Pseudohistory

Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohistory derived from the superstitions intrinsic to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap.

Although pseudohistory comes in many forms, scholars have identified common features in pseudohistorical works. Pseudohistory is almost always motivated by a contemporary political, religious, or personal agenda. It frequently presents sensational claims or a big lie about historical facts which would require unwarranted revision of the historical record.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Another hallmark is an underlying premise that scholars have a furtive agenda to suppress the promoter's thesis—a premise commonly corroborated by elaborate conspiracy theories. Works of pseudohistory often point exclusively to unreliable sources—including myths and legends, often treated as literal historical truth—to support the thesis being promoted while ignoring valid sources that contradict it. Some works adopt a position of historical relativism, insisting that there is no such thing as historical truth and that any hypothesis is equal to any other. Many works conflate mere possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did.

Notable examples of pseudohistory include British Israelism, the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Irish slaves myth, the witch-cult, Armenian genocide denial, Holocaust denial, the clean Wehrmacht myth, and the claim that the Katyn massacre was not committed by the Soviet NKVD.

Definition and etymology

The term pseudohistory was coined in the early nineteenth century, which makes the word older than the related terms pseudo-scholarship and pseudoscience.<ref> Monthly magazine and British register, Volume 55 (February 1823), p. 449, in reference to John Galt, Ringan Gilhaize: Or, The Covenanters, Oliver & Boyd, 1823.[1]</ref> In an attestation from 1815, it is used to refer to the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, a purportedly historical narrative describing an entirely fictional contest between the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod.<ref>C. A. Elton, Remains of Hesiod the Ascraean 1815, p. xix.</ref> The pejorative sense of the term, labelling a flawed or disingenuous work of historiography, is found in another 1815 attestation.<ref>The Critical review: or, Annals of literature, Volume 1 ed. Tobias George Smollett, 1815, p. 152</ref> Pseudohistory is akin to pseudoscience in that both forms of falsification are achieved using the methodology that purports to, but does not, adhere to the established standards of research for the given field of intellectual enquiry of which the pseudoscience claims to be a part, and which offers little or no supporting evidence for its plausibility.<ref name="Fritze">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Writers Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman define pseudohistory as "the rewriting of the past for present personal or political purposes".<ref name="Shermer">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Other writers take a broader definition; Douglas Allchin, a historian of science, contends that when the history of scientific discovery is presented in a simplified way, with drama exaggerated and scientists romanticized, this creates wrong stereotypes about how science works, and in fact constitutes pseudohistory, despite being based on real facts.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Characteristics

Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that:

Pseudohistory is purported history which:

• Treats myths, legends, sagas and similar literature as literal truth
• Is neither critical nor skeptical in its reading of ancient historians, taking their claims at face value and ignoring empirical or logical evidence contrary to the claims of the ancients
• Is on a mission, not a quest, seeking to support some contemporary political or religious agenda rather than find out the truth about the past
• Often denies that there is such a thing as historical truth, clinging to the extreme skeptical notion that only what is absolutely certain can be called 'true' and nothing is absolutely certain, so nothing is true
• Often maintains that history is nothing but mythmaking and that different histories are not to be compared on such traditional academic standards as accuracy, empirical probability, logical consistency, relevancy, completeness, fairness or honesty, but on moral or political grounds
• Is selective in its use of ancient documents, citing favorably those that fit with its agenda, and ignoring or interpreting away those documents which do not fit
• Considers the possibility of something being true as sufficient to believe it is true if it fits with one's agenda
• Often maintains that there is a conspiracy to suppress its claims because of racism, atheism or ethnocentrism, or because of opposition to its political or religious agenda<ref>Carroll, Robert Todd. The skeptic's dictionary. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons (2003), p. 305.</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke prefers the term "cryptohistory". He identifies two necessary elements as "a complete ignorance of the primary sources" and the repetition of "inaccuracies and wild claims".<ref>Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 224, 225</ref><ref>Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, p. 225 (Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2005 ed.). Template:ISBN</ref>

Other common characteristics of pseudohistory are:

• The arbitrary linking of disparate events so as to form – in the theorist's opinion – a pattern. This is typically then developed into a conspiracy theory postulating a hidden agent responsible for creating and maintaining the pattern. For example, the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail links the Knights Templar, the medieval Grail Romances, the Merovingian Frankish dynasty and the artist Nicolas Poussin in an attempt to identify lineal descendants of Jesus.
• Hypothesising the consequences of unlikely events that "could" have happened, thereby assuming tacitly that they did.
• Sensationalism, or shock value
• Cherry picking, or "law office history", evidence that helps the historical argument being made and suppressing evidence that hurts it.<ref>Ellis, Joseph J. American Dialogue: The Founders and Us. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. p. 168.</ref>

Categories and examples

Template:Further The following are some common categories of pseudohistorical theory, with examples. Not all theories in a listed category are necessarily pseudohistorical; they are rather categories that seem to attract pseudohistorians.

