Sunday, February 18, 2007
If we do not learn from history....?
According to pages 266-267 in Oren's chronology, General Stone is yet another interesting bastard of history who justified leaving his wife, Jeannie and three teen daughters to fend for themselves while he remained in Alexandria, and they as bait to a culture that consistently showed little or no respect to anyone they captured, thereby causing their fate to be hideous should they fall victim to the people of Cairo. The self-important general saw fit to put his son on a well guarded ship, out of harms way...and more likely than not out of ear and eye-shot to his extra-sexual curricular activities. But Oren's book deletes the real and only focuses on the swash-buckling romance of the East. When history is written it is always "his story," because to the victor belongs the spoils, but how can we learn from his-story of the story is always contrived to serve the writer and that sovereign for whom she/he writes. If Oren were to write of the Iran War brought to us by George Herbert Walker Bush would he neglect to include the US involvement of burying people alive? And would he neglect to inform the Clinton drum beaters of all the people he burned alive not only in Waco but in Sarajevo? Will we be forced to repeat history because we really don't know the his-story?
Dumas is criticized for his embellishments of chronology in French history in order to serve his prose of romanticism, yet at this point one must reflect as to who has embellished more often, great scholars or great writers?
Dumas is criticized for his embellishments of chronology in French history in order to serve his prose of romanticism, yet at this point one must reflect as to who has embellished more often, great scholars or great writers?
# posted by Bite Me Kissimmee @ 7:56 AM 
