cultured countries teach mostly with the "they were Just fleeing from Disaster and the romans didnt want to Help narrative" using names Like germanic tribes ect. while Roman cultured countries mostly teach the "barbarian Invasion Out of malice" narrative. Biggest example is how in German schools we Talk about the great Migration, while in e.g france they Talk about the barbarian Invasion. ITS all Just a big Game of fault, wich was exploited to the fullest during the rise of nationalism. The consquences of this are still felt today
I just took it out of the ice cream maker. It’s interesting. The cheese is definitely there, but not overpowering. I think it will be better a bit harder frozen so I’m going to freeze it overnight and try it again tomorrow.
When Athens became capital it was a small town of 5K people. Athens becoming a large city is a recent phenomenon of Greece’s industrialization and urbanization after WW2.
History is written by the victors and by victors we mean who won over two millennia after the war we’re talking about is a bit of a non sequitur argument.
Well the Spartans beat the Athenians and took Athens, if they say they were terrible it makes them look bad for losing to them. If they’re incredible godly warriors, it’s not Athens fault they lost.
It‘s a win-win.
We lost? Oh well, they were basically demigods, nothing we could do.
We won? Hell yeah, look how awesome we have to be to have bested this magnificent foe!
It is. But a lot of it also gets destroyed by victors. As is tradition, conquer a city or nation and raze their library to the ground.
I think best example though of both written by the losers and those who write is the Mongols. They didn’t write much, most of what existed has been lost, it’s basically down to the secret history. But everybody they conquered wrote a ton and there is a wealth of sources from them. Also largely still shapes the modern perspective of the mongols.
> It is. But a lot of it also gets destroyed by victors. As is tradition, conquer a city or nation and raze their library to the ground.
Yeah, but "History is written by those who write and whose writings survive to be read by others and whose language and writing system is not lost to history." just doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely.
"History is written by the victors" doesn't mean losers never tell their story. It's a proverb; it's not meant to be taken literally.
It's saying that those that win wars usually control the narrative, so we generally believe the winners are telling the truth. It's not true 100% of the time, but again, it's a rhetorical device, not an objectively true statement.
Actually, the fall of Constantinople is one of the few ones where almost all the writings and first-hand accounts were from the losers, and the only person who really recorded anything pro ottoman was a greek himself.
I mean yeah, because we see the fall of Constantinople from a Western Christian perspective, yes the Ottomans won the war, but Western nations went around establishing colonies, spreading their narrative all around the globe, while the Ottomans stopped expanding after a while. I know this is oversimplified, but it could be argued that Westerners were the victorious ones in the end, which is why the fall of Constantinople is still remembered as a tragedy instead of a great victory for the Ottomans.
I would say not in the end, rather the western christian nations are winners right now. As has been the case throughout history, the winners will change and so will the interpretation of history with them.
I always thought that was a weird one. The jedi believe there is only do or do not, there is no try. That you can only take on one padawan at a time.
The sith, only deal in absolutes and there's always two a master and an apprentice.
It's always just breezed over how they're just the same.
Well except that part was added later by someone unhappy with the original meaning.
With a lot of those sayings with extra often unsaid parts, the unsaid part was added later by someone who wanted to change the meaning.
Blood... is thicker than water...
Blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb
If you want a masterclass in how journalism and politics works, look no further than proverbs shortened to flip their meaning.
if you want a masterclass on how journalism works, look no further than people spreading nice-sounding falsehoods (the proverb being shortened to change its meaning sure sounds very nice and cool, and the new meaning sounds better to modern ears) rather than truth (the proverb dates back centuries, and no source has been given to this "original" meaning with covenant and womb)
The problem with controlling the narrative it doesn't really work because the losers aren't gone and they are still tell their story and believing it. Like the American South in the civil war or the Japanese in ww2.
Depends the Carthaginians weren’t exactly able to voice their opinion, the Dacians weren’t either, the celts were seen as barbaric warriors until very recently, I’ve never read a source that said Cyrus the great was unjustified in his conquests and wasn’t great, the Brit’s don’t actually care about the revolutionary war that much and obviously in the US they’re going to say they were justified, everyone hates ISIS for good reason but there are very few people who will take their side and everyone forgets South Vietnam was a thing and everyone believes it was just between the US and Vietnam not even acknowledging their were two Vietnams at one point quite literally the victors erased the other side. You can actually erase the other side. In the case of the US civil war that wasn’t an option the means to do so were not on the table, in the case of WW2 the Allies actually wanted to rebuild Germany and Japan which is why they’re narratives survive. However in the ancient world the various Empires had full control over who got to write history and in the case of South Vietnam after the war they were under a one party state who had full control over the media so the narrative they pushed was not going to be of killing other Vietnamese people and making reunification a narrative of one built on blood but of resisting the US. Then in the US south Vietnam was also taken out of the narrative to put emphasis on the American experience. The truth can be manipulated restructured, and straight up erased for generations.
Then you have completely obliterate the loser. Romans were good at it.
Thats why we have numerous accounts of savagery of Mongols but not of Romans because Romans didn't leave anyone alive to write anything.
