Category: admin only: Featured

02/7/11

which is the truth

After reading the review of “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory”, the book sounds interesting to me. Author, David Blight mentions that there are different memories about Civil War caused by the political motivation. For instance, in “emancipationist view, the war is bringing a rebirth of the republic in the name of freedom and equality, but reconciliationist memory is to emphasize what the two sides shared in common”. He says that “race” is an important fact for politician to modify the truth of Civil war in American memories and illuminate that the history we learned is a bias made of the ‘winer’. Therefore, I think reading the book will benefit to everyone.
The other example is Nanjing Massacre. This is a sad memory for everyone. 18 September 1937, Japanese invaded Nanjing. Japanese soldiers raped and killed 300,000 Chinese civilians during one week. Those soldiers played a game that is who kill most Chinese people and treat Chinese people lower than animals. As a result, Chinese government makes Nanjing Massacre as national disgrace and every Chinese people learn the history when they were kids. However, this unhumanized action of Nanjing Massacre was denied by the Japanese government. They stop teaching the history and eliminate the truth on textbook. Additionally, Japanese officials worship the war murders as heroes. Now, Nanjing Massacre still is a controversy between Chinese and Japanese governments.

02/7/11

Remembering What Was Meant To Be Forgotten

How America remembers the Civil War or any other historical events, is always going to be based on who wrote history.  Mostly on someones documented memories.  Using primary documents that historians have gathered.  Each with enough supporting evidence to draw up a valid conclusion.  “Valid meaning, each piece of evidence supports the conclusion that certain events occurred, but doesn’t necessarily makes it true or sound.

The review that Eric Foner writes about Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David Blight showed that many people remember the Civil War differently.  Everything from the cause of the war,  political views,  rebuilding, and how it should be looked back on was different; causing drifts and segregation.  It actually made me want to read the book.   I mean I was actually shocked to discover how the celebration of Memorial Day was started, and even more by whom.  It use to just be a day off from work for me.  I can honestly say that has changed a bit.  Funny, while speaking to some friends about it, none of them knew that was how that national holiday began.

The review helped solidify my view of what in history is actually available to you.  How much of the truth do we actually know? How much are we allowed to know?  The people in power make the laws, and the people in power write history.  One should think that judging from what we know about that past, you can come to appreciate, and really thank those people who are able to seek the truth…as they saw it.  The black soldiers that died in the war, could have easily been left out of the memoirs, letters, and documents from those time.  Foner even mentioned how Blight “…gives black Americans a voice…denied in work of memory…”  This to me, shows that historians can choose to omit a lot of the past, if they haven’t already.  This would have completely stolen the voices of black America, and kept us from knowing about the past that many would wish was forgotten. Our current war on terror, is an example of history, though not very distancan be views as being very  politically motivated.  Why are we in the war?  Is it because of the 9/11 terrorist attack, oil, weapons of mass destruction’s, and/or war profiteering. This list can grow longer depending on who you ask.

02/7/11

What really happened?

Eric Foner’s book review of “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory”, by David W. Blight, shows that it would prove to be an interesting read.  It sheds light on the fact that history should not be accepted for its face value.  As Napoleon once said “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon”.  The result of a battle is quite simple, there is a winner and a loser; and the only side of the story that is heard is that of the victor.  This creates a bias and a convenient addition/deletion of certain facts and events.  The picture that results is therefore a distorted image, not an accurate representation of the actual events.  The people who would most benefit from reading this book are students, for the reason that many believe that what they were taught in grammar school is the way it actually happened.  This book would teach them to other half of the story, and perhaps get them to begin questioning other historical events, encouraging them to discover the truth for themselves.

An event that is remembered in many different ways is the concept of Manifest Destiny that the United States used to expand westward.  Many believe that the government relocated the nation’s Native American population in a fair manner and that they agreed to actually move in the first place.  This is an ideal thought but, the reality was much more brutal and violent.  In reality the Native Americans were essentially told move to a designated remote location, with useless land and die there, or stay and fight the troops that would be sent to “relocate” them i.e., get slaughtered in battle.  In the case of the Native Americans, the moves taken were absolutely rooted in political agenda.  In the case of the North Vs. the South, the moves taken were also based in political dominance.  The north wanted to erase the fact that the country had been divided so they tried to tarnish the image of the South in as many ways as possible.  This included rallying the Northern voters to only vote for their politicians by “waving the bloody shirt” — reminding voters of the war — during election campaigns”, essentially guilting them into voting the way they were told.  Elections may have been rigged and power was unfairly distributed, but in the end we never heard about it, because remember “we won the war”.

