Editing Historical revisionism (section)

==Specific issues==
===Dark Ages===
As non-[[Latin]] texts, such as [[Welsh language|Welsh]], [[Gaelic languages|Gaelic]] and the [[Old Norse|Norse]] [[saga]]s have been analysed and added to the canon of knowledge about the period, and as much more [[archaeological]] evidence has come to light, the period known as the [[Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Ages]] has narrowed to the point that many historians no longer believe that such a term is useful. Moreover, the term ''dark'' implies less of a void of culture and law but more a lack of many [[source text]]s in Mainland Europe. Many modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its [[negative connotation]]s and find it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Snyder|first=Christopher A.|author-link=Christopher Snyder (historian)|year=1998|title=An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons A.D. 400–600|publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press|publication-date=1998|location=University Park|pages=xiii–xiv|isbn=0-271-01780-5}}, for example. The work contains over 100 pages of footnoted citations to source material and bibliographic references (pp. 263–387). In explaining his approach to writing the work, he refers to the "so-called Dark Ages" and notes, "Historians and archaeologists have never liked the label Dark Ages... there are numerous indicators that these centuries were neither "dark" nor "barbarous" in comparison with other eras."</ref><ref name=dmas>[[William Chester Jordan|Jordan, Chester William]] (2004). ''[[Dictionary of the Middle Ages]]'', Supplement 1. Verdun, Kathleen, "Medievalism" pp. 389–397. Sections 'Victorian Medievalism', 'Nineteenth-Century Europe', 'Medievalism in America 1500–1900', 'The 20th Century'. Same volume, [[Paul Freedman|Freedman, Paul]], "Medieval Studies", pp. 383–389.</ref>

===Feudalism===
The concept of [[feudalism]] has been questioned. Revisionist scholars led by historian [[Elizabeth A. R. Brown]] have [[Feudalism#Challenges to the feudal model|rejected the term]].

===Battle of Agincourt===
Historians generally believe that the [[Battle of Agincourt]] was an engagement in which the English army, overwhelmingly outnumbered four to one by the French army, pulled off a stunning victory. This understanding was especially popularised by [[Shakespeare]]'s play ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]''. However, recent research by Professor [[Anne Curry]], using the original enrollment records, has brought into question this interpretation. Though her research is not finished,<ref>Strickland, Matthew (2005) ''The Great Warbow''. Sutton. p,238. {{ISBN|0-7509-3167-1}}</ref> she has published her initial findings that the French outnumbered the English and the Welsh only by 12,000 to 8,000.<ref>[[Anne Curry|Curry, Anne]] (2005) ''Agincourt: A New History''. Tempus, {{ISBN|0-7524-2828-4}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=April 2025}} If true, the numbers may have been exaggerated for patriotic reasons by the English.<ref>Brooks, Richard (May 29. 2005) [https://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1632547,00.html "Henry V's payroll cuts Agincourt myth down to size"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217110146/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/ |date=February 17, 2022 }} ''[[The Times]]''</ref>

=== New World discovery and European colonization of the Americas ===
In recounting the [[European colonization of the Americas]], some history books of the past paid little attention to the [[indigenous peoples of the Americas]], usually mentioning them only in passing and making no attempt to understand the events from their point of view. That was reflected in the description of [[Christopher Columbus]] having discovered America. Those events' portrayal has since been revised to avoid the word "discovery."<ref>Kay Larson, and Edith Newhall, "It's a Map, Map, Map World" [https://books.google.com/books?id=i-MCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA97 ''New York Magazine'' Nov 1992 25#43 pp 97+  online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170210131803/https://books.google.com/books?id=i-MCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA97 |date=February 10, 2017 }}</ref>

In his 1990 revisionist book, ''The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy'', [[Kirkpatrick Sale]] argued that [[Christopher Columbus]] was an imperialist bent on conquest from his first voyage. In a ''New York Times'' book review, historian and member of the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Committee [[William Hardy McNeill]] wrote about Sale: 
:he has set out to destroy the heroic image that earlier writers have transmitted to us. Mr. Sale makes Columbus out to be cruel, greedy and incompetent (even as a sailor), and a man who was perversely intent on abusing the natural paradise on which he intruded."<ref name = William>William H. McNeill, [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5DD1739F934A35753C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Review of Kirkpatrick Sale's ''The Conquest of Paradise''] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200414092420/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/07/books/debunking-columbus.html |date=April 14, 2020 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]'', October 7, 1990.</ref>

