What do revisionists believe

For example, works that challenge the revolutionary nature of the French revolution or the Industrial Revolution may be considered revisionist. Revisionism is frequently associated with social history in general and Marxism and economistic analytical methods in particular. Rob Kruszynski's comment that "Revisionism" was originally a term of abuse for those who deviated from the Marxist standard is interesting in this regard. This is especially true of studies of colonialism and imperialism, and in "non-Western" fields.

But not all revisionism is Marxist or economistic. In British history, J. Clark's English Society Cambridge UP, , is decidedly anti-Marxist in fact, he deplores Marxist influences in historical writing ; nevertheless his portrayal of the English "Ancient Regime" has sparked an ongoing reappraisal of 18th-century British politics and historiographers seem content to label him a revisionist.

Revisionists questioned, among other things, the mythological scope of Irish suffering, and employed statistical methods to analyze the famine. They were deeply criticized by historians and politicians for this, accused of sucking the blood and heart out of Irish history and stealing the Irish story from Ireland's children.

More recently, though, historians have begun using revisionist methods to verify that, in fact, Irish suffering during the famine was just about as extreme as traditionally held. I don't know of just one article which effectively sums up revisionism in general. Perhaps someone else does. Perhaps, too, someone else can flesh out my rather raw description of revisionism and provide some concrete references.

I hope this had been helpful, nonetheless. What Does "Revisionist" Mean? Discussion What Does "Revisionist" Mean? Michigan State University Department of History. The discomfort comes from the fact that historians are often disrupting or destroying connections people have already made between the past and the present, connections that may be based on no evidence at all, but that are an integral part of how they understand what the world is like, how it came to be that way, and what their place is in all of it.

They revise what they know and believe about the past. They do it all the time. After all, would you rather historians never looked at new evidence? Or never used new tools and approaches to reconsider and reinterpret old evidence?

Or never reevaluated the significance of old evidence in light of new evidence? Or never reconsidered questions that had been asked prior to the emergence of new evidence, tools, and approaches? What questions are worth asking? What evidence is necessary to answer those questions? Which perspectives should be considered? How and when does change happen, and who experiences it most acutely? For historians not to revise in this spirit would be the height of arrogance, and yet there are times when we are too proud of our work, too defensive of our process, to listen to questions offered in good faith.

When done from a place of humility, rather than defensiveness, and its questions offered in good faith, revision is what drives historical inquiry. Those on the centre-left of the political spectrum such as social democrats have been labelled revisionists by those who take a more dogmatic stance. Revisionists are often accused of selling-out their principles and being traitors to the labour movement, although a more charitable interpretation would be that they are merely developing the work of earlier socialists in the context of an ever-changing world.

One of the leading proponents of revisionism within the labour movement is Eduard Bernstein In doing so, the SPD could appear more credible as an electoral force and thereby gain office to implement a left-wing agenda. Bernstein also argued that the ends were more important than the conventional Marxist means of state ownership which could be gradually socialised in accordance with the strategy of incrementalism.

A wholesale transfer of property after a revolution from below was therefore undesirable. As such, Bernstein and his associate Karl Kautsky claimed that the goal of a society built upon social justice was more important than the means. From a more left-wing standpoint, the French theorist and activist Louis Althusser sought to modify the original teachings of Marx towards modern society.

Althusser argued that the media and other institutions transmit a set of bourgeoisie values and beliefs. What he called the ideological state apparatus is utilised by the ruling class to prevent the growth of class consciousness amongst members of the subject class.

Along with the church and the education system, the media portrays capitalism and its resultant class conflict as natural and inevitable. The ideological state apparatus ultimately enables the hegemony of the bourgeoisie to be maintained from one generation to the next.

Unlike the repressive state apparatus , the ideological state apparatus does not operate by coercion.