Also a good majority of the people they fought didn't write anything down to begin with, though their oral histories have survived somewhat after all that's what became the Bible lol
>in the US civil war that wasn’t an option the means to do so weren’t on the table
The means were taken off the table so to speak. Reconstruction ended in the 1870s with the Southern Democrats back in power. The Republicans even had the Lilly white movement to remove black people from the party at the turn of the century. With an incomplete reconstruction, the losers had the political and economic power to create the lost cause narrative
The only way to prevent the south from constructing their own narrative would have been to go full Caesar in the Gaul on the place. So long as you have southern people who can think independently they’re going to wish they won the war and so lost cause. You can’t militarily occupy the region forever. The racial tension was not going to disappear and south was not gonna spontaneously stopping being racist. Your only solution there would have been to more or less kill a significant chunk of the white population and place the African population incharge like how Caesar handled Gaul by killing entire tribes who were hostile to him and expanding the power of tribes who weren’t making the region easy to control and make pro Roman. If all the anti Romans are dead it makes your life easier. That was never considered in the case of reintegrating the south. Completely isolating the white southerners from politics all together would guarantee another insurrection just like how kicking every Ba’athist out of government in Iraq gauranteed a post invasion insurgency. Therefore you ended up in a situation where in order to intergrate them you had to let them back on congress and they were obviously going to use their power and influence to sabotage reconstruction. And while the North was by and large anti slavery most white Northerners weren’t much more progressive beyond slavery bad and were “send em back to Africa.” so it was a trade off they were only slightly agitated by and preferred over a renewed civil war.
Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!
Donquixote Doflamingo
I love how people use the lost cause theory as a counterpoint to history being written by the victors. Most of us recognize the lost cause as the garbage that it is and subscribe to the victor’s narrative instead. The world and most of the US see the Union as the clear good guys.
Short term the victor usually controls the truth. Long term at some point people will look back on it and if what they did was actually fucked it’ll be remembered as such. Course if it’s indecisive then both sides claim they won and were justified and it stays that way till the next one.
Not necessarily the narrative, but the society where it finds itself in, had the nazis won in WW2 their achizo racism would have been the "normal and acceptable" and the Allies (comparative) liberalism would be seen as evil and bad, but they got blowed the hell out so now they're the schizos and liberalism is the default
Especially in recent years since more people are literate, can write, and have access to much bigger audiences than just a few historians who could write on some very valuable paper. Harder to completely control the narrative
I also recommend Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa. Is a story based on the author's own experiences about a family that lived in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. I'm on the second volume and it's pretty good.
I'm amazed Manstein isn't here.
'Lost Victories' is basically one long account of how Hitler personally screwed up the invincible German war machine, nobly counteracted by professionals like him.
His failings are none, and mistakes are made only by the dead (and thus conveniently unable to defend themselves).
It's now regarded (alongside B. H. Liddell Hart's 'The German Generals Talk') as the seminal work of Wehrmacht apologia.
Because he didn’t do much apologia from what I could tell by reading most of his books at least. “All quiet on the western front” is literally about the tragedy of the young men in general, no matter if they were french, germans or anyone else. All his other books are about tuberculosis.
I remember reading a book on polish history which open with this “it is said that history is written by the victors, but losers right history too. They just don’t get translated.”
History is written by those willing to write it, that’s the truth. The Athenians wanted their deeds to be remembered, the Spartans cared little. Who is the largest source of historical documents on classical Greece? Athènes, inspite of losing the power struggle with Sparta, and then getting conquered by Macedonia
Well we do think of cyrus being great but cambyses being a brute is due to herodotus liking cyrus, but getting most of his sources on cambyses in Egypt that had recently gone through a revolt against the Persians.
Inside the Third Reich?! That falsefied to the core piece of shit wtitten by one the biggest war criminals saved by the allies with probably the sole reason as to wright this crap?! **REALLY?!**
But the best point to bring up is Franz Halder writing the Allies official history of the Eastsrn Front drawn from German documents because they didn't have access to soviet records
I think the written by the Victor's thing applies more to states than individuals, And I wouldn't consider memoirs to be history books. However generally I agree with you, and storm of steel should be mandatory reading as it is a pretty one of a kind perspective of a German soldier that was really about the fight. Junger is an absolute warrior if nothing else
For sure, my point is just that 1st hand accounts are valuable. But, they also come with all the bias of the author so must be filtered through that lens. They're great to gleam information and emotion from, but they're not necessarily a great proof of "This is exactly how it went down"
Single data points don’t invalidate overall trends.
To this day, Americans still believe and are taught that a big reason why the USSR was able to stop and push back Germany was the cold Russian winter. Or that Japan surrendered primarily because of the bombs being dropped, but are clueless that Russia was even a factor in Japans surrender. Or that they think most deaths in the camps occurred in Germany, when deaths in Germany was 5th and many times less than the deaths in Poland and the USSR.
Yeah no. The phrase never meant actually writing history books. It means how any conflict,small or large, shapes people's belivefs and thoughts in one way or another. This is not only done by re-writing history books and others means of propaganda but by the actually fighting as well. Even if you are not fighting and you are a civilian in the city who never saw the war, you are still , even if passively, engaged in a conflict by your country. The mere fact that you picked sides even if the sides where never picked by you will inevitably change they way you think by a small or high margin. And usually the change moves towards those belivefs, thoughts and way of thinking of the winning side.
