Understanding Defeat
Reappraising Italy's Role in World War II
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10075548 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James J Sadkovich (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 27-61 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/002200948902400102 |
| OpenAlex | W2016656415 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
History is above all else informed interpretation, based on an array of available and ascertainable data which the historian weighs carefully before assembling the most significant into a coherent narrative or a comprehensible analysis. Since new data occasionally come to light and new questions are constantly posed, history is also a reinterpretation of both the past and past interpretations and thus inherently and unavoidably revisionist. But history is also myth, the way that we explain the past and thereby understand and justify the present order of things. Certain interpretations are thus preferred to others, certain data rejected or ignored because inimical to the received interpretations, and new interpretations of hallowed myths less than welcome. History is therefore also inherently and unavoidably reactionary, and the dialectic of history continually pits the determined iconoclast against the established idolators in a struggle to rewrite past realities and recast current illusions
Aesthetics · Art · Dialectic · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Narrative history · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Reactionary · Reinterpretation · Classics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1991 - 2023 (33) |
| Highly cited | No |