02/6/11

“Who controls the past, Controls the future” -George Orwell, 1984

What was so interesting about Eric Foner’s review was his remark about what goes in historical memory can have political motives. It eerily reminds me of the book “1984” by George Orwell and how history is manipulated by the party to keep check of what is being remembered. And we know from Neurology and psychology that what we remember plays a fundamental role in forming the basis of our reality.

Foner mentions the dichotomy between the views provided by the North and South about how the Civil War should be remembered. One was the “Emancipationist” view provided by the North which emphasized freedom and equality for all men. The south embraced the “Reconciliationist” view which accentuated the commonality between the two sides and the bravery of the individual soldiers. The Reconciliationist view downplayed the role of slavery as the cause of the Civil War and Foner also mentioned how the South still embodied the with supremacy view even after the Civil War. David Blight’s book does seem to render important facts about how we remember the Civil War, but I am not so sure if it would be an interesting read for me, I had rather read the condensed review! But maybe serious history students and historians might find the book useful. Another event in history I think is remembered differently is the War against Iraq in 2003. The two most prevalent views is that the war was caused by the threat of WMDs in Iraq, while the other view is that the prime concern was taking control of the huge oil reserves in Iraq. Both view might have political agenda and that the democrats may advance the latter view to portray the Republican party as composed of greedy capitalists.  

02/6/11

A War to Remember

In the book review of “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, ” by Eric Foner, it sheds light on the distorted memory of the Civil War. The Civil War may have ended, but the battle of how to remember it is still going on. When asked about their opinions on the war, a Southerner will most likely give a completely different answer than a Northerner. This is primarily because of politics. Both the North and the South wanted the memory of the Civil War to be favorable to them.  In addition, our perspective of the Civil War depends on how racial relations are in present day.

This is an important issue because historical memories are valuable sources to understanding the past. If memories are manipulated, it will present a biased, false impression of the event. There are many instances of historical happenings that result in different experiences and views. For example, the truth about the first Thanksgiving. In American textbooks, the first Thanksgiving was illustrated to be happy and harmonious. The story goes that the Pilgrims met a nice Native American, called Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn.  Out of respect, the Pilgrims invited the Native Americans for a Thanksgiving feast. However, the truth about Thanksgiving is that Pilgrims did not come up with it. Indians had been celebrating Thanksgiving for centuries. Pilgrims were never actually part of it. In the 1890s, the Pilgrims started to be tied in with the tradition after Abraham Lincoln made it a national holiday.

The book is interesting because it reveals the forgotten heroes and repressed memories of the Civil War. It is a useful opportunity to enlighten the people, who previously held certain biases or reservations regarding the war.

02/6/11

Racial Propaganda

Eric Foner did a wonderful job of making a brave and insightful book sound painstakingly boring. His review was written as a monotonous summary void of any important historical implications that the book itself has. As to the book itself, I would see it as a study into racial propaganda, although neither Foner nor Blight seem to mention or point this out. Blight did a great deed in revisiting Civil War memories, simultaneously reevaluating our modern memories of history. Using “Race and Reunion” as the median, Blight was able to synthesize the past and present, showing us that memories need to be analyzed and studied just as thoroughly as historical evidence, and even more so as memories are more susceptible to alteration.

The book review alludes to the importance of historical memory and how memories may shape history more so than events. Foner showed us that memories were able to push the South’s agenda in a more effective manner than the North’s war victory was able to suppress it. Even to this day there are numerous events, whether it be America’s suppression of Native Americans, or Fascist Germany’s murder of Gypsies, gays, Russians, etc, or America’s invasion into Afghanistan and Iraq, and China’s censorship of Tibet, where memories of people, push personal agendas to the point of blinding us of objective facts. Memories are subjective and as such may very well be politically motivated. Leading me to think that had Blight written a book on historical memories and used the civil war as a chapter in a book full of historical examples of how memories shape history, he would’ve done the world a much greater service.

02/6/11

Remember the History

The book review “Race and Reunion” by David Blight sounds like a interesting book. This book is interesting because people can know how others remembered the history of the Civil War. Just like what the review said, these studies is the conviction that memory is a product of history. It is being constructed and in many ways political. I think that most people can benefit from this reading because we can learn about black Americans that were often denied in works. Blight believes that “how we think about the Civil War has everything to do with how we think about race and its history in American life.”