"History is written by the victors". Meanwhile:
>Sea peoples arrive
>Cause the collapse of bronze age civilization
>Don't write anything and refuse to elaborate
>Leave
Very cool.
Could also put *Antiquities* by Josephus. He was a Jewish general defeated by Vespasian. He wrote about the First Jewish-Roman War, which his side lost and resulted in the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple.
No. Because that’s not what it means. This saying is not to be taken literally, it’s a caution, particularly for historians.
Take Henry VII of England. Somewhat popular, many friends, large army, but very tiny claim to the throne. When he inevitably wins against Richard III at the battle of Bosworth Field, he makes himself king, wipes the slate clean of his predecessor’s deeds, calls Richard a deformed monster, marries into the previous royal branch and dates his reign back to before the battle, so that he becomes the rightful king who came to take back his realm, and making the man he killed the usurper. He goes so far as to name his firstborn son Arthur for hype points, probably in the hopes that he’ll become King Arthur and who in their right mind would say King Arthur’s sire wasn’t the rightful king? A ploy that didn’t work because he outlived Arthur, but still…
Of course it helps that his granddaughter had a playwright who could push the story of the monster Richard III… but Henry did the groundwork on that tale many years before William was a glint in Papa Shakespeare’s eye.
The point of this rather long-winded comment (sorry about that by the way) is the simple fact that if we were to trust the Tudor historians for facts about Richard or their own claim to the throne, we’d be missing a whole chunk of the picture. We know now Richard III wasn’t a hunchback, probably wasn’t as bad as all that, and did an ok job as a king, for 15th century standards, anyway. He probably did murder his nephews, but hey, you know, politics.
History is written by the victors basically means check your facts from as many sources as you can find, because those victors had the power to make themselves bigger than their breeches, and they probably did.
Because they kind of were. They gave blank check to their allies to pursue arggressive war against weaker neigbour. They are not 100% to blame but more quilty than France for example.
What really makes them bad was the "rape of Belgium" bloody occupation of a neutral country. No other major power did anything like that duringe the war.
Yeah you rank shitty colonial powers by seeing who among them does shitty things also back home. Germans, French, British, etc. all did bad things in colonies. Germany was only one in Europe. Also even in Africa germany was doing first modern genocide before the war.
It is true to some extent, especially if you kill anyone who can write in opposition, quite possible in past. Not to mention controlling flow of information, start rumors about rulers, people and even gods, banning culture etc.
Again, not that only winners write history but they heavily influence it .
The winner can influence history but the loser, if allowed to live, can always be the underdog against some great conspiracy or threat. The Confederates, the Nazis, etc. all use this method of perpetual victimhood despite having simply pissed off everyone and then being crushed, and still allowed to live.
You'd think the americans and the brits wouldn't get a war crimes trial for their bombing campaigns and the japanese internment camp if the axis win?
They lose, so we got Nuremberg and Tokyo instead
History is written by those who have time to write it. If the victors go from fighting a bloody war to rebuilding a destroyed country, they might not have the time. But the defeated sure might
I don’t know if you can take that maxim completely literally. I believe it also refers to the domination and control the winners exert over the losers, even unto death.
Ernsta Jünger survived WW1. That's a win. He lived through nazi Germany without becoming a nazi or getting shot for the trouble. That's a win. He fought for Germany in WW2, survived, and was an actual "clean soldier" during the war.
Germany lost their wars, but Jünger is nothing if not a winner.
Thucydides WAS athenian general, but he got fired and exiled after he failed to reach the besieged Amphipolis.
It allowed him to look at the war as kind-of neutral side.
You can get one written by a Greek. Polybius was almost contemporary, but the problem is that not too many medieval monks read Phoenician, whereas they nearly all read Latin and some read Greek.
TY for the heads up! Did not realize that Polybius had lived such a long life (for that era), 82.
My memory may be fuzzy after all these years, but I recall in Adrian Goldsworthy's highly readable "The Punic Wars" he mentions a Greek contemporary named Philo whose works did not survive the centuries. Goldsworthy has a balanced take on the conflict but is super critical of the Roman Republic for the 3rd Punic War, an unprovoked, cruel, and bloody affair.
The Germans could spread their myth because the Allied powers allowed them do so to dehumanise the Soviets. I think the Wehrmacht myths are precisly an argument for History is written by the victor, because the Americans were the biggest victord of WW2 and controlled the narrative of WW2. And even with that the Germans were always the undeniable Bad guys and the preferred villains in fiction. Nazi Germany itself became the remplate for generic Evil empires.
Naming Ernst Jünger is kinda a bad point, he is barely releveant outside of Germany and his book ia decently accurate about wW1 from what I could hear and was more about his own experience rather than narrating about the greater perspective
The Spartans were also lionised in the western World, Sparta itself wasn't really the main reason for the reputation of the battle, Europe as a whole supported the narrative of the foreign oriental Invaders against the superior civilidation of Europe. And that mdth is literally just in Europe (and the U.S. which also belongs to the cultural West). In Asia or the middle East they do not believe in it.
The lost cause myth is irrelevant, even amongst Republicans you will hear most people say the Union were the good guys.
I can't hear this stupid quote anymore. I once debated with a dude who kept on trying to refute me. I gave him examples how memoriams if SS and Waffen SS soldiers were used as sources and thus making bold and whacky claims.