Main categories

Alternative chronologies

An alternative chronology is a revised sequence of events that deviates from the standard timeline of world history accepted by mainstream scholars. An example of an "alternative chronology" is Anatoly Fomenko's New Chronology, which claims that recorded history actually began around AD 800 and all events that allegedly occurred prior to that point either never really happened at all or are simply inaccurate retellings of events that happened later.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> One of its outgrowths is the Tartary conspiracy theory. Other, less extreme examples, are the phantom time hypothesis, which asserts that the years AD 614–911 never took place; and the New Chronology of David Rohl, which claims that the accepted timelines for ancient Egyptian and Israelite history are wrong.<ref>"In his book A Test of Time (1995), Rohl argues that the conventionally accepted dates for strata such as the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in Palestine are wrong" – in Daniel Jacobs, Shirley Eber, Francesca Silvani, Israel and The Palestinian Territories: The Rough Guide, p. 424 (Rough Guides Ltd., 2nd rev. ed., 1998). Template:ISBN</ref>

Historical falsification

File:Vortigern-Dragons.jpg

Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, a scene from which is shown in this fifteenth-century illumination, was a popular work of pseudohistory during the Middle Ages.

In the eighth century, a forged document known as Donation of Constantine, which supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope, became widely circulated.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth published the History of the Kings of Britain, a pseudohistorical work purporting to describe the ancient history and origins of the British people. The book synthesises earlier Celtic mythical traditions to inflate the deeds of the mythical King Arthur. The contemporary historian William of Newburgh wrote around 1190 that "it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Historical revisionism

The Shakespeare authorship question is a fringe theory that claims that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.<ref>Hope, Warren and Kim Holston. The Shakespeare Controversy (2009) 2nd ed., 3: "In short, this is a history written in opposition to the current prevailing view".</ref><ref>Potter, Lois. "Marlowe onstage" in Constructing Christopher Marlowe, James Alan Downie and J. T. Parnell, eds. (2000, 2001), paperback ed., 88–101; 100: "The possibility that Shakespeare may not really be Shakespeare, comic in the context of literary history and pseudo-history, is understandable in this world of double-agents . . ."</ref><ref>Aaronovitch, David. "The anti-Stratfordians" in Voodoo Histories (2010), 226–229: "There is, however, a psychological or anthropological question to be answered about our consumption of pseudo-history and pseudoscience. I have now plowed through enough of these books to be able to state that, as a genre, they are badly written and, in their anxiety to establish their dubious neo-scholarly credentials, incredibly tedious. … Why do we read bad history books that have the added lack of distinction of not being in any way true or useful …"</ref><ref>Kathman, David. Shakespeare Authorship Page: "... Shakespeare scholars regard Oxfordianism as pseudo-scholarship which arbitrarily discards the methods used by real historians. ... In order to support their beliefs, Oxfordians resort to a number of tactics which will be familiar to observers of other forms of pseudo-history and pseudo-science."</ref>

Another example of historical revisionism is the thesis, found in the writings of David Barton and others, asserting that the United States was founded as an exclusively Christian nation.<ref>Template:Cite journalTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Pierard">Boston Theological Institute Newsletter Volume XXXIV, No. 17, Richard V. Pierard, January 25, 2005</ref> Mainstream historians instead support the traditional position, which holds that the American founding fathers intended for church and state to be kept separate.<ref name=":1">Boston, Rob (2007). "Dissecting the religious right's favorite Bible Curriculum", Americans United for Separation of Church and State, American Humanist Association. Retrieved on April 9, 2013</ref><ref name=":2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Dead link</ref>

Confederate revisionists (a.k.a. Civil War revisionists), "Lost Cause" advocates, and Neo-Confederates argue that the Confederate States of America's prime motivation was the maintenance of states' rights and limited government, rather than the preservation and expansion of slavery.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Connected to the Lost Cause is the Irish slaves myth, a pseudo-historical narrative which conflates the experiences of Irish indentured servants and enslaved Africans in the Americas. This myth, which was historically promoted by Irish nationalists such as John Mitchel, has in the modern-day been promoted by white supremacists in the United States to minimize the mistreatment experienced by African Americans (such as racism and segregation) and oppose demands for slavery reparations. The myth has also been used to obscure and downplay Irish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Historical negationism

While closely related to previous categories, historical negationism or denialism specifically aims to outright deny the existence of confirmed events, often including various massacres, genocides, and national histories.

