About Revisionism and Historiography

On the reasons and goals of revising historical narratives, on Revisionism as a “movement,” covering topics such as its history and objectives, and on the techniques and politics of writing about history in general.



Ladies and gentlemen, this is my first public speaking engagement in America except, I think, for an after-luncheon speech in Kansas to a Kansas City ladies guild of some kind. This, I think, is because of language problems. I am a master of many languages but the American tongue is …

In Defense of History, by Richard J. Evans New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999 The latest fad in academia is postmodernism, which is a term meant to describe an approach, usually in literature studies, in which texts are analyzed in a highly interactive and indeterminate manner. Confined to …

“Boney” Fuller: Soldier, Strategist, and Writer, by Anthony John Trythall. Baltimore: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1989. Hardcover. 314 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index. $24.95. ISBN 0-933852-98-3. J.F.C. Fuller: Military Thinker, by Brian Holden Reid. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Softcover. 283 pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $19.95. …

In a letter commenting on my paper, “Judaism and the Group-Fantasy of Martyrdom: The Psycho-dynamic Paradox of Survival Through Persecution,”[1] Lewis Brandon [pen name of David McCalden, the first editor of this Journal] posed the question: I wonder how far you would go along with our view that it …

(This sampling of Prof. Oliver's writing is taken from America's Decline, pages 1-4, 79-83, 182-183, 187-189, 190-191 and 212-213.) Conservatism Conservatism, when that word was first used in a political sense, correctly implied the maintenance of existing governmental and social institutions and their preservation from all undesirable innovation and substantial …

"Truth is always the first war casualty. The emotional disturbances and distortions in historical writing are greatest in wartime." These are the words of historian, sociologist and criminologist Prof. Harry Elmer Barnes, who founded a school of historical thought following World War One that became known as Revisionist.  But why …

Revisionism as applied to World War II and its origins (as also for previous wars) has the general function of bringing historical truth to an American and a world public that had been drugged by wartime lies and propaganda. This, in itself, is a virtue. But some truths of history, …

I Charles A. Beard was born on 27 November 1874 in Knightstown, Indiana, a small farming community about 35 miles east of Indianapolis. He was the son of a prosperous farmer, and a member of a family in which the intelligent discussion of public affairs was a tradition. When only …

I am a Swede, born in 1919 in Finland, and I spent my childhood and adolescence in a couple of small towns within the Swedish speaking belt along the Gulf of Finland. As a member of a somewhat pushed-aside minority I soon realized the importance of legal rights for every …

Throwing Off Germany’s Imposed History Ian Warren is the pen name of a professor who teaches at a university in the Midwest. Although Prof. Nolte did not originally understand that this interview was to appear in the Journal, he assented to publication after reviewing the complete text. Some thirteen years …

Whether the received wisdom on an historical event can be subjected to scholarly scrutiny depends upon the method by which the subject is utilized by entrenched interests. Hence, let the scholar or student who embarks on the questioning of certain sacred cows beware lest he be damned for heresy. This …

What am I? I've been called everything from an extreme liberal to an ultra-conservative. I am neither. I have been labeled a "Nazi" because of my numerous interviews with Hitler's adjutants, secretaries, doctors, and military leaders, both SS and Wehrmacht. I loved the remark the Soviets made in 1976 about …

Until very recently, a map clearly predating Columbus’s first voyage of discovery was widely considered evidence that Norsemen had “discovered” North America first. In fact, at the time it came to light (that is, onto the market), it constituted the best, if not the only evidence of this notion; discovery …

Ernst Nolte “Was someone an ‘Auschwitz denier’ if, a decade ago, he disputed the officially sanctioned thesis that four million human beings were gassed in Auschwitz – that is, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp? Should Daniel Goldhagen today be considered an ‘Auschwitz denier’ because, in a passage right at the beginning …

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Penguin Group, New York, 2010, 379 pp. This book is about the profound subjects of thinking, knowing, understanding, and then acting (or just as often, refraining from acting) on understanding. While it concentrates on how to think, know, and understand, it necessarily, and very valuably, strays …

I grew up in much simpler times. I remember learning the names of all nine planets. They started with Mercury and worked their way out to Pluto. Pluto was the ninth planet, a cold and dark place; the furthest planet from the sun. I was also taught about the Second …

There are two types of knowledge in a society. The commonly accepted and the arcane and unproved. Everybody knows that 2+2=4. That's common knowledge. In the 1400's, everyone knew that too. But there was other knowledge, rarer, not as widely known, contradicting the popular wisdom, and not yet demonstrated. Copernicus …

Last month Professor Robert Faurisson faced a landmark trial in Paris, where Lady Michèle Renouf appeared as the sole defence witness.  France is one of many countries where normal historical research is criminalised: this latest trial related to Prof. Faurisson’s speech at the Teheran International Conference 2006, (more than 3,000 miles from Paris and ten years ago!)...

The Holocaust that is continually drummed into our senses today is hyperbole—the weapon of choice not only for those who undertake to deceive, but as well the salve of choice for those who feel, rightly or not, that they have been wronged.

CODOH was born of the initiative of its founder, Bradley R. Smith to promote intellectual freedom with regard to the Holocaust question what was then a much smaller scene of information sharing, just at the moment of explosion of  what would become a revolution of information exchange: the digital era and  its  medium:  Internet.

CODOH no es todas las respuestas, sino la voluntad y la libertad de indagar. De hacer preguntas incómodas y políticamente incorrectas. No tenemos todos los problemas resueltos, sino la conciencia de que estamos en el camino correcto de promover libertad intelectual en el tema de Holocausto.

El consenso es un fenómeno social. No debe confundirse con nada que pueda apuntar hacia la verdad, o incluso con los verdaderos sentimientos (si los hay) de las personas que responden a la llamada que lleva al "consenso". Señala más bien al Poder.

That which is called Democracy in other countries is, in most cases, nothing but the subversion of public opinion, gained by the skilled manipulation of the press and of money, and a devious interpretation of the results which this has achieved.

David Merlin writes to the Calgary Gauntlet to refute Professor Maureen Hiebert claiming that, "Holocaust denial is a form of anti-Semitism, plain and simple.”

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of (published) works that the faithful were abjured by His Holiness, The Pope,  from reading. These works were in His judgment capable of misleading members of His flock from the True and Faithful path to salvation as prescribed by … him.