McNeill declares Sale's work to be "unhistorical, in the sense that [it] selects from the often-cloudy record of Columbus's actual motives and deeds what suits the researcher's 20th-century purposes." McNeill states that detractors and advocates of Columbus present a "sort of history [that] caricatures the complexity of human reality by turning Columbus into either a bloody ogre or a plaster saint, as the case may be."<ref name = William/>

=== New Qing history ===
{{main|New Qing History}}
Historians in China and from abroad long wrote that the [[Manchu]]s who conquered China and established the [[Qing dynasty]] (1636–1912) adopted the customs and institutions of the [[Han Chinese]] dynasties that preceded them and were "sinicized", that is, absorbed into Chinese culture. In 1990 American historians explored Manchu language sources and newly accessible imperial archives, and discovered that the emperors retained their Manchu culture and that they regarded [[China proper]] as only one part of their larger empire. These scholars differ among themselves but agree on a major revision of the history of the Qing dynasty.<ref>{{cite journal |last =Waley-Cohen |first = Johanna |author-link = Joanna Waley-Cohen|title =The New Qing History |journal =Radical History Review |volume =88 |issue = 1 |pages =193–206 |date =2004 |doi = 10.1215/01636545-2004-88-193|s2cid = 144544216 }}</ref>

===French Revolution===
 {{see also|Historiography of the French Revolution}}

===French attack formations in the Napoleonic wars===
The military historian [[James R. Arnold]] argues:
{{blockquote|The writings of Sir [[Charles Oman]] and Sir [[John William Fortescue|John Fortescue]] dominated subsequent English-language Napoleonic history. Their views [that the French infantry used heavy columns to attack lines of infantry] became very much the received wisdom.... By 1998 a new paradigm seemed to have set in with the publication of two books devoted to Napoleonic battle tactics. Both claimed that the French fought in line at Maida and both fully explored French tactical variety. The 2002 publication of ''The Battle of Maida 1806: Fifteen Minutes of Glory'', appeared to have brought the issue of column versus line to a satisfactory conclusion: "The contemporary sources are... the best evidence and their conclusion is clear: General [[Louis Fursy Henri Compère|Compère]]'s brigade formed into line to attack [[James Kempt|Kempt]]'s Light Battalion." The decisive [[action at Maida]] took place in less than 15 minutes. It had taken 72 years to rectify a great historian's error about what happened during those minutes.<ref>Arnold, James R. ''[https://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/maida/c_maida.html A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Peninsular War Oman and Historiography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200210221158/http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/maida/c_maida.html |date=February 10, 2020 }}'', [[The Napoleon Series]], August 2004.</ref><ref>James R. Arnold, "A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Napoleonic Wars" ''[[Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research]]'' LX no. 244 (Winter 1982): pp. 196–208.</ref>}}

===Argentine Civil Wars===
After the proclamation of the [[Argentina|Argentine Republic]] in late 1861, its first ''de facto'' President, [[Bartolomé Mitre]], wrote the first Argentine historiographical works: ''[[Historia de Belgrano y de la Independencia Argentina]]'' and ''[[Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana]]''. Although these were criticised by notorious intellectuals such as [[Dalmacio Vélez Sarsfield]] and [[Juan Bautista Alberdi]] and even by some colleagues like [[Adolfo Saldías]], both stated a liberal-conservative bias on Argentine history through the [[National Academy of History of Argentina|National Academy of History]] established in 1893, despite the existence of [[caudillo]]s and [[gaucho]]s.