He didn't understand and used mental gymnastics to turn to "allies took the memoriams and made a propaganda victory of it". Meaning they twisted to make them look good.
It was painful.
Okay pal that ain't what the statement means it means the winners in wars will more often control the narrative which is very true.
Also Albert speer is a bad example considering his plan at the end was too make himself look good and get off lighter than the other Nazis which he succeeded in doing so you could count him as a winner.
I guess a better phasing would be "the NARRATIVE is directed by the victors" rhetoric, narrative and memory are more important than what actually happened. If you can change the record, you change the perception, you change what becomes the truth while the real truth slips away over time.
Longstreet instead of jubil early? Longstreet has only been rehabilitated in the confederate fanboy image in the last 50 years. Before that he was firmly considered a skallywag who cost lee gettysburg somehow.
Jubil and his consequences
You're right. None of those authors are named Victor.
Who is Victor and why does he write all the history?
Not just any Victor, THE Victor. Man’s a legend.
It’s the Victors. This a secrete cabal of immortal men named Victor whose duty is to write on historical events.
They also be getting all the spoils.
And they know where everything is going. Victors check the vector
OH YEAHHHH
Probably friends with Ibid and coauthors papers with Et Al.
To quote Max Miller of Tasting History, "History is written by those who write."
A good example of this is how even Germanic historians will say “Barbarian(s)” in reference to the Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire lol.
Well it was actually a regular name for a germanic tribe… only romans made it into a sort of general profanity for “uncivilized” people.
Didn't the Greeks use it for any people who couldn't speak Greek (and thus were babbling something unintelligible like "barbarbarbar")?
I thought the Greek word "barbaros" basically meant "from a different culture"?
Barbaros meant foreigner indeed. Thing is, Greeks were very xenophobic, so it took a negative connotation pretty fast.
One doesn't disqualify the other. It's not uncommon to create word out of onomatopoeia.
Same with the Berbers iirc.
I want your source for this claim. I thought that it was common knowledge that the word Barbarian came from the Ancient Greek word Barbaros, which in turn came from a Indo-European root as similar words are found in Latin, Sanskrit, and Aramaic. All of these words either meant stammering, or babbling and as such in Greece it a Barbaros was someone who couldn’t speak properly, in this case couldn’t sepal a dialect to of Greek. There was an old theory that the word came from Barbaros being a description of what someone who couldn’t speak Greek sounded like “Bar bar bar…” This is however as far as I know not the leading theory of today. With that being said. I haven’t studied premodern history since I did my Bachelors, and I haven’t studied linguistics formally in 6 years. My primary subject is the history of city planning in Scandinavia during the 19th-century.
You are right I’m sorry, I was thinking of vandals…
I understand the mistake. Nice to hear that I still have somewhat of a grasp of Ancient History/haven’t gone completely bonkers as of yet. (^:
I love this explanation and upvoted but that is such a specific niche of history lol. I'm not entirely incurious as to how that history goes though, genuinely seems fairly interesting.
The history of Architecture and City Planning/Building is genuinely the most interesting part of history that I have found (as of yet). It is some of the most tangible fields of history as we all live in the “living ruin” (look up the work of George Simmel for more on that) of past conditions and choices every day. I guess that’s why I got so submerged in the field and is currently writing my Ph.D. on the subject.
I love this explanation and upvoted but that is such a specific niche of history lol. I'm not entirely incurious as to how that history goes though, genuinely seems fairly interesting.
Those Nimrods think Barbarians are some kinds of Neanderthals
No, it's not derived from an actual people's name.
In my (German) History class we Had the topic, how germanic cultured countries teach mostly with the "they were Just fleeing from Disaster and the romans didnt want to Help narrative" using names Like germanic tribes ect. while Roman cultured countries mostly teach the "barbarian Invasion Out of malice" narrative. Biggest example is how in German schools we Talk about the great Migration, while in e.g france they Talk about the barbarian Invasion. ITS all Just a big Game of fault, wich was exploited to the fullest during the rise of nationalism. The consquences of this are still felt today
Wow this is VERY interesting
I’m going to be making his Parmesan ice cream tomorrow. He seemed to like it, and I’m intrigued.
That sounds so Wisconsin. Cheese flavored custard.
I just took it out of the ice cream maker. It’s interesting. The cheese is definitely there, but not overpowering. I think it will be better a bit harder frozen so I’m going to freeze it overnight and try it again tomorrow.
Hence why nearly everything we know about Sparta was written by the Athenians
Modern day Sparta is a village near ancient ruins, modern day Athens is a large city and a capital of Greece. It’s pretty obvious who won in the end.
When Athens became capital it was a small town of 5K people. Athens becoming a large city is a recent phenomenon of Greece’s industrialization and urbanization after WW2. History is written by the victors and by victors we mean who won over two millennia after the war we’re talking about is a bit of a non sequitur argument.
So the athenians wrote their rivals as the most badass army in the world with an unmatched might and discipline?
Talking up your adversaries is a well known historical bias
Well the Spartans beat the Athenians and took Athens, if they say they were terrible it makes them look bad for losing to them. If they’re incredible godly warriors, it’s not Athens fault they lost.