Some examples include Holocaust denial, Armenian Genocide denial,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as Nakba Denial in the 1984 work From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Psychohistory

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Mainstream historians have categorized psychohistory as pseudohistory.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities.<ref>Paul H. Elovitz, Ed., Psychohistory for the Twenty-First Century (2013) pp. 1–3.</ref> Its stated goal is to examine the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. It also states as its goal the combination of the insights of psychology, especially psychoanalysis, with the research methodology of the social sciences and humanities to understand the emotional origin of the behavior of individuals, groups and nations, past and present.

Pseudoarchaeology

Pseudoarchaeology refers to a false interpretation of records, namely physical ones, often by unqualified or otherwise amateur archeologists. These interpretations are often baseless and seldom align with established consensus. Nazi archaeology is a prominent example of this technique.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Frequently, people who engage in pseudoarchaeology have a very strict interpretation of evidence and are unwilling to alter their stance, resulting in interpretations that often appear overly simplistic and fail to capture the complexity and nuance of the complete narrative.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Various examples of pseudohistory

(These following examples can belong to a variety of the above mentioned categories, or ones not mentioned as well).

Ancient aliens, ancient technologies, and lost lands

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Immanuel Velikovsky's books Worlds in Collision (1950), Ages in Chaos (1952), and Earth in Upheaval (1955), which became "instant bestsellers",<ref name="Fritze"/> demonstrated that pseudohistory based on ancient mythology held potential for tremendous financial success<ref name="Fritze"/> and became models of success for future works in the genre.<ref name="Fritze"/>

In 1968, Erich von Däniken published Chariots of the Gods?, which claims that ancient visitors from outer space constructed the pyramids and other monuments. He has since published other books in which he makes similar claims. These claims have all been categorized as pseudohistory.<ref name="Fritze"/>Template:Rp Similarly, Zechariah Sitchin has published numerous books claiming that a race of extraterrestrial beings from the Planet Nibiru known as the Anunnaki visited Earth in ancient times in search of gold, and that they genetically engineered humans to serve as their slaves. He claims that memories of these occurrences are recorded in Sumerian mythology, as well as other mythologies all across the globe. These speculations have likewise been categorized as pseudohistory.<ref name=heiser>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Skepdic">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The ancient astronaut hypothesis was further popularized in the United States by the History Channel television series Ancient Aliens.<ref name="Fritze2009">Template:Cite journal</ref> History professor Ronald H. Fritze observed that the pseudohistorical claims promoted by von Däniken and the Ancient Aliens program have a periodic popularity in the US:<ref name=Fritze/><ref name=Rorotoko/> "In a pop culture with a short memory and a voracious appetite, aliens and pyramids and lost civilizations are recycled like fashions."<ref name=Fritze/>Template:Rp<ref name=Rorotoko>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The author Graham Hancock has sold over four million copies of books promoting the pseudohistorical thesis that all the major monuments of the ancient world, including Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids, and the moai of Easter Island, were built by a single ancient supercivilization,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which Hancock claims thrived from 15,000 to 10,000 BC and possessed technological and scientific knowledge equal to or surpassing that of modern civilization.<ref name=Fritze/> He first advanced the full form of this argument in his 1995 bestseller Fingerprints of the Gods,<ref name=Fritze/> which won popular acclaim, but scholarly disdain.<ref name=Fritze/> Christopher Knight has published numerous books, including Uriel's Machine (2000), expounding pseudohistorical assertions that ancient civilizations possessed technology far more advanced than the technology of today.<ref>Merriman, Nick, editor, Public Archaeology, Routledge, 2004 p. 260</ref><ref>Tonkin, S., 2003, Uriel's Machine – a Commentary on some of the Astronomical Assertions.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The claim that a lost continent known as Lemuria once existed in the Pacific Ocean has likewise been categorized as pseudohistory.<ref name="Fritze"/>Template:Rp

Furthermore, similar conspiracy theories promote the idea of embellished, fabricated accounts of historical civilizations, namely Khazaria and Tartaria.