During the [[Radical Civic Union]] government of [[Hipólito Yrigoyen]], historians followed the revisionist view of anti-mitrist politicians such as Carlos D'Amico, Ernesto Quesada and David Peña and their theories reached the academy thanks to Dardo Corvalán Mendilharsu. Argentine historical revisionism could reach its peak during the [[Juan Perón#First term (1946–1952)|peronist government]]. In 2011, the [[Manuel Dorrego national institute|Manuel Dorrego National Institute of Argentine and Iberoamerican Historical Revisionism]] was established by the Secretary of Culture,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20230512132554/https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-1880-2011-190107 |Decreto 1880/2011], published by the Argentine Government's Official Website</ref> but this one suffered a rupture between [[Socialism of the 21st century|21st century socialists]] and [[Argentine nationalism|nationalists]]. Three weeks after the [[Inauguration of Mauricio Macri]], the institute was closed.

===World War I===
 {{see also|Causes of World War I}}

====German guilt====
In reaction to the orthodox interpretation enshrined in the [[Versailles Treaty]], which declared that Germany was guilty of starting World War I, the self-described "revisionist" historians of the 1920s rejected the orthodox view and presented a complex causation in which several other countries were equally guilty. Intense debate continues among scholars.<ref>See Selig Adler, "The War-Guilt Question and American Disillusionment, 1918–1928", ''Journal of Modern History'', Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar. 1951), pp. 1–28 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1871365 in JSTOR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170210131801/http://www.jstor.org/stable/1871365 |date=February 10, 2017 }}</ref>

====Poor British and French military leadership====
The military leadership of the [[British Army]] during [[World War I]] was frequently condemned as poor by historians and politicians for decades after the war ended. Common charges were that the generals commanding the army were blind to the realities of [[trench warfare]], ignorant of the conditions of their men and unable to learn from their mistakes, thus causing enormous numbers of casualties ("[[lions led by donkeys]]").<ref>Lions Led By Donkeys
*Thompson, P.A. ''[https://www.churchillbooks.com/detail.cfm?item_num=38200&is_mil_book=1 ''Lions Led By Donkeys: Showing How Victory In The Great War Was Achieved By Those Who Made the Fewest Mistakes''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927044244/https://www.churchillbooks.com/detail.cfm?item_num=38200&is_mil_book=1 |date=September 27, 2007 }} T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. 1st English Edition. 1927
*Bournes, John. [https://www.firstworldwar.bham.ac.uk/donkey/index.htm "Lions Led By Donkeys"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091208132234/http://www.firstworldwar.bham.ac.uk/donkey/index.htm |date=December 8, 2009 }}, Centre for First World War Studies, [[University of Birmingham]].</ref> However, during the 1960s, historians such as [[John Terraine]] began to challenge that interpretation. In recent years, as new documents have come forth and the passage of time has allowed for more objective analysis, historians such as [[Gary Sheffield (historian)|Gary D. Sheffield]] and [[Richard Holmes (military historian)|Richard Holmes]] observe that the military leadership of the British Army on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] had to cope with many problems that they could not control, such as a lack of adequate military communications, which had not occurred. Furthermore, military leadership improved throughout the war, culminating in the [[Hundred Days Offensive]] advance to victory in 1918. Some historians, even revisionists, still criticise the British High Command severely but are less inclined to portray the war in a simplistic manner with brave troops being led by foolish officers.

There has been a similar movement regarding the French Army during the war with contributions by historians such as [[Anthony Clayton]]. Revisionists are far more likely to view commanders such as French General [[Ferdinand Foch]], British General [[Douglas Haig]] and other figures, such as American [[John Pershing]], in a sympathetic light.

===Reconstruction in the United States===
Revisionist historians of the [[Reconstruction era of the United States]] rejected the dominant [[Dunning School]] that stated that Black Americans were used by [[carpetbaggers]], and instead stressed economic greed on the part of northern businessmen.<ref>Bernard Weisberger, "The Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography", ''The Journal of Southern History,'' Vol. 25, No. 4 (November 1959), pp. 427–447 [https://www.jstor.org/pss/2954450 in JSTOR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217110143/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2954450 |date=February 17, 2022 }}</ref> Indeed, in recent years a "[[Neoabolitionism (race relations)|neoabolitionist]]" revisionism has become standard; it uses the moral standards of racial equality of the 19th century abolitionists to criticize racial policies. "Foner's book represents the mature and settled Revisionist perspective", historian Michael Perman has concluded regarding [[Eric Foner]]'s ''Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877'' (1988).<ref>Michael Perman, "Review: Eric Foner's Reconstruction: A Finished Revolution", ''Reviews in American History'', Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 1989), pp. 73–78 [https://www.jstor.org/pss/2703129 in JSTOR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217110206/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2703129 |date=February 17, 2022 }}</ref>

