History = The Victor's Story

History tells us the path that was taken to get us to where we are today.  Inevitably, that means it is the story of the victor, because we are the descendants of the victors.  That does not mean that the story of the losers isn't history, but it is less important than that of the victors.  The Confederate States of America had a constitution, but we don't study it.  Had the Confederacy won its independence, that constitution would be really important in history class today, especially in southern states.  However, the Confederacy was dissolved in 1865 and the Union was preserved.  Should we study the Confederacy ad nauseum to respect the ideals of the losing side?  There is only so much time to spend on history and delving into historical cul-de-sacs is not the best use of time.  However, in recent decades, that view is being upended.

In his book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen argues for including the stories of all the losers.  Now, being a loser does not mean you were in the wrong.  Losers can be innocent victims, like the American Indian.  Stone Age tribes meet Enlightenment powers and are inevitably displaced.  It is a tragedy for the displaced tribes.  Even those that sought to integrates were forced onto reservations.  However, beyond place names and tribal casinos, this has little impact on the US of today.  Again, that's tragic, but what do Stone Age tribesmen have to teach a culture that is literally thousands of years ahead of them?  If an alien race arrives in orbit around Earth, the human race will suffer the same fate as the American Indians, no matter how much we write histories that say it wasn't fair.

Though history is written by the victor, the history of the losers has never been better recorded than today.  As a historian, I think that's terrific, but it should not be used as cause for relitigating history.  We can't give back land to the Mohicans without taking it from people today who had no part in the theft from more than 200 years ago.  Who gets Palestine?  The Palestinian Arabs, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the British, the Ottomans, the Crusader Kingdoms, the Seljuk Turks, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Seleucids, the Achaemenids, the Assyrians, the Israelites, or the Canaanites?  The land has been ruled by all these groups and more.  Which one has the best claim?  How long does the claim hold?

As luck would have it, Western Civilization is in decline and all these losers might rise again.  When the roles reverse - notably in Europe - don't expect the new elites to care that Europe used to be the land of the whites.  Those civilizations don't hold Enlightenment values.