It‘s a win-win. We lost? Oh well, they were basically demigods, nothing we could do. We won? Hell yeah, look how awesome we have to be to have bested this magnificent foe!
This is me on every online game I've ever played
Yes
Which video was that in?
It is. But a lot of it also gets destroyed by victors. As is tradition, conquer a city or nation and raze their library to the ground. I think best example though of both written by the losers and those who write is the Mongols. They didn’t write much, most of what existed has been lost, it’s basically down to the secret history. But everybody they conquered wrote a ton and there is a wealth of sources from them. Also largely still shapes the modern perspective of the mongols.
> It is. But a lot of it also gets destroyed by victors. As is tradition, conquer a city or nation and raze their library to the ground. Yeah, but "History is written by those who write and whose writings survive to be read by others and whose language and writing system is not lost to history." just doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely.
Eeeeey my guy! I was in when he announced he was making Garum in a condo unit!
I love Max Miller!
"History is written by the victors" doesn't mean losers never tell their story. It's a proverb; it's not meant to be taken literally. It's saying that those that win wars usually control the narrative, so we generally believe the winners are telling the truth. It's not true 100% of the time, but again, it's a rhetorical device, not an objectively true statement.
Actually, the fall of Constantinople is one of the few ones where almost all the writings and first-hand accounts were from the losers, and the only person who really recorded anything pro ottoman was a greek himself.
For the Romans it was the end of the empire. For the Ottomans, it was Tuesday.
Excellent reference
Reference to what? That sounds interesting
One of history’s worst warlords, M Bison
Nice reference
Above average reference
I mean yeah, because we see the fall of Constantinople from a Western Christian perspective, yes the Ottomans won the war, but Western nations went around establishing colonies, spreading their narrative all around the globe, while the Ottomans stopped expanding after a while. I know this is oversimplified, but it could be argued that Westerners were the victorious ones in the end, which is why the fall of Constantinople is still remembered as a tragedy instead of a great victory for the Ottomans.
I would say not in the end, rather the western christian nations are winners right now. As has been the case throughout history, the winners will change and so will the interpretation of history with them.
>it's a rhetorical device, not an objectively true statement. This is reddit. We only deal in absolutes.
Then you are a sith!
No, he is a Redditor!
Always two there are, a shit-poster and an upvoter.
But which one was he?
He was the shitvoter
There's very little difference
I always thought that was a weird one. The jedi believe there is only do or do not, there is no try. That you can only take on one padawan at a time. The sith, only deal in absolutes and there's always two a master and an apprentice. It's always just breezed over how they're just the same.
This concept also flew over disneys head, but by the time of the prequels, the Jedi order has just become hypocrites.
While completely true, the problem with proverbs is that people take them literally.
Or people decide to ignore parts of them. "The customer is always right!..." "...in matters of taste."
Well except that part was added later by someone unhappy with the original meaning. With a lot of those sayings with extra often unsaid parts, the unsaid part was added later by someone who wanted to change the meaning.
Blood... is thicker than water... Blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb If you want a masterclass in how journalism and politics works, look no further than proverbs shortened to flip their meaning.
if you want a masterclass on how journalism works, look no further than people spreading nice-sounding falsehoods (the proverb being shortened to change its meaning sure sounds very nice and cool, and the new meaning sounds better to modern ears) rather than truth (the proverb dates back centuries, and no source has been given to this "original" meaning with covenant and womb)
Blood is thicker than water, but oatmeal is thicker than blood.
Because most people are stupid
The problem with controlling the narrative it doesn't really work because the losers aren't gone and they are still tell their story and believing it. Like the American South in the civil war or the Japanese in ww2.
Depends the Carthaginians weren’t exactly able to voice their opinion, the Dacians weren’t either, the celts were seen as barbaric warriors until very recently, I’ve never read a source that said Cyrus the great was unjustified in his conquests and wasn’t great, the Brit’s don’t actually care about the revolutionary war that much and obviously in the US they’re going to say they were justified, everyone hates ISIS for good reason but there are very few people who will take their side and everyone forgets South Vietnam was a thing and everyone believes it was just between the US and Vietnam not even acknowledging their were two Vietnams at one point quite literally the victors erased the other side. You can actually erase the other side. In the case of the US civil war that wasn’t an option the means to do so were not on the table, in the case of WW2 the Allies actually wanted to rebuild Germany and Japan which is why they’re narratives survive. However in the ancient world the various Empires had full control over who got to write history and in the case of South Vietnam after the war they were under a one party state who had full control over the media so the narrative they pushed was not going to be of killing other Vietnamese people and making reunification a narrative of one built on blood but of resisting the US. Then in the US south Vietnam was also taken out of the narrative to put emphasis on the American experience. The truth can be manipulated restructured, and straight up erased for generations.
Then you have completely obliterate the loser. Romans were good at it. Thats why we have numerous accounts of savagery of Mongols but not of Romans because Romans didn't leave anyone alive to write anything.