===American business and "robber barons"===
The role of American business and the alleged [[robber baron (industrialist)|"robber barons"]] began to be revised in the 1930s. Termed "business revisionism" by [[Gabriel Kolko]], historians such as [[Allan Nevins]], and then [[Alfred D. Chandler]] emphasized the positive contributions of individuals who were previously pictured as villains.<ref>Kolko, Gabriel. "The Premises of Business Revisionism" in ''The Business History Review'', Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), p. 334</ref> Peter Novick writes, "The argument that whatever the moral delinquencies of the robber barons, these were far outweighed by their decisive contributions to American military [and industrial] prowess, was frequently invoked by Allan Nevins."<ref>{{cite book |last=Novick |first=Peter |title=That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical profession |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521357456 |url-access=registration |year=1988 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521357456 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521357456/page/343 343]}}</ref>

===Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Stalin===
{{Main|Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin}}
Prior to the collapse of the [[Soviet Union]] and the archival revelations, Western historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin's regime were 20 million or higher.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conquest |first1=Robert |title=The Great Terror |year=1990 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195055801 |page=[https://archive.org/details/greatterror00robe/page/486 486] |url=https://archive.org/details/greatterror00robe |url-access=registration |quote=20 million. |access-date=May 6, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Rummel |first1=Rudolph |title=61,911,000 Soviet Victims: Totals, Estimates, and Years |url=https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB1A.GIF |access-date=May 6, 2019 |archive-date=August 7, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190807044727/https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB1A.GIF |url-status=live }}</ref> After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available and provided information that led to a significant revision in death toll estimates for the [[Stalin]] regime, with estimates in the range from 3 million<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ellman |first1=Michael |title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments |url=https://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-Repression_Statistics.pdf |work=From 1921 onwards about 3–3.5&nbsp;million seem to have died from shooting, while in detention, or while being deported or in deportation. |access-date=May 6, 2019 |archive-date=May 25, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525134942/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-Repression_Statistics.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> to 9 million.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Snyder |first1=Timothy |title=Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse? |date=January 27, 2011 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ |work=The total number of noncombatants killed by the Germans – about 11 million – is roughly what we had thought. The total number of civilians killed by the Soviets, however, is considerably less than we had believed. We know now that the Germans killed more people than the Soviets did [...] All in all, the Germans deliberately killed about 11 million noncombatants, a figure that rises to more than 12&nbsp;million if foreseeable deaths from deportation, hunger, and sentences in concentration camps are included. For the Soviets during the Stalin period, the analogous figures are approximately six million and nine million. These figures are of course subject to revision, but it is very unlikely that the consensus will change again as radically as it has since the opening of Eastern European archives in the 1990s. |access-date=May 6, 2019 |archive-date=September 20, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190920180922/https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In post-1991 Russia the [[KGB]] archives remained briefly open during 1990's, which helped creation of organisations such as [[Memorial (society)|Memorial]], which engaged in research of the archives and search of secret mass burial grounds. After Putin came to power however, access to archives was restricted again and research in this area once again became politically incorrect,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Satter |first=David |title=It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2011 |isbn=9780300192377}}</ref> culminating with forcibly shutting down the organization in 2021.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Hopkins |first1=Valerie |last2=Nechepurenko |first2=Ivan |date=December 29, 2021 |title=As the Kremlin Revises History, a Human Rights Champion Becomes a Casualty |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/world/europe/russia-memorial-human-rights-center.html |access-date=2023-09-06 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