This book review shows how race plays an important role of historical memory. During the Civil War, Northerner fought for the freedom of slavery. The  Southerner fought to keep slavery. In the book review it says how slavery was not part of the Civil War. This shows two different sides that people saw during that period.
Another event that was remembered in many different ways was the Vietnam War.  During the Vietnam War, the United States fought North Vietnam in order to contain communism and stop it from spreading to South Vietnam. Many believe that if we did not fight this war communism might have spread even further than Vietnam. The other point of view is that many Americans thought it was a waste of our military soldiers and a waste of time. U.S.A spent many years in Vietnam and lost a great deal of soldier during the war only to have lost. I think that some memories are politically motivated since we have different points of view can may motivate others.

02/6/11

Things Remembered

The book sounds pretty interesting to me. In the book review, Eric Foner says, “‘Race and Reunion’ is the most comprehensive and insightful study of the memory of the Civil War yet to appear.” It gives a lot of information to people who get to know Civil War history straight forward from text books. As a foreign student, I would be one of them. Before coming to the Unites State, I’ve only read about Civil War from the text books when I was in school, I only knew that Civil War was about Americans from the north and south fighting over slavery and trades. However, I could get more details and facts from many other books like Race and Reunion.

The book uses Civil war as an example to emphasize how important historical memories are. Eric Font indicates that Blight has used some historical events to debate what happened during some other historical events. For example, “The origins of the reconciliationist memory, Blight argues, can be traced to debates during Reconstruction, when Republicans made a commitment to legal and political equality for the former slaves and then abandoned it in the face of violent opposition from the white South and a Northern retreat from the ideal of equality.”Eric Foner also uses the examples in the book tells us to view historical events (like Civil War) by different angles and ways.

Talking about similar examples, as a Chinese, the first thing come to my mind is the Nanjing Massacre. It was probably one of the cruelest massacres against humanity in recent history.  In this event, an estimate of three hundred thousand Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000 women were raped by soldiers of the imperial Japanese Army in the city of Nanjing, during the years of 1937-1938. The massacre also involves political elements; some Japanese nationalists argue the massacre was fabricated.  While the Japanese government has records of the number of casualties after Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Nanjing massacre perpetrated by them seems to be a forgotten issue. The exact number of killed Chinese civilians will never be disclosed as evidence was destroyed shortly after the Japanese surrender to the invasion war. Historical facts remember the massacre, while political manipulations try to clean it from the record.

02/6/11

Remembering The Past

David Blight’s “Race and Reunion” seems to be a very good history book because it shows that some historical evens can be remembered differently. There were two opinions on why the Civil War started. The emancipationists believed that slavery was a cause of the Civil War. The reconciliationists dismissed this thought and claimed that the Civil War happened because of the disagreement in the state rights. What i found very interesting is that the book overthrows the concept that winners always get to write history. Even though the South lost the Civil War, the reconciliationists “won the war over memory”.  I think politics probably played an important role in ensuring that the Southern view of history would prevail.

Another example in history of a shared experience that is remembered in many different ways is the origins of the Cold War. People disagree over the question of who was responsible for the breakdown of American-Soviet relations. In addition, the debate over what resulted in slavery in 17th century is another example. Some people say that  slavery was a result of white racism, while others claim that racism was a result of slavery.

I believe anyone with an interest in the Civil War will benefit from reading this book because it provides both sides of the story. It is important for people to know how history gets distorted in an absolutely unfair manner and how some books don’t speak the truth.  It is not fair when important events and people who deserve recognition are left out of the history.

02/5/11

His-story

David Blight’s book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, sounds extremely intriguing. He offers another view to the Civil War, and brings in the impact of African Americans. When we learn about the Civil War in school we are told a certain story, a story that usually omits certain truths. By reading this book one would gain a whole new prospective of our history. This book helps bring to light the power of written history, and the fact that history is just one person’s perspective about what happened at a certain time. No matter who is telling the event there will always be some bias. Everybody would benefit from reading such a book, because it shows us that what we learnt in the past might not be true. We all know that every person has his side of the story, and that when you put both sides together you usually get a story close to the real one. By bringing in the importance of African American’s in the Civil War we begin to learn about our history from a different lens.

An even that has many different viewpoints around the world is the United States’ bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America and Japan each have a different memory of this event. In America’s mind they were just retaliating to the horrible attack at Pearl Harbor. America was minding their own business, and out of nowhere Japan decided to bomb our naval base. In the Japanese minds America is evil. They went too far, and it was uncalled for. They unleashed the first nuclear weapon, and they responded much harsher than they should have. These different viewpoints over the same event are obviously politically motivated. America wants to show that they are right, and that they were defending their homeland. On the other hand, Japan wants to show that America is a malevolent country, and that what they did has no justification.