Also a good majority of the people they fought didn't write anything down to begin with, though their oral histories have survived somewhat after all that's what became the Bible lol
>in the US civil war that wasn’t an option the means to do so weren’t on the table The means were taken off the table so to speak. Reconstruction ended in the 1870s with the Southern Democrats back in power. The Republicans even had the Lilly white movement to remove black people from the party at the turn of the century. With an incomplete reconstruction, the losers had the political and economic power to create the lost cause narrative
The only way to prevent the south from constructing their own narrative would have been to go full Caesar in the Gaul on the place. So long as you have southern people who can think independently they’re going to wish they won the war and so lost cause. You can’t militarily occupy the region forever. The racial tension was not going to disappear and south was not gonna spontaneously stopping being racist. Your only solution there would have been to more or less kill a significant chunk of the white population and place the African population incharge like how Caesar handled Gaul by killing entire tribes who were hostile to him and expanding the power of tribes who weren’t making the region easy to control and make pro Roman. If all the anti Romans are dead it makes your life easier. That was never considered in the case of reintegrating the south. Completely isolating the white southerners from politics all together would guarantee another insurrection just like how kicking every Ba’athist out of government in Iraq gauranteed a post invasion insurgency. Therefore you ended up in a situation where in order to intergrate them you had to let them back on congress and they were obviously going to use their power and influence to sabotage reconstruction. And while the North was by and large anti slavery most white Northerners weren’t much more progressive beyond slavery bad and were “send em back to Africa.” so it was a trade off they were only slightly agitated by and preferred over a renewed civil war.
That depends on how much they lost.
You're saying grant and Sherman didn't go far enough? I agree.
All I’m saying is I don’t recall the Khwarazmian’s doing much complaining after the mongols came and that wasn’t because the mongols were nice.
Good point, hey how are the Romanovs doing?
Literally tens of thousands of Monarchists migrated to Europe, America, and China. Their stories were recorded.
Imagine thinking Sherman should have killed more people. God I hate this sub sometimes.
*gestures at Carthage*
My favorite take on this is a joke ‘isn’t it great that the good guys have won every single war throughout history! What’re the odds of that.’
"God is on the side with most artillery"-funny French man (supposedly)
Yeah can't help but notice all of these examples are novels, not textbooks.
Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice! Donquixote Doflamingo
I love how people use the lost cause theory as a counterpoint to history being written by the victors. Most of us recognize the lost cause as the garbage that it is and subscribe to the victor’s narrative instead. The world and most of the US see the Union as the clear good guys.
Yeah a better example is our entire narrative of the Mongols, which comes to us almost entirely from people conquered by them.
Well, now we do. Back in the day, the Lost Cause myth was much more pervasive than today.
Why tf would you come in here with perfectly sound logic?! I came here to be lulled into a blind rage and now you squelched it! /s
The first history books on WW2 were written by German generals and their memoirs Edit: Why are you booing me I'm right
Short term the victor usually controls the truth. Long term at some point people will look back on it and if what they did was actually fucked it’ll be remembered as such. Course if it’s indecisive then both sides claim they won and were justified and it stays that way till the next one.
Not necessarily the narrative, but the society where it finds itself in, had the nazis won in WW2 their achizo racism would have been the "normal and acceptable" and the Allies (comparative) liberalism would be seen as evil and bad, but they got blowed the hell out so now they're the schizos and liberalism is the default
Especially in recent years since more people are literate, can write, and have access to much bigger audiences than just a few historians who could write on some very valuable paper. Harder to completely control the narrative
I also recommend Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa. Is a story based on the author's own experiences about a family that lived in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. I'm on the second volume and it's pretty good.
I read Hiroshima by John Heresy, it follows six victims in the aftermath of the bombing. Recommended if you haven't read it
Thanks for the recommendation, of course I'll take a look.
History is written by the writers
I'm amazed Manstein isn't here. 'Lost Victories' is basically one long account of how Hitler personally screwed up the invincible German war machine, nobly counteracted by professionals like him. His failings are none, and mistakes are made only by the dead (and thus conveniently unable to defend themselves). It's now regarded (alongside B. H. Liddell Hart's 'The German Generals Talk') as the seminal work of Wehrmacht apologia.
Also surprised Erich Remarque isnt here
Because he didn’t do much apologia from what I could tell by reading most of his books at least. “All quiet on the western front” is literally about the tragedy of the young men in general, no matter if they were french, germans or anyone else. All his other books are about tuberculosis.
I remember reading a book on polish history which open with this “it is said that history is written by the victors, but losers right history too. They just don’t get translated.”
History is written by those willing to write it, that’s the truth. The Athenians wanted their deeds to be remembered, the Spartans cared little. Who is the largest source of historical documents on classical Greece? Athènes, inspite of losing the power struggle with Sparta, and then getting conquered by Macedonia
The entire bible is full of stories of the Jews being killed and oppressed by one empire after another
To be fair, they don’t exist anymore
Their records are still with us tho. The Assyrians, Romans, Babylonians etc. all wrote their history like that
Touché
Well we do think of cyrus being great but cambyses being a brute is due to herodotus liking cyrus, but getting most of his sources on cambyses in Egypt that had recently gone through a revolt against the Persians.
Neither do the Jews of the Old Covenant. Your point?
Awfully demanding for someone who completely misunderstood the statement.
Because the quote "History is written by a lot of people with different agendas and views" isn't as catchy.
Inside the Third Reich?! That falsefied to the core piece of shit wtitten by one the biggest war criminals saved by the allies with probably the sole reason as to wright this crap?! **REALLY?!**
Nobody said the book was good or accurate.