=== Soviet Union and Russia ===
[[Soviet Union]] frequently resorted to changing its [[official history]] to suit changes in state policy, especially after splits in the [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] leadership or change of political alliances.<ref name=":0" /> The book [[History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)]] was subject to numerous such changes to reflect removal of Bolshevik leaders previously trusted by Stalin but did not support him unanimously.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kołakowski |first=Leszek |title=Main Currents of Marxism |quote=Its lies and suppressions were too obvious to be overlooked by readers who had witnessed the events in question: all but the youngest party members knew who Trotsky was and how collectivization had taken place in Russia, but, obliged as they were to parrot the official version, they became co-authors of the new past and believers in it as party-inspired truth. If anyone challenged this truth on the basis of manifest experience, the indignation of the faithful was perfectly sincere. In this way Stalinism really produced the ‘[[new Soviet man]]’: an ideological schizophrenic, a liar who believed what he was saying, a man capable of incessant, voluntary acts of intellectual self- mutilation.}}</ref> [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]] was also redacted frequently, with subscribers of the paper book receiving letter to cut out pages e.g. about [[Lavrentiy Beria]] or [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and replace them with unrelated articles.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hIN1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 |title=The Materiality of Text – Placement, Perception, and Presence of Inscribed Texts in Classical Antiquity: Placement, perception, and presence of inscribed texts in classical antiquity |date=October 22, 2018 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-37943-5 |language=en}}</ref> Historic photos were also frequently edited to remove people who later lost trust of the Party.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=King |first=David |title=[[The Commissar Vanishes]] |publisher=Canongate Books |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-86241-724-6}}</ref>
{{Main|Censorship of images in the Soviet Union}}
The process of rewriting history of USSR and post-1991 Russia was once again restarted in 2010's after [[War in Donbas (2014–2022)|Russia's first attack on Ukraine]] and intensified after 2022 [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|full-scale invasion in Ukraine]]. History school books received significant changes which reflected the changes in the official history narratives: for example, while 2010 books openly mentioned decrease of [[life expectancy]] in Soviet Union caused shortages and insufficient spending on public healthcare, new 2023 books vaguely states that life expectancy has generally increased and instead focused on unspecified "achievements in the sphere of education and science". In chapters on Stalin, he's once again presented as a great tragedy to ordinary Russians and any mentions of repressions have disappeared. Similar changes were introduced in chapters discussing Soviet economy, space program, [[Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev]], [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|collapse of USSR]], [[perestroika]] and [[glasnost]], where the phrase "freedom of speech" started to be used in [[scare quotes]] and presented as something harmful. [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979]] which was presented as Soviet contribution into the fight against radical Islamism, completely contradicting both Soviet and post-Soviet narratives.<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 2, 2023 |title="Именовали умершего вождя тираном": что изменилось в учебнике истории |url=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6187400 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230902083030/https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6187400 |archive-date=2023-09-02 |access-date=2023-09-06 |website=Коммерсантъ |language=ru}}</ref>

Also, since 2014, Russian law enforcement started to prosecute public statements which do not comply with the current version of Russian history. Article 354.1 of [[Criminal Code of Russia]] which makes "rehabilitation of Nazism" a crime has been applied both to actual statements praising [[Nazism]], but also to statements which recalled [[Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941|Nazi-Soviet cooperation]] 1939–1941 or [[Soviet war crimes]] conducted in other countries. In some cases article 20.3 of [[Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses]] is also being applied in these cases.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Как в России судят за "фальсификацию истории": доклад "Агоры" |url=https://meduza.io/feature/2018/05/10/kak-v-rossii-sudyat-za-falsifikatsiyu-istorii-doklad-agory |access-date=2023-09-06 |website=Meduza |language=ru}}</ref>