02/4/11

Truth of a Nation

The voice of David Blight in the book Race and Reunion:The CIvil War in American Memory sparks certain interests in the history of the civil war because he attempts to uncover the truth to what many people try to leave behind. Many people seem to believe that slavery was not a big enough problem to have caused the division in such a powerful country. A number of people took enormous amounts of actions to make things right; some even risking their lives. Among those individuals were African Americans and those who were trying to aid in their emancipation. Blight does not overlook the heroism taken by African Americans during the Civil War. In fact, this is his central theme. Their roles ranged from fleeing from captivity in large numbers to fighting in the war for their freedom. Indeed slavery was the central problem and the cause; therefore Blight is able to bring this to the forefront in a tasteful manner and give credit to those forgotten.

Everyone would benefit from reading this book because we all should know the truth about what occurred in the past. In this day and age, people have a tendency to forget events as time moves on. Politics aids in this lack of memory by showing favoritism to certain races in America, predominately the white population. A prime example in this time was the event of Hurricane Katrina. This event was remembered in different ways by many people. The truth behind this devastating time was that aid took a long time to reach New Orleans because it was mostly populated by African Americans. Although some people would want to argue that the conditions were horrible therefore other plans had to be thought up in order for help to get into the state; others may argue that the president of the country was unaware of what was going on in the country he was running and there was no plan thought up in case of emergencies. Until this day, New Orleans is still not repaired to the beautiful lively area it once was; still leaving many African Americans homeless and forgotten.The book review sheds light on the fact that American History is very significant and all of the what may seem to be small details should be recognized because such events as Hurricane Katrina which happened many years after the Civil War will continue to occur and certain people will continue to be forgotten or left behind.

02/2/11

There is no “everyone” in PRIVACY, or is there?

We’ve come a long way from the strenuous and tedious handwritten recordings on paper. Entering the 21st century, the Internet era has completely taken over. The technology of computers and other electronics has not only become tools to enhance productivity but has become the way we live. People are constantly on the Internet looking for data, whether it is  information to help them on their project to even information on social networking sites to see what their friends new status is. Whatever it is you’re looking for, the Internet probably offers it. This is a huge step forward in information gathering. It helps not only everyday people but as well as historians whom are always sifting through loads of information. With that comes consequences as well. The access to information has become so easily attained that people have become reliant on technology and the Internet. People become mind boggled when something unexpected happens: like their phone running out of batteries. Also people do not appreciate the information attained when generations before people would die (exaggerated) for these information.

In addition, another issue rises. With sites like Twitter and Wikileaks being archived, people may feel that our privacy is taken away from us. Ultimately, that is the case. There really are no secrets on the Internet. Once it is posted on the Internet, there is no way of taking it back. With that, people need to start screening what they post if they don’t want their secrets being found. Nonetheless, the Internet still is a great aspect to our future.

02/1/11

Welcome to the Future of No Privacy!

In the past decade, people have grown to be more and more dependent on technology. Technology offers us many advantages. It allows us to connect with people around the world. In addition, technology has the answers to our questions, even the silliest ones. Most people cannot go a day withour their phones, checking their email, or logging onto Facebook. It is through our reliance on technology that future historians are able to have some insight as to who the people in the 2000 era are like. Tweets, Facebook statuses, and Tumblr posts document our lifestyles. Archiving tweets is a useful method in gathering information. The WikiLeaks dump can also provide valuable data for historians since it will give clues to the political affairs of America and foreign nations. Historians no longer have to dig or go through caves to find information because they can easily find it now.

However, there is a privacy issue. Should the government draw a line as to the type of information it is collecting? I personally do not think it is necessary to archive all the Tweets because some of it contain personal information. This practice of providing information for future historians does make me wonder if there is privacy anymore. I think is great that we found a way to let future historians know more about us but people should be able to have some privacy of their own that nobody can google.

02/1/11

Your information is exposed!

In today’s society technologies are more advanced than it was back then. We are able to put information electronically instead of storing them as books or documents. When Historians need to do research on information that they need, they no longer have to go through books. Instead they can simply go on any archive that is stored electronically and get the information.

