Official history is engineered to blind public opinion for political ends

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In the United States we have perhaps the greatest example of the neglect of history. Here, despite an enormous historical establishment comprising vast numbers of tenured historians organized in departments and societies and producing libraries of books, one cannot but be struck by the lack of a sense of history in the society, in the public discourse, and even, more specifically, in the conduct of government. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1811 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Historical knowledge gets co-opted for administrative manipulation; A history’s chosen beginning and ending points encode political judgments into its form. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 527; Official insider histories are less informative than newer critical scholarship — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 860 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• History is distorted chiefly through invention backed by fabricated evidence #complicates (0.78) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1834
• A large professional history establishment can coexist with public historical oblivion #complicates (0.76) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1811