===Guilt for causing World War II===
{{See also|Causes of World War II|Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War}}
The orthodox interpretation blamed Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for causing the war. Revisionist historians of World War II, notably [[Charles A. Beard]], said the United States was partly to blame because it pressed the Japanese too hard in 1940 and 1941 and rejected compromises.<ref>Samuel Flagg Bemis, "First Gun of a Revisionist Historiography for the Second World War", ''Journal of Modern History'', Vol. 19, No. 1 (Mar. 1947), pp. 55–59 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1875652 in JSTOR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170210131658/http://www.jstor.org/stable/1875652 |date=February 10, 2017 }}</ref> Other notable contributions to this discussion include Charles Tansill, ''Back Door To War'' (Chicago, 1952); Frederic Sanborn, ''Design For War'' (New York, 1951); and David Hoggan, ''The Forced War'' (Costa Mesa, 1989). The British historian [[A. J. P. Taylor]] ignited a firestorm when he argued Hitler was an ineffective and inexperienced diplomat and did not deliberately set out to cause a world war.<ref>Martel, Gordon ed. (1999) ''The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered: A.J.P. Taylor and the Historians.'' (2nd ed.)</ref>

[[Patrick Buchanan]], an American [[Paleoconservatism|paleoconservative]] pundit, argued that the Anglo–French guarantee in 1939 encouraged Poland not to seek a compromise over Danzig. He further argued that Britain and France were in no position to come to Poland's aid, and Hitler was offering the Poles an alliance in return. Buchanan argued the guarantee led the Polish government to transform a minor border dispute into a major world conflict, and handed Eastern Europe, including Poland, to Stalin. Buchanan also argued the guarantee ensured the country would be eventually invaded by the Soviet Union, as Stalin knew the British were in no position to declare war on the Soviet Union in 1939, due to their military weakness.<ref>[[Patrick J. Buchanan|Buchanan, Patrick J.]] (2009). [[iarchive:churchillhitlert00patr|''Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World''.]] Three Rivers Press. {{ISBN|978-0307405166}}.{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</ref>

===Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki===
{{main|Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki}}
The [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] have generated [[Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|controversy and debate]]. Historians who accepted President [[Harry Truman]]'s reasoning in justifying dropping atomic bombs to force Japanese surrender end of World War II are known as "orthodox," while "revisionists" generally deny that the bombs were necessary. Some also claim that Truman knew they were not necessary but wanted to pressure the Soviet Union. These historians see Truman's decision as a major factor in starting the [[Cold War]]. They and others also may charge that Truman ignored or downplayed predictions of casualties.{{sfnb|Kort|2007|p=31-32}}

===Cold War===
{{main|Historiography of the Cold War}}
Historians debate the causes and responsibility for the [[Cold War]]. The "orthodox" view puts the major blame on the [[Soviet Union]], while a "revisionist" view puts more responsibility on the United States. <ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Morris |first=Saga Helgason |date=2018 |title=The Evolving Interpretations of the Origins of the Cold War: Have Historians Reached a Consensus on the Origins of the Cold War? |url=http://hdl.handle.net/1946/31413 |format=PDF |journal=University of Iceland - School of Humanities |hdl=1946/31413 |type=Bachelor's thesis |language=English, Icelandic |via=Skemman}}</ref>

====Vietnam War====
''[[America in Vietnam]]'' (1978), by [[Guenter Lewy]], is an example of historical revisionism that differs much from the popular view of the U.S. in the [[Vietnam War]] (1955–75) for which the author was criticized and supported for belonging to the revisionist school on the history of the Vietnam War.<ref name="tri"/><ref name="reverse">{{cite journal| first1 = Robert A.| last1 = Divine|date=September 1979| title = Review: Revisionism in Reverse| journal = [[Reviews in American History]]| volume = 7| issue = 3| pages = 433–438| doi = 10.2307/2701181| last2 = Lewy| first2 = Guenter| last3 = Millett| first3 = Allan R. | author3-link =Allan R. Millett| jstor=2701181}}</ref> Lewy's reinterpretation was the first book of a body of work by historians of the revisionist school about the [[geopolitical]] role and the U.S. military behavior in Vietnam.

