How has history changed in the United States in the last two and a half centuries?
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What are the biases, and paradoxes, of the historian as participant? The biases of the historian as participant shows that some are written by the victors, while others, mostly revolved around white leaders writing about their victories to the next batch of leaders that would rule over the country and help it improve, help it strengthen, and help ot evolve. (Bias in Historical Description, interpretation, and explanation McCullagh, C. Behan 2000 pg. 39-42) There are also paradoxes: times when the historian as participant notices something unusual. Such cases include the close encounters of aliens. The historian as participant shows what’s what, and where does everything belong.
The historian as participant is a conflict zone for some. For others, it shows the problems with the way history books are written. Sometimes, people have to use the history that’s true and not use kayfabe or make it bias. Sometimes, history is written with some paradoxes, such as the facts that Union President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis actually lost a child to Death in the civil war (Sheinkin, S. “Two miserable presidents: everything your history books did not teach you about the civil war). AS the historian as participant is being based on whenever the fact that people were who others believe they are. Sometimes, the historian as participant is one to subject the violence or peace, one who served a president or a king. Sometimes they were one who was around when a important move happened in history: the pilgrims, when they sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 to Plymouth Rock, and established the Massachusetts colony. Historians write what the victors say, so history is bias as it revolves on who writes what in the history books. As history is written, it is sometimes written by those who were defeated, while it was written by the victors. Sometimes, it was written by both the victors and the losers. But history does not revolves around one person. The History of Plymouth Rock was first started in in 1620, when the pilgrims went, aboard the Mayflower, went to start the first successful colony after the demise of the old Jamestown colony. William Bradford wrote about the colony in his book: “Of Plymouth Plantation”. In his book, he wrote about the times that were spent in the Massachusetts colony, so he a Historian as participant for the facts that he (Bradford) witnessed the beginning of the colony. (Bradford, William. “Of Plymouth Plantation.”)
History is written before, during, and after war, no matter how that war is, was, or would be won. As history is written, it also shows that wars were fought and some were victorious. As explained in “Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth”, the “Big Three”: U.S. President Harry S. Truman, U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S.S.R. leader Josef Stalin, talked about the atom bombs, and how Europe would be split. After the atom bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrender and ended WWII. What happens to the historian as participant during World War two? He was at the Manhattan Project. As said in “Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth”, courtesy of Mr. Henry L. Stimson, on which he told President Truman: “Within four months we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city.” He was talking about the atom bombs, on which could literally destroy a city within seconds of touching the ground. The atom bomb, which was, as written in “Hiroshima and the historians: History as Relative Truth”: “Less than six feet tall but almost 300 pounds”(“Hiroshima and the historians: History as Relative Truth Stimson, Henry L. 2016 Asia-Pacific REview) and had the explosive power of twenty million pounds of dynamite.
The Historian as participant is not the greatest of all positions, but it is the greatest of most of history. The historian as participant does not explain the facts that some lose, some win, but it is mostly about white leaders telling their stories to the future white leaders of America, so history is biased, until the mid twentieth century. In the nineteen sixties, the introduction of other histories: some African-American; some from other countries: others are Native American, were introduced to the history books. Now, is history still bias? It depends on who you ask, and the answers they tell you.
History may not be biased, but it is a center of kayfabe, or scripted lies. In China, a country is over one billion people, said that Japan did not invade the country; when really Japan actually invaded the country, but it all ties into the communist kayfabe, which angers the older generations. America is a global superpower, but the first country to actually recognize the USA as a country was not France, but actually Morocco, the same country with the first, and oldest, university in the world. (US relations with Morocco 2017) History is based on a web of truths and lies, and within those are histories that is based on the truths. History is explained by those who explain it, and is heard by those who want to hear and learn about it. If history was mostly about white leaders, then it is biased. History is about everyone, no matter what ethnicity they are. The first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence has this statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. These rights, along with the Bill of Rights, grants Americans freedoms. With these rights, America is “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, and those are the exact words written in the star-spangled banner, by Francis Scott King.
The Bill of rights commit of ten amendments: the first Amendment is based on: The United States Congress grants freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of peaceful assembly. The second amendment, which is the most challenged amendment in the most recent times, and ever since the nineteen nineties: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a state, and grants the right to keep and bear arms”. The Third and Fourth amendments protect people from soldiers quartering in a time of peace or war (third) and form illegal searches and seizures (fourth). The fifth, sixth, and seventh, and eighth amendments focus on the powers of the judiciary courts. The ninth and tenth amendments say that the powers given by the constitution shall not be taken away by any other government, and The Constitution cannot be suspended by the law.
A example of a historian as participant is Mr. Alexander Hamilton, the greatest man to ever live, and to write. He (Hamilton) wrote about the treatment of the Loyalists: british-supporting american citizens, also called tories. As a writer, Hamilton also wrote a report on manufactures, a article about starting a national bank, a proposal to arm and free the slaves of America, and one-third of the eighty-five Federalist papers. Hamilton was one of the greatest revolutionaries of the country. Born a orphan in around seventeen sixty-five or seventeen sixty-seven, he served in the American Revolution and signed the United States Constitution. After losing, and unfortunately dying, in a duel by his rival Aaron Burr, Hamilton went down in history as the greatest man to ever live in the United States.He is a historian as participant, as he wrote many documents during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Hamilton wrote his plan for the Union: A document listing eleven propositions for the Constitution of the United States. The first plan of the union says that the legislative branch should be split into two seperate houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The second and third parts deal with both houses: the second says that the representatives will be voted in by the people and served for three years; the third says that the senators would be voted in by the electors of the states, which would be split into districts. The Fifth part says that the president is voted and to serve every four years, and the sixth says that if he is removed, if he resigned, or if he died, then the vice president it the president until the next election period. Hamilton also wrote a letter to John Jay, another writer of the Federalist Papers: eighty-five essays that were written under the pseudonym Publius, and were written by Hamilton, Jay, and fourth president James Madison. This letter explains that the slaves that were brought from Africa should be set free and be armed. It also explains the future of the freed slaves as military soldiers. It was written March fourteenth seventeen seventy-nine.
HIstory is a strong subject, but is it what most people think? History is bias to a point, but it is also full of facts, sometimes full of fiction. As it is unfolded, history is full of holes; kinda cheesy, in a similar manner to swiss cheese, which is full of holes. Although history is written by the victors, sometimes, the victors need help in writing history, and sometimes those who were not victorious write their names, may they be famous or infamous, into the history books. If history did not have the holes, then history would be full of brutal battles that caused countries to be drained of resources and men. The world is not a perfect place, from the shores of Tripoli to the Halls of Montezuma (The USMC Hymn © circa 1929), all while many rise into power, others fall down, crash and burn. History is not how one think, or how one says what history is, but by their actions that caused history to be written.
History is infamous, and some of history’s villains were Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and his grandson Kubali. Some of the most violent people, as said before, were infamous for their actions. Napoleon lead France to bankruptcy; Attila the Hun was first to invade, in a losing attempt, and attempt a rule, of China; Genghis Khan lead the Mongols to invade China, and his grandson Kublai ruled china, in the Yuan Dynasty. And HIstory is a major subject today. History is written by the victors, and the victors tell of their victories against enemies. But is that how history really should be written? It should not, because it spreads biases. History is not about white leaders telling their stories, but it is about people telling their stories on the victories they have done in the past and the certainties that could happen in the future. History is written by the victors, and the historians as participants, and those who want to understand the history can not underestimate the history they learn for this history is the gateway to one’s past, and the beginning of one’s future.
