Comments on: Tell Me All About Yourself, Please

By: Almost Slowfood

Almost Slowfood — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:58:10 +0000

Winston Churchill said something to the effect of the victors get to write history.

By: sarah henry

sarah henry — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:01:37 +0000

Whether it’s world history or personal narrative everything has a story attached to it…whether or not it’s fact, fiction, myth, or a combination of all three…that’s one of the things that keeps life interesting, don’t you think?

By: Sheryl Kraft

Sheryl Kraft — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:03:30 +0000

Interesting how the tales get cleaned up/changed/misinterpreted/twisted over time. And that leads me to think…how can you ever know the truth unless you live through it? Oh, never mind. What’