For example, the link about Twitter has me thinking that if I were to use a Twitter account and tweeted almost every minute of what I did in a day,  in the future if a Historian wanted to check back on me because of some odd reason, he would just need to look through the Twitter archives. There is no need to ask the people around me about what type of person I am, the things I did and how I lived my life. A Twitter archive can have many benefits for future Historians but it also has a drawback. Having a Twitter archive remove privacy from people, things that people might not want others to see will be seen by all.

With all these new technologies in today’s society, there is no need to worry about losing information because it is safely stored and backed up in case of any problems. This also gives us the fact that we have no privacy since we do not think of all the people that may see our post or blog. There is always an access to most of the things that we use.

In the website Wiki Leaks, we can get so many information about our histories. Wiki Leaks is a type of media that publish original sources along with their stories so readers and Historians can see evidence of the truth. I think that Wiki Leaks is a great site for future historians to look through and gather information for their research. Future Historians would most likely be able to have a more convenient way of accessing information.

02/1/11

Post At Your Own Risk!

Today almost everything we do is noticed. What we say, what we do, where we go, are all being watched somehow. This provides historians with much fodder to analyze. Historians of the future will be able to look back on the past and have access to piles of information about every citizen. The scientists will be able to gather all this information through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, MySpace, blogs, and any other web based social network. The scariest part about this is that we give all the information away, without even realizing it. In the past such extensive records were only kept on a few famous people, if even that. Today, almost everybody engages in social networking, allowing any stranger to access more information then they should be permitted to.

The fact that Twitter is being archived is not a surprise to me. Whether Congress announced it or not, everything that is done on the web can be traced back to its user. If one doesn’t want the world to know about something, then do not post it on Twitter. When you post a tweet you are putting your information into cyberspace, and once something is created you can never completely destroy it. It is easier now to spread information then it has ever been. If one wants to invite everybody to a party they can quickly send out an email, post a status, or put up a picture, and soon their entire group of friends would know about that party. The information travels so quickly that we get aggravated if our Internet page takes more than 2 seconds to load. This is what we are dealing with! Due to the ease of spreading electronic data, I was also not shocked when “confidential” data was leaked on WikiLeaks. There is always one person in every office that is willing to give up information for a small price. We see this in many industries. Today we download music CDs weeks before they even comes out, and that is only possible because somebody leaked it out. Leaking private information is nothing new, but due to today’s technology it spreads much quicker.

02/1/11

A Powerful Collection of Any and Everything…No Matter What!

The gathering of historical data is far easier now with the technology that we have.  Unless the digital era crashes or is destroyed in a way that computer technology can no longer exist.  Historians can obtain information without leaving their seats, in a matter of seconds.  No dusty books, that hopefully is in a readable condition.  No documents that can’t be preserved.   Information is sent quickly, gathered fast.  Making it easier to do research.

Reading the article on the archiving of every public tweet actually gave me chills.  We use the Internet for so many different things, that to know that the pictures posted on facebook are no longer yours or that google saves all your searches, and that a tweet stating that ” I’d sleep with my dentist, because he is so hot”, or “I can’t wait till I can eat a bunch of small animals for Thanksgiving”, is locked away somewhere is uncomfortable.  Some time capsule that is!  To imagine that, that’s going to be something that historians will use to study the era that I live in doesn’t sit well with me.  I really don’t want to be remembered that way.


Honestly, I have some major privacy concerns.  It’s one thing to collect data so that you can return to a certain time period, and discuss these historical evidences with the future generations, to better our world.  It’s another not to give people the choice to opt out or better yet, to ask if you can use their belongings.  Honestly, if I knew that Facebook was going to have the rights to my pictures, I would not have joined or posted any up.  Also, I don’t believe most of the entries from twitter should be saved, a lot of these things are just a waste of digital space.

" I know everything!

Where else the information of the wiki-leaks are so controversial, that the government is upset that these “confidential” documents were leaked. What makes them so special, or exempted from disclosure?  If “We the people” can’t keep small secrets or even pictures for ourselves, what makes it okay for “Our government” to keep large ones from us?  It has to be a balance.  I feel that the leaks were wrong, because they may have been obtained illegally, but it shows that all things are being collected in this large pool, whether anyone likes it or not.  That the internet is going to continue to provide the best and worst collection of information… no matter what!

We live in a world where the internet allows no doors to be closed because of it’s vast collection of human knowledge.  It would be nice to know that there is some privacy left.  That there are still some things that are not obtainable through the strokes of a few keys. Yet, I think those days are numbered."The Vast Collector"