Provocative excerpts from primary and secondary sources (some with audio glosses). Read the rationale behind these sound bites for more information.
411-420 of 734 Sound Bites. [show all]
< 401-410 411-420 421-430 431-440 441-450 >
411) History has the special ability to reveal the ludicrousness of those beliefs which glue us all to the social frame of our fathers. It also can reinforce that frame with great power, and has done so most of the time. Our problem is to turn the power of history -- which can work both ways -- to the job of demystification. (Howard Zinn 45) [SoundBite #274]
412) Most modern nations consist of disparate cultures which were only unified by a lengthy process of violent conquest -- that is, the forcible suppression of cultural difference. . . . these violent beginnings which stand at the origins of modern nations have first to be "forgotten" before allegiance to a more unified, homogeneous national identity could begin to be forged. (Stuart Hall 297) [SoundBite #412]
413) This is a pioneering work, and pioneering is an adventure in trial and error. In time such pioneers will open up a varied and complex wilderness of evidence for the modern historian. (Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. xiii) [SoundBite #413]
414) Never neutral, nationalism always creates, reflects, and reproduces structures of cultural power. Like most nation-states, the United States did not develop coherently or homogeneously. Instead, the drive to build the nation reveals paradoxical processes of unifying and dividing, consolidating, and fracturing, remembrance and amnesia. (Cecilia Elizabeth O' Leary 4) [SoundBite #414]
415) Historical film seems to be one of the most passionately critiqued film genres. Perhaps we are so passionate about it because it is our story, the human story. We want to know our past and where we came from. The threat of the misrepresentation of ancestors, the tainting of heralded heroes, and the revelation of unsavory truths lay heavily on the minds of those viewing historical fiction. Those who choose to watch historical cinema are actively seeking to learn, whether consciously or subconsciously, so it is unsurprising that what is taught about such a personal topic comes under heavy criticism. (Katherine Prosswimmer, Lehigh University) [SoundBite #3662]
416) Of all the elements that make up a historical film, fiction, or invention, has to be the most problematic (for historians). To accept invention is, of course, to change significantly the way we think about history. . . . Accepting the changes in history that mainstream film proposes is not to collapse all standards of historical truth, but to accept another way of understanding our relationship to the past, another way of pursuing that conversation about where we came from, where we are going, who we are. Film neither replaces written history nor supplements it. Film stands adjacent to written history, as it does to other forms of dealing with the past such as memory and the oral tradition. (Robert A. Rosenstone 76-77) (hear audio gloss by John "Jaycee" Culhane) [SoundBite #416]
417) Wars have played a fundamental role in stimulating, defining, justifying, periodizing, and eventually filtering American memories and traditions. (Michael Kammen, Mystic 13) [SoundBite #417]
418) The historian is necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate. . . . [The] element of interpretation enters into every fact of history. (Edward Hallett Carr 6-7) [SoundBite #418]
419) Historical writing always has some effect on us. It may reinforce our passivity; it may activate us. In any case the historian cannot choose to be neutral; he writes on a moving train. (Howard Zinn 35) [SoundBite #419]
420) Film is the internal struggle between entertainment value and historical accuracy. Often times what we perceive as thrilling is simply a director's distortion of a true event. When watching movies--first and foremost enjoy them--but also find fact and separate the director's opinions and interpretations from the true story the movie is trying to tell. Without these true stories, we would have no movies to make. (AndrewTye, Lehigh University) [SoundBite #2532]
