Essay on Historical Truth - 1410 Words

Historical Truth Historical Truth? As a child sits through history class in the first grade, he or she learns of the relationship between Christopher Columbus and the Indians. This history lesson tells the children of the dependence each group had on each other. But as the children mature, the relations between the two groups began to change with their age. So the story that the teenagers are told is a gruesome one of savage killings and lying. When the teenagers learn of this, they themselves might want to do research on this subject to find out the truth. But as one searches, one finds the inconsistency between the research books. So the question is, who is telling the truth? Mary Louise Pratt and Jane Tompkins probe these†¦show more content†¦A â€Å"contact zone,† according to Pratt, is where two cultures â€Å"meet, clash, and grapple with each other†(625). â€Å"Ethnography† is a story where the superior writes about the inferior, while â€Å"autoethnography† is the opposit e, telling a story by the inferior about the superior. As the cultures clash, the winner gets to tell the story. The winner is usually the one who has the superior power. Pratt brings up this idea while she discusses two authors: de la Vega and Poma. De la Vega’s â€Å"ethnographic text† illustrates the relationship between the Incas and the Spanish during the conquering of the Inca’s land. On the other hand, Poma’s â€Å"autoethnographic text† on this historical account contains conflicting ideas. But both of these essays are sent to the king of Spain. Which essay is read by the king? For one, it is not Poma’s essay since it is [s]uch a text is heterogeneous on the reception end as well as the production end: it will read very differently to people in different positions in the contact zone...it deploys systems of meaning making, the letter necessarily means differently to bilingual Spanish-Quechua speakers and to monolingual speakers in either language (536) With such a language barrier between who Poma is trying to make contact with, the Spanish King, allows his letter to be lost. But de la Vega, who is a son of a Spanish official, writes his letter to the King of Spain. De la Vega also spoke Quechua, but â€Å" his book isShow MoreRelatedHistorical Truth of Gladiator2387 Words   |  10 Pagesdepiction of the Roman Empire in its Golden Age. Some of the tiniest details of this time period have been observed and recreated skillfully, yet some major issues have been completely altered or tweaked. Right from the opening scene one can view historical inaccuracies. First, there was no last great battle against the Germanic tribes the day before Marcus Aurelius death. However, a great battle was fought late in the campaign in 179 C.E., yet Marcus Aurelius did not die until the year 180 C.ERead MoreHistorical Significance and Leadership of Sojourner Truth1751 Words   |  8 PagesUnit 9 Final Project SS230-01, Historical Significance and Leadership of Sojourner Truth. Philip P. Conty Sunday, April 28, 2013 Kaplan University Prof. Christopher Powers Historical Significance and Leadership of Sojourner Truth. Since the early twentieth Century, Sojourner Truth has been rated by a number of studies as among the prominent African Americans who have contributed to the rich history of the United States. Indeed, volumes of scholarly journals (Caroll, 1985; Redding, 1971)Read MoreThe Social Changes And Political Revolutions1221 Words   |  5 Pages To begin with, â€Å" The social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men s brains, not in man s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange† by Engels. Basically what Engels’s means by that is the materialist formation of history starts from the scheme of the production and how exchanges of things are produced, and that is the basis of all social structure. Fundamentally, as in every society it has emerged in history andRead MoreHistorical Materialism : Marxist Materialism1491 Words   |  6 Pages Historical materialism has been reasonably criticized, especially in the past few decades, regarding it’s impractical application to human behavior. Historical materialism proposes that history is nothing more than the creation and evolution of society through man’s own evolution of consciousness. Society is driven by the economic forces man places on it and inevitably transforms into a higher state of society until it reaches its final stage, which Marx argues is communism. Most criticism stemsRead MoreAnalysis Of Ian Mcewan s Atonement1757 Words   |  8 Pageswidely accepted that historical or descriptive narratives produce knowledge, is the same true of fiction? Can fictional narratives such as novels produce knowledge, and if so, what kind? Consider this question in relation to Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. It would be very difficult for anyone to find a person who stated that historical or descriptive narratives did not produce knowledge. Can the same thing be said for the genre of historical fiction? In an analysis between historical narratives andRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare And Tolstoy s War And Peace1762 Words   |  8 Pages The historical fiction genre is more popular than ever, with masses of television programmes, motion pictures and novels being written around the subject. This influx has brought a new reception to the many time periods of history that had otherwise been forgotten and abandoned, and also to many that are heavily documented but rarely looked upon. However, with the need for a fascinating story to sell to the audiences some of the historical fact is being obscured in the process, thus causing a lackRead MoreWhy Has Marxism Been Neglected For International Relations?977 Words   |  4 Pagesquestion arises as to what critical historical materialism means for world politics today: realistically, can its ideas from nearly a century and half ago, be applied to the partly conceived apolitical globalized world of today?3 Some writers have greatly criticized historical materialism in IR,6 with the perception of it being deterministic, reductionist, a version of historical teleology or simpl y Eurocentric. Even more serious are the charges that see historical materialism as being inherently ineptRead MoreThe Weight Of One Of The World s Most Dominant Religions1846 Words   |  8 Pagesputs pressure on the scholars of historical Jesus studies to find this truth, and potentially negate the world view of millions. Mark Allan Powell, in his book Jesus as a Figure in History, explains the nuances of the quest for the historical Jesus, by highlighting particular scholars and their own projections of who Jesus was. Published in 2013, this second edition of Powell’s 1998 work is situated stably in the era saturated with the third wave of historical Jesus scholarship, but Powell removesRead MoreDo Financial Statements Tell the Truth?1736 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Do financial statements tell the truth? Financial statements are often referred to as â€Å"reports†. As you scan the pages, you will find neat columns of precise numbers. Financial statements look objective. Looks can be deceiving. The questions that financial statements are intended to address do not have objectively true answers. Suppose a firm builds a factory, with custom-built machinery designed to specifically to produce the firm’s product. That factory would become an asset on the left-handRead MoreJesus Origins Of The Christian Faith1023 Words   |  5 Pages Beginning with an example of my problem in Jesus’ origins: it is universally accepted in the historical field that Jesus had siblings. An example of source text on this issue would be Mark 6: 1-6. All but one mainstream scholar would suggest that these are true siblings of Jesus, is in to say that they were born of both Mary and Joseph and were either older or younger siblings, or both.8 This of course is not compatible with the Catholic faith. To affirm older siblings of Jesus would be to deny