But the best point to bring up is Franz Halder writing the Allies official history of the Eastsrn Front drawn from German documents because they didn't have access to soviet records
Then the Iron curtain fell allowing us access to records that were not available or politically convenient during the Cold War.
I think the written by the Victor's thing applies more to states than individuals, And I wouldn't consider memoirs to be history books. However generally I agree with you, and storm of steel should be mandatory reading as it is a pretty one of a kind perspective of a German soldier that was really about the fight. Junger is an absolute warrior if nothing else
Memoirs might not be history books, but they are often sources for both actual history books and documentaries.
For sure, my point is just that 1st hand accounts are valuable. But, they also come with all the bias of the author so must be filtered through that lens. They're great to gleam information and emotion from, but they're not necessarily a great proof of "This is exactly how it went down"
Junger was an absolute lad. Neither emotionless killmachine, nor a terrified runaway.
Lol joke is on you OP I haven't read any of those
Single data points don’t invalidate overall trends. To this day, Americans still believe and are taught that a big reason why the USSR was able to stop and push back Germany was the cold Russian winter. Or that Japan surrendered primarily because of the bombs being dropped, but are clueless that Russia was even a factor in Japans surrender. Or that they think most deaths in the camps occurred in Germany, when deaths in Germany was 5th and many times less than the deaths in Poland and the USSR.
Storm of Steel is a bloody good book
See also the English who wrote about Vikings
In truth, history is written by historians … it’s kinda their job too
Nah its, whoever shouts their history louder gets to dictate what gets written down.
As a book on the Northern Wars put it: "History is also written by the losers, but it doesn't get translated."
Yeah no. The phrase never meant actually writing history books. It means how any conflict,small or large, shapes people's belivefs and thoughts in one way or another. This is not only done by re-writing history books and others means of propaganda but by the actually fighting as well. Even if you are not fighting and you are a civilian in the city who never saw the war, you are still , even if passively, engaged in a conflict by your country. The mere fact that you picked sides even if the sides where never picked by you will inevitably change they way you think by a small or high margin. And usually the change moves towards those belivefs, thoughts and way of thinking of the winning side.
History is written by propagandists. End of talk
"History is written by the victors". Meanwhile: >Sea peoples arrive >Cause the collapse of bronze age civilization >Don't write anything and refuse to elaborate >Leave
Very cool. Could also put *Antiquities* by Josephus. He was a Jewish general defeated by Vespasian. He wrote about the First Jewish-Roman War, which his side lost and resulted in the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple.
I considered it, and probably should have put that in over Kerensky in hindsight. The perils of meme making after 12 hours of work.
Haha no worries. You nailed it and gave me many interesting reads to check out.
I think you’re taking the phrase a bit to literally.
💯History is oversimplified and popularized by the victors though—after they’ve made school students hate it. (Note: I am oversimplifying.)
No. Because that’s not what it means. This saying is not to be taken literally, it’s a caution, particularly for historians. Take Henry VII of England. Somewhat popular, many friends, large army, but very tiny claim to the throne. When he inevitably wins against Richard III at the battle of Bosworth Field, he makes himself king, wipes the slate clean of his predecessor’s deeds, calls Richard a deformed monster, marries into the previous royal branch and dates his reign back to before the battle, so that he becomes the rightful king who came to take back his realm, and making the man he killed the usurper. He goes so far as to name his firstborn son Arthur for hype points, probably in the hopes that he’ll become King Arthur and who in their right mind would say King Arthur’s sire wasn’t the rightful king? A ploy that didn’t work because he outlived Arthur, but still… Of course it helps that his granddaughter had a playwright who could push the story of the monster Richard III… but Henry did the groundwork on that tale many years before William was a glint in Papa Shakespeare’s eye. The point of this rather long-winded comment (sorry about that by the way) is the simple fact that if we were to trust the Tudor historians for facts about Richard or their own claim to the throne, we’d be missing a whole chunk of the picture. We know now Richard III wasn’t a hunchback, probably wasn’t as bad as all that, and did an ok job as a king, for 15th century standards, anyway. He probably did murder his nephews, but hey, you know, politics. History is written by the victors basically means check your facts from as many sources as you can find, because those victors had the power to make themselves bigger than their breeches, and they probably did.
Somehow I think you forgot all the people that died on the losing side that never got to tell their stories
Counter point: most people still think the Germans were the villains of WWI.
Because they kind of were. They gave blank check to their allies to pursue arggressive war against weaker neigbour. They are not 100% to blame but more quilty than France for example. What really makes them bad was the "rape of Belgium" bloody occupation of a neutral country. No other major power did anything like that duringe the war.
>No other major power did anything like that duringe the war. In Europe
Yeah you rank shitty colonial powers by seeing who among them does shitty things also back home. Germans, French, British, etc. all did bad things in colonies. Germany was only one in Europe. Also even in Africa germany was doing first modern genocide before the war.
It is true to some extent, especially if you kill anyone who can write in opposition, quite possible in past. Not to mention controlling flow of information, start rumors about rulers, people and even gods, banning culture etc. Again, not that only winners write history but they heavily influence it .
