Zombie History: Lies About Our Past that Refuse to Die
Fake history is not a harmless mistake of fact or interpretation. It is a mistake that conceals prejudice; a mistake that discriminates against certain kinds of people; a mistake held despite a preponderance of evidence; a mistake that harms us. Fake history is like the Zombies we see in mass media, for the fake fact, like the fictional Zombie, lives by turning real events and people into monstrous perversions of fact and interpretation. Its pervasiveness reveals that prejudice remains its chief appeal to those who believe it. Its effect is insidious, because we cannot or will not destroy those mischievous lies. Zombie history is almost impossible to kill. Some Zombie history was and is political, a genre of what Hannah Arendt called “organizational lying” about the past. Its makers designed the Zombie to create a basis in the false past for particular discriminatory policies. Other history Zombies are cultural. They encapsulate and empower prejudice and stereotyping. Still other popular history Zombies do not look disfigured, but like Zombies walk among us without our realizing how devastating their impact can be. Zombie History argues that, whatever their purpose, whatever the venue in which they appear, history Zombies undermine the very foundations of disinterested study of the past.
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Zombie History: Lies About Our Past that Refuse to Die
Fake history is not a harmless mistake of fact or interpretation. It is a mistake that conceals prejudice; a mistake that discriminates against certain kinds of people; a mistake held despite a preponderance of evidence; a mistake that harms us. Fake history is like the Zombies we see in mass media, for the fake fact, like the fictional Zombie, lives by turning real events and people into monstrous perversions of fact and interpretation. Its pervasiveness reveals that prejudice remains its chief appeal to those who believe it. Its effect is insidious, because we cannot or will not destroy those mischievous lies. Zombie history is almost impossible to kill. Some Zombie history was and is political, a genre of what Hannah Arendt called “organizational lying” about the past. Its makers designed the Zombie to create a basis in the false past for particular discriminatory policies. Other history Zombies are cultural. They encapsulate and empower prejudice and stereotyping. Still other popular history Zombies do not look disfigured, but like Zombies walk among us without our realizing how devastating their impact can be. Zombie History argues that, whatever their purpose, whatever the venue in which they appear, history Zombies undermine the very foundations of disinterested study of the past.
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Zombie History: Lies About Our Past that Refuse to Die

Zombie History: Lies About Our Past that Refuse to Die

by Peter Charles Hoffer
Zombie History: Lies About Our Past that Refuse to Die

Zombie History: Lies About Our Past that Refuse to Die

by Peter Charles Hoffer

eBook

$24.95 

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Overview

Fake history is not a harmless mistake of fact or interpretation. It is a mistake that conceals prejudice; a mistake that discriminates against certain kinds of people; a mistake held despite a preponderance of evidence; a mistake that harms us. Fake history is like the Zombies we see in mass media, for the fake fact, like the fictional Zombie, lives by turning real events and people into monstrous perversions of fact and interpretation. Its pervasiveness reveals that prejudice remains its chief appeal to those who believe it. Its effect is insidious, because we cannot or will not destroy those mischievous lies. Zombie history is almost impossible to kill. Some Zombie history was and is political, a genre of what Hannah Arendt called “organizational lying” about the past. Its makers designed the Zombie to create a basis in the false past for particular discriminatory policies. Other history Zombies are cultural. They encapsulate and empower prejudice and stereotyping. Still other popular history Zombies do not look disfigured, but like Zombies walk among us without our realizing how devastating their impact can be. Zombie History argues that, whatever their purpose, whatever the venue in which they appear, history Zombies undermine the very foundations of disinterested study of the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780472126828
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 01/02/2020
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 200
File size: 466 KB

About the Author

Peter Charles Hoffer is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface

Introduction: How to Recognize the History Zombie

One: First Zombies: A people without a history/red men/Columbus/technology/puritans and pilgrims/witches

Two: Colonial and Revolutionary Zombies: Asylum /the frontier/a minister of state and his king/ Indians, slaves and the War for Independence/an age of democratic revolution/the Constitution and slavery

Three: Zombies of the Early Nation: Free markets/angels of the home/sambos and rebels/the agrarian South and industrial North/deranged abolitionists

Four: Civil War and Reconstruction Zombies: “States’ rights”/slavery and Civil War/”war between the states”/ Lincoln freed the slaves/ “the lost cause”/carpetbaggers and scalawags

Five: Gilded Age Zombies: “Jim Crow”/machines/robber barons

Six: Turn of the Century Zombies: Filthy dangerous immigrants/scabs/metal Zombies/Marxist Zombies

Seven: Modern Zombies: The ghetto/fear/Reds/eggheads

Eight: Postmodern Zombies: Conspiracies/memes/numbers/ big data/political correctness and white privilege/ dismay and despair

Epilogue: Where Zombies Go to Rest: Neologism/textbooks/AP tests/online misinformation

Bibliographical Essay

Index

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