History is distorted chiefly through invention backed by fabricated evidence

Evidence

How does one actually set about distorting history? The best and most ef­ fective method of course is invention, supported by fabrication. One invents events, and if convenient or necessary one fabricates the evidence to support one’s inventions. A fabrication may be personal and deliberate; it may be collective and unconscious. Both kinds can usually be detected by critical historical scholarship. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1834

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Deception and fabrication inhered in myth from its origin; Photographs function as proof of history even when fabricated — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1975; Historical purity is unrecoverable through backward projection of an invented origin. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 300 (+2 more)