Correction of real-life historiography (at least the historiography of the Paradox forums), or a historiography that should itself be questioned, given the perspective of the narrator? Or both? Nicely written!
Well, "real life historiography" is, when you study it properly, rich and diverse. But what dominates the internet,
Wikipedia, and the forum fan boys is this putrid "popular history" that, in many ways, follows the old Whig historiographical tradition. Now, there are reasons I can go into, but won't, as to why so many people never receive the other historiographical views, but I'm referring to the histories we already know: those popular podcasts, book by jounralist historians like Roger Crowley (
1453), or Lars Brownsworth (
Lost to the West) and John Julius Norwich (his
Short History of Byzantium or his fuller three volume history) are good examples of these neo-Whig interpretations that shower the Byzantines with supreme honor and glory and try to argue the Renaissance is the result of preserved Greek texts that came West after the tragic decline and fall (which is demonstrably false), which also continue to peddle the equally wrong presentation that Western Europe was some backwater thugville countryside. Professional academia in Europe has never been ensnared by this Whig interpretation of history, but the English-speaking world has. And since the 1970s as I name dropped Peter Brown, the English speaking academy, apart from those terrible History or BBC programs about "The Dark Ages," has moved beyond these stereotypes -- and for good reason!
But the funny thing about the Whig view over Byzantium is that it has gone through waves itself. Gibbon, for instance, loathed the Byzantines. In the mid-19th century, thanks to a now unknown historian named George Finlay, it shifted toward a more positive view. Leading to this contemporary "
glory, glory, glory" Byzantine mantra that dominates the popular histories and most peoples imagination. I believe I mentioned way back in
Decline and Fall that I had written a historiography paper tracing the outline and evolution of Byzantine historiography.
It's never so much a "correction" as it is a presentation of what is neglected from one-sided studies. But let's just say that despite all the glowing ratings that these works receive on amazon, they're generally met with allergic reactions from professional historians. Though, one can easily understand why they sell well. But it does pain me in real life as someone who has published academically in Byzantine studies to hear and read the continuous assertion of "Dark Ages" and how "Constantinople was the only light" for a thousand years, or other just factual and historically inaccurate claims and statements said by people who think they know something.
The writer won't dwell on it in any explicit way, but the explicit Francophobia, anti-Catholicism, and Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism that was originally part of the Whig tradition is still with us in many ways even if contemporary writers have to mask those elements in more clever ways (though he has mentioned that already). But then again, the real life volksmarschall is actually something of an open Anglophile. For instance, this is just so stupendously marvelous and aesthetically exceptional.
And the real life volksmarschall is also a major Francophile too.