In the introduction, Lewy said:

{{Blockquote|It is the reasoned conclusion of this study ... that the sense of guilt created by the Vietnam war in the minds of many Americans is not warranted and that the charges of ''officially, condoned'' illegal and grossly immoral conduct are without substance. Indeed, detailed examination of battlefield practices reveals that the loss of civilian life in Vietnam was less great than in [[World War II]] [1939–45] and [[Korean War|Korea]] [1950–53] and that concern with minimizing the ravages of the war was strong. To measure and compare the devastation and loss of human life caused by different war will be objectionable to those who repudiate all resort to military force as an instrument of foreign policy and may be construed as callousness. Yet as long as wars do take place at all it remains a moral duty to seek to reduce the agony caused by war, and the fulfillment of this obligation should not be disdained.|''America in Vietnam'' (1979), p. vii.<ref>Guenter Lewy, ''America in Vietnam'', p. VII.</ref>}}

Other reinterpretations of the historical record of the [[U.S. war in Vietnam]], which offer alternative explanations for American behavior, include ''Why We Are in Vietnam'' (1982), by [[Norman Podhoretz]],<ref name="tri">{{cite web| website = Reviews in History| date = February 2007| first = Ian| last = Horwood| title = Book review: Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965| publisher = [[Institute of Historical Research]]| url = https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/horwood.html| archive-url = https://archive.today/20121223110521/https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/horwood.html| url-status = dead| archive-date = December 23, 2012}}</ref> ''Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965'' (2006), by [[Mark Moyar]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Mark Moyar |title=Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 |year=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-86911-0}}</ref> and ''Vietnam: The Necessary War'' (1999), by [[Michael Lind]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Lind, Michael |author-link=Michael Lind |title=Vietnam: The Necessary War |year=1999 |publisher=Free Press |isbn=978-0684842547 |url=https://archive.org/details/vietnamnecessary00lind}}{{page needed|date=September 2014}}</ref>

=== Chronological revisionism ===
It is generally accepted that the foundations of modern [[chronology]] were laid by the humanist [[Joseph Justus Scaliger|Joseph Scaliger]]. [[Isaac Newton]] in his work [[The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended|''The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms'']] made one of the first attempts to revise the "Scaligerian chronology".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hunt|first=Lynn|url=https://books.openedition.org/ceup/819|title=Measuring Time, Making History|year=2008|publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=978-9639776142|access-date=September 21, 2021|archive-date=September 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210921131043/https://books.openedition.org/ceup/819|url-status=live}}</ref> In the twentieth century the "[[Immanuel Velikovsky#Revised chronology|revised chronology]]" of [[Immanuel Velikovsky]] can be singled out in this direction, perhaps it initiated a wave of new broad interest in the revision of chronology.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Meynell|first=Hugo|date=February 1985|title=Ancient History in Chaos—Velikovsky's Chronological Reconstruction|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43247679|journal=New Blackfriars|volume=66|issue=776|pages=56–61|doi=10.1111/j.1741-2005.1985.tb02681.x|jstor=43247679|access-date=September 21, 2021|archive-date=September 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210921131041/https://www.jstor.org/stable/43247679|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

In general, revisionist chronological theories suggest halving the duration of the [[Christian era]], or consider certain historical periods to be erroneously dated, such as [[Heribert Illig]]'s ''[[Phantom time hypothesis]]''<ref>{{Cite book|last=Illig|first=Heribert|title=Das erfundene Mittelalter. Die größte Zeitfälschung der Geschichte|publisher=Econ|year=1996|isbn=3-430-14953-3}}</ref> or the materials of the "[[New chronology (Fomenko)|New Chronology]]", a proposed revision of eras by academician [[Anatoly Fomenko]], albeit one widely rejected by mainstream scholars as [[pseudoscience]].<ref>{{cite periodical |last1=Ginzburg |first1=Vitaly L. |author1-link=Vitaly L. Ginzburg |others=Translated from the Russian by Gary Goldberg |lang=en |title=Pseudoscience and the Need to Combat It |magazine=[[Nauka i Zhizn]]' |date=2000 |issue=11 |url=https://humanism.al.ru/en/articles.phtml?num=000051 |access-date=December 12, 2021 |publisher=Russian Humanist Society: humanism.al.ru |id=[https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/5372/ Also, in the original Russian] |archive-date=October 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024191933/http://humanism.al.ru/en/articles.phtml?num=000051 |url-status=live }}</ref>