this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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What’s more awful? Most of the history we know is biased in favour of the winners.
There's lots of sources from the losing side. Josephus was a Jewish writer who told of the Roman destruction of the temple. The history of the Eastern Front of WWII, as it was known to the West, was dominated by the writings of German soldiers for a long time.
History is written by writers. For much of it, that means it comes to us from an educated upper class. That's where the historical blind spots are.
I take issue with describing Josephus as a part of the 'losing' side. Josephus had defected and was working as an interpretor for Titus while Titus was conducting the seige on Jerusalem in 70 AD. He took on the Roman emperor's family name, Flavius. He firmly sits on the 'winning' side, with the Romans.
Plus later on Christian's were the ones copying his books, not Jews, since he was viewed as a turncoat by his own people. So his books were preserved by the 'winning' side as well.
Not saying he should be completely disregarded or written off as a historian, just that he wasn't part of any 'losing' side of history.
Yeah, it is current winners, no matter how losing they were.
I think not having it recorded in any way is worse. At least if something is recorded you can examine and study and compare the accounts to get an inkling of what may have actually happened or see where the truth has been stretched.