Antisemitic pseudohistory

File:1934 Protocols Patriotic Pub.jpg

American edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion from 1934

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a fraudulent work purporting to show a historical conspiracy for world domination by Jews.<ref name="ushmm.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The work was conclusively proven to be a forgery in August 1921, when The Times revealed that extensive portions of the document were directly plagiarized from Maurice Joly's 1864 satirical dialogue The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,<ref>Template:Cite journal </ref> as well as Hermann Goedsche's 1868 anti-Semitic novel Biarritz.<ref name = "translated97">Template:Citation.</ref>

The Khazar theory is an academic fringe theory that postulates the belief that the bulk of European Jewry is of Central Asian (Turkic) origin. In spite of the mainstream academic consensus which conclusively rejects it, this theory has been promoted in Anti-Semitic and some Anti-Zionist circles, they argue that Jews are an alien element in both Europe and Palestine.

Holocaust denial in particular and genocide denial in general are widely categorized as pseudohistory.<ref name="Shermer"/>Template:Rp<ref name="Lipstadt">Template:Cite book</ref> Major proponents of Holocaust denial include David Irving and others, who argue that the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Armenian genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the Greek genocide and other genocides did not occur, or accounts of them were greatly exaggerated.<ref name="Lipstadt"/>

Ethnocentric or nationalist revisionism

Most Afrocentric (i.e. Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories, see Ancient Egyptian race controversy) ideas have been identified as pseudohistorical,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Ortiz1997">Template:Cite journal</ref> alongside the "Indigenous Aryans" theories published by Hindu nationalists during the 1990s and 2000s.<ref>Template:Cite journal Template:Cite book</ref> The "crypto-history" developed within Germanic mysticism and Nazi occultism has likewise been placed under this categorization.<ref>Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. 1985. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press. Template:ISBN. (Several reprints.) Expanded with a new Preface, 2004, I.B. Tauris & Co. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Among leading Nazis, Heinrich Himmler is believed to have been influenced by occultism and according to one theory, developed the SS base at Wewelsburg in accordance with an esoteric plan.

The Sun Language Theory is a pseudohistorical ideology which argues that all languages are descended from a form of proto-Turkish.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The theory may have been partially devised in order to legitimize Arabic and Semitic loanwords occurring in the Turkish language by instead asserting that the Arabic and Semitic words were derived from the Turkish ones rather than vice versa.<ref>Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003), Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Palgrave Macmillan. Template:ISBN [2], p. 165.</ref>

A large number of nationalist pseudohistorical theories deal with the legendary Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. British-Israelism, also known as Anglo-Israelism, the most famous example of this type, has been conclusively refuted by mainstream historians using evidence from a vast array of different fields of study.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Antiquization or Ancient Macedonism is a nationalistic pseudohistorical theory which postulates direct demographic, cultural and linguistic continuity between ancient Macedonians and the main ethnic group in present-day North Macedonia.<ref>Anastas Vangeli, Nation-building ancient Macedonian style: the origins and the effects of the so-called antiquization in Macedonia. {{#invoke:doi|main}} Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Bulgarian medieval dynasty of the Komitopules, which ruled the First Bulgarian Empire in late 10th and early 11th centuries AD, is presented as "Macedonian", ruling a "medieval Macedonian state", because its capitals were located in what was previously the ancient kingdom of Macedonia.<ref>Svetozar Rajak, Konstantina E. Botsiou, Eirini Karamouzi, Evanthis Hatzivassiliou ed. The Balkans in the Cold War. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, Springer, 2017, Template:ISBN, p. 313.</ref> North Macedonian historians often replace the ethnonym "Bulgarians" with "Macedonians", or avoid it.<ref>Македонски историк призна: Да, има фалшификации в историографията ни</ref><ref>Коста Църнушанов "Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него". София, Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски“, 1992. стр. 428</ref> North Macedonian scholars say the theory is intended to forge a national identity distinct from modern Bulgaria, which regards North Macedonia as an artificial nation.<ref name=nyt-macedonia/> The theory is controversial in Greece and sparked mass protests there in 2018.<ref name=nyt-prespa/> A particular item of dispute is North Macedonian veneration of Alexander the Great; mainstream scholarship holds that Alexander had Greek ancestry, he was born in an area of ancient Macedonia that is now Greece, and he ruled over North Macedonia but never lived there and did not speak the local language.<ref name=nyt-macedonia>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> To placate Greece and thereby facilitate the country's entry into the European Union and NATO, the Macedonian government formally renounced claims of ancient Macedonian heritage with the 2018 Prespa Agreement.<ref name=nyt-macedonia/><ref name=nyt-prespa>Template:Cite news</ref>

