Old History

Might sound redundant, but it is not. A “History Book” is one that attempts to expound the events and possibly explain the connections and “whys” between them, so that the reader has a better understand of what has happened in the past and how we got here. Sometimes our understanding of past events changes when new information comes to light. This is generally a good thing, though sometimes more (but still incomplete) information confuses things from the initial simple or largely speculative view.

However, there are also people trying to rewrite history and make the ‘wrong” things go away, and constantly invent or “reinterpret” things in order to push a particular narrative. This is NOT good. It is something the SJW and Marxists do a lot.

so it is expected that what history books say will, to some degree, change over time. But the whole-sale revisions going on now are all the wrong type. So I think it might be good for people to make it a goal to accumulate or copy or locate or translate or make availible older history texts to that it is not lost. For example I came across one the other day – US History – in a used book store printed in 1904. That means there were still a considerable number of Civil War survivors around to point out flaws. Any bets I discover something in it that is not popular in today’s books?

4 thoughts on “Old History

  1. Ya, I did the same thing with chemistry. I stored some books for a friend. In return I was allowed to keep one. It was an organic chemistry book from 1899. What a treasure! I got another one wrote in 1955. That one was the most informative. Got a college addition one for the 80’s-90’s. New green deal B.S.
    One nugget from 1899. Guess what the biggest driver in chemistry was? Paint. And the search for synthetic polymers that could stand up to weather. And most of the advances made into the 80’s were in just that. Synthetic polymers. as most of the atomic structure was already known. And the periodic table listed. Even atoms that couldn’t be isolated. Had been predicted and a place for them on the table was left blank.
    My biggest blunder was that next to organic chemistry book. Was one for inorganic chemistry also. It got away. I would trade an AR for that book today!

    1. Yes, dyes and paints have been an important thing for a long time, especially for fabric. Many words went into that very subject in Postrel’s “Fabric of Civilization.” It is amazing what drives scientific research – you still have to follow the money! Changes in science understanding is one thing, but the changes in the “story of how we got here” are amazing. For just one example, many people these days have a very “Disney-esque” view of Native American tribes back during colonial and early American / frontier days, and think them peaceable victims of white cruelty. Compare that to the descriptions of what they did written by people of the day and you’d have an entirely different understanding of them. Currently reading LaFond’s “Stillbirth of a nation,” mostly a heavily annotated autobiography of a Scot who was kidnapped as a child and sold as a slave in the colonies in the mid-1700s. Some very grim reading.

      1. Absolutely. It’s even listed as part of the last grievance in the Declaration of Independence. The king using savages on the frontiers of America.
        And weren’t we a British colony in 1619?
        I mean they can’t blame USA for slavery when the country won’t even be in existence for a 160 years? Shouldn’t BLM be going after England for reparations?
        And how will that work for a mulatto? They have to send the government a $500.00 check every month. So the government can send them a $100.00 dollar one back?
        But I digress. We both know this has nothing to do with race. As every race has slavery. It’s just another evil device of the human condition.
        Just as war is politics by other means. Communism is slavery by other means.

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