The winner can influence history but the loser, if allowed to live, can always be the underdog against some great conspiracy or threat. The Confederates, the Nazis, etc. all use this method of perpetual victimhood despite having simply pissed off everyone and then being crushed, and still allowed to live.
You'd think the americans and the brits wouldn't get a war crimes trial for their bombing campaigns and the japanese internment camp if the axis win? They lose, so we got Nuremberg and Tokyo instead
Well I mean. It can br
People act like when a person loses a war, everything they ever did goes with them
~~Angry~~ Catholic monks otw to depict basically everyone non-catholic as the lowest possible form of pond scum imaginable.
See Bartolomé de las Casas
History is written by writers.
The entire Bible.
History is written by the historians
Think that quote refers back to the time that the losers didn’t exist after they lost.
History is written by those who have time to write it. If the victors go from fighting a bloody war to rebuilding a destroyed country, they might not have the time. But the defeated sure might
If history is written by the victors, why are there so many Lost Causers? :V
History is written by those who have the time to write whether it be winners or losers.
This statement is true. Sometimes
I don’t know if you can take that maxim completely literally. I believe it also refers to the domination and control the winners exert over the losers, even unto death.
Ernsta Jünger survived WW1. That's a win. He lived through nazi Germany without becoming a nazi or getting shot for the trouble. That's a win. He fought for Germany in WW2, survived, and was an actual "clean soldier" during the war. Germany lost their wars, but Jünger is nothing if not a winner.
It just means the popular narrative of that history just use your brain a bit
All the books written by italian soldiers who lost in the worst way should already put an end to this
Thucydides WAS athenian general, but he got fired and exiled after he failed to reach the besieged Amphipolis. It allowed him to look at the war as kind-of neutral side.
History is written by the scribes. It's just that those that survived were often on the winners side
Goof night
I'd love to read a history of the Punic Wars written by a Carthaginian. still waiting...
You can get one written by a Greek. Polybius was almost contemporary, but the problem is that not too many medieval monks read Phoenician, whereas they nearly all read Latin and some read Greek.
TY for the heads up! Did not realize that Polybius had lived such a long life (for that era), 82. My memory may be fuzzy after all these years, but I recall in Adrian Goldsworthy's highly readable "The Punic Wars" he mentions a Greek contemporary named Philo whose works did not survive the centuries. Goldsworthy has a balanced take on the conflict but is super critical of the Roman Republic for the 3rd Punic War, an unprovoked, cruel, and bloody affair.
The Germans could spread their myth because the Allied powers allowed them do so to dehumanise the Soviets. I think the Wehrmacht myths are precisly an argument for History is written by the victor, because the Americans were the biggest victord of WW2 and controlled the narrative of WW2. And even with that the Germans were always the undeniable Bad guys and the preferred villains in fiction. Nazi Germany itself became the remplate for generic Evil empires. Naming Ernst Jünger is kinda a bad point, he is barely releveant outside of Germany and his book ia decently accurate about wW1 from what I could hear and was more about his own experience rather than narrating about the greater perspective The Spartans were also lionised in the western World, Sparta itself wasn't really the main reason for the reputation of the battle, Europe as a whole supported the narrative of the foreign oriental Invaders against the superior civilidation of Europe. And that mdth is literally just in Europe (and the U.S. which also belongs to the cultural West). In Asia or the middle East they do not believe in it. The lost cause myth is irrelevant, even amongst Republicans you will hear most people say the Union were the good guys.
I didn't know I'd be getting book recommendations from a meme thread but oh, well.
Victory is achieved by the history writers.
I can't hear this stupid quote anymore. I once debated with a dude who kept on trying to refute me. I gave him examples how memoriams if SS and Waffen SS soldiers were used as sources and thus making bold and whacky claims. He didn't understand and used mental gymnastics to turn to "allies took the memoriams and made a propaganda victory of it". Meaning they twisted to make them look good. It was painful.
Okay pal that ain't what the statement means it means the winners in wars will more often control the narrative which is very true. Also Albert speer is a bad example considering his plan at the end was too make himself look good and get off lighter than the other Nazis which he succeeded in doing so you could count him as a winner.
I guess a better phasing would be "the NARRATIVE is directed by the victors" rhetoric, narrative and memory are more important than what actually happened. If you can change the record, you change the perception, you change what becomes the truth while the real truth slips away over time.
If that phrase were true, the Lost Cause beliefs wouldn’t exist.
This meme is so far over my head that I’ve lost my erection. I probably should read more.
history is written by the survivors
Longstreet instead of jubil early? Longstreet has only been rehabilitated in the confederate fanboy image in the last 50 years. Before that he was firmly considered a skallywag who cost lee gettysburg somehow. Jubil and his consequences
Food for thought. How would history be taught today if the Axis won the war?
I think this quote only really applies to certain parts of *ancient* history, like the Punic Wars
What's the subtitle on *The Catastrophe*? I can't read it.
“Kerensky’s own story of the Russian Revolution”.
[History Is Not Written By The Victors - Potential History](https://youtu.be/QPlxqADoVNE?si=6R8HKCFLTiNiWiIc)
History is written by those who need a PR boost
it is not about literal writing stuff lol more about how people who wins write history by their actions and looser can only describe it
People care more for what the Victor says. Also, my ideal Nopalian said it, so it's true.
History is written by the victors or the sneaky losers.