Dacianism is a Romanian pseudohistorical current that attempts to attribute far more influence over European and world history to the Dacians than that which they actually enjoyed.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Dacianist historiography claims that the Dacians held primacy over all other civilizations, including the Romans;<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> that the Dacian language was the origin of Latin and all other languages, such as Hindi and Babylonian;<ref name="George Pruteanu">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and sometimes that the Zalmoxis cult has structural links to Christianity.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Dacianism was most prevalent in National Communist Romania, as the Ceaușescu regime portrayed the Dacians as insurgents defying an "imperialist" Rome; the Communist Party had formally attached "protochronism", as Dacianism was known, to Marxist ideology by 1974.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Matriarchy

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The consensus among academics is that no unambiguously and strictly matriarchal society is known to have existed, though many societies are known to have or have had some matriarchal features, in particular matrilineality, matrilocality, and/or matrifocality.<ref>Goldberg, Steven, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (William Morrow & Co., 1973).</ref><ref>Template:Harvp</ref> Anthropologist Donald Brown's list of human cultural universals (viz., features shared by nearly all current human societies) includes men being the "dominant element" in public political affairs,<ref>Brown, Donald E., Human Universals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), p. 137.</ref> which is the contemporary opinion of mainstream anthropology.<ref name=":0" /> Some societies that are matrilineal or matrifocal may in fact have patriarchal power structures, and thus be misidentified as matriarchal. The idea that matriarchal societies existed and they preceded patriarchal societies was first raised in the 19th-century among Western academics, but it has since been discredited.<ref name=":0">"The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development now is generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed." Encyclopædia Britannica (2007), entry Matriarchy.</ref>

Despite this however, some second-wave feminists assert that a matriarchy preceded the patriarchy. The Goddess Movement and Riane Eisler's 1987 book The Chalice and the Blade cite Venus figurines as evidence that societies of Paleolithic and Neolithic Europe were matriarchies that worshipped a goddess. This belief is not supported by mainstream academics.<ref name="Nelson">Ruth Whitehouse. "The Mother Goddess Hypothesis and Its Critics," in Handbook of Gender in Archaeology, Sarah Milledge Nelson (ed.), pp. 756–758</ref>

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Excluding the Norse colonization of the Americas, most theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact have been classified as pseudohistory, including claims that the Americas were actually discovered by Arabs or Muslims.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Gavin Menzies' book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, which argues for the idea that Chinese sailors discovered America, has also been categorized as a work of pseudohistory.<ref name="Fritze"/>Template:Rp

Racist pseudohistory

Josiah Priest and other nineteenth-century American writers wrote pseudohistorical narratives that portrayed African Americans and Native Americans in an extremely negative light.<ref name=Williams>Template:Cite book</ref> Priest's first book was The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed (1826).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Williams/> The book is regarded by modern critics as one of the earliest works of modern American pseudohistory.<ref name=Williams/> Priest attacked Native Americans in American Antiquities and Discoveries of the West (1833)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Williams/> and African-Americans in Slavery, As It Relates to the Negro (1843).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Williams/> Other nineteenth-century writers, such as Thomas Gold Appleton, in his A Sheaf of Papers (1875), and George Perkins Marsh, in his The Goths in New England, seized upon false notions of Viking history to promote the superiority of white people (as well as to oppose the Catholic Church). Such misuse of Viking history and imagery reemerged in the twentieth century among some groups promoting white supremacy.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Soviet communist pseudohistory

Supporters of Soviet communist pseudohistory claim, among other things, that Joseph Stalin and other top Soviet leaders did not realize the scope of mass killings perpetrated under the Stalin regime, that executions of prisoners were legally justifiable, and that prisoners in Soviet gulags performed important construction work that helped the Soviet Union economically, particularly during World War II. Scholars point to overwhelming evidence that Stalin directly helped plan mass killings, that many prisoners were sent to gulags or executed extrajudicially, and that many prisoners did no productive work, often being isolated in remote camps or given pointless and menial tasks.<ref>Мне говорят, что репрессий в СССР не было. Как с этим спорить?</ref>

Anti-religious pseudohistory

The Christ myth theory claims that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as a historical figure and was imagined by early Christians or arose from earlier beliefs such as star worship. This argument currently finds very little support among scholars and historians of all faiths and has been described as pseudohistorical.<ref name="Ehrman285">In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God Template:ISBN. p. 285</ref><ref>Robert M. Price (an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus) agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars: Robert M. Price "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in The Historical Jesus: Five Views edited by James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, 2009 InterVarsity, Template:ISBN p. 61</ref><ref name="GrantMajority">Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant 2004 Template:ISBN p. 200</ref><ref name="Burridge34">Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore." in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (2004) Template:ISBN p. 34</ref><ref>Did Jesus exist?, Bart Ehrman, 2012, Chapter 1</ref><ref>Sykes, Stephen W. (2007). "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus". Sacrifice and Redemption. Cambridge University Press. pp. 35–36. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="Powell1998">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Houlden2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="VVoorst14">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Likewise, some minority historian views assert that Muhammad either did not exist or was not central to founding Islam.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Religious pseudohistory

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln is a book that purports to show that certain historical figures, such as Godfrey of Bouillon, and contemporary aristocrats are the lineal descendants of Jesus. Mainstream historians have widely panned the book, categorizing it as pseudohistory,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book
Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Miller2004">Template:Cite news</ref> and pointing out that the genealogical tables used in it are now known to be spurious.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Nonetheless, the book was an international best-seller<ref name="Miller2004" /> and inspired Dan Brown's bestselling mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code.<ref name="Miller2004" /><ref name="Fritze" />Template:Rp

Although historians and archaeologists consider the Book of Mormon to be an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that it describes ancient historical events in the Americas.

Searches for Noah's Ark have also been categorized as pseudohistory.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Rough Guides">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Dietz, Robert S. "Ark-Eology: A Frightening Example of Pseudo-Science" in Geotimes 38:9 (Sept. 1993) p. 4.</ref>

In her books, starting with The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), English author Margaret Murray claimed that the witch trials in the early modern period were actually an attempt by chauvinistic Christians to annihilate a secret, pagan religion,<ref name="Purkiss1996">Template:Cite book</ref> which she claimed worshipped a Horned God.<ref name="Purkiss1996"/> Murray's claims have now been widely rejected by respected historians.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref name="Simpson1994">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Purkiss1996"/> Nonetheless, her ideas have become the foundation myth for modern Wicca, a contemporary Neopagan religion.<ref name="Simpson1994"/><ref name="Rabinovitch2002">Template:Cite book</ref> Belief in Murray's alleged witch-cult is still prevalent among Wiccans,<ref name="Rabinovitch2002"/> but is gradually declining.<ref name="Rabinovitch2002"/>

Hinduism

The belief that ancient India was technologically advanced to the extent of being a nuclear power has been popularized by Hindu nationalists on the premise that "fantastical" scientific and medical achievements described in Hindu mythology are historically accurate.<ref name=undark>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha—described as having the head of an elephant and the body of a human—shows genetic science and cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India.<ref name=undark/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Another example was the 2015 Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy, when Capt. Anand J. Bodas, retired principal of a pilot training facility, claimed at the Indian Science Congress that mythical aircraft more advanced than today's aircraft flew in ancient India.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Nationalists have proposed that these aircraft and other ancient mythical technology should be presented as authentic in school textbooks.<ref name=undark/> Aniket Sule, an astrophysicist at the Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education, said that "people close to the current [Modi] government... feel that the present curriculum for science and history is too Western-centric" and that they may "brainwash a generation" of Indian scholars with such claims.<ref name=undark/>

As a topic of study

Courses critiquing pseudohistory are offered as undergraduate courses in liberal arts settings, one example being in Claremont McKenna College.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• Template:Annotated link
• List of pseudohistorians
• Found manuscript
• Pseudoscientific metrology
• Disinformation

External links

• "Pseudohistory and Pseudoscience" Program in the History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
• Pseudohistory entry at Skeptic's Dictionary
• The Hall of Ma'at
• "The Restoration of History" from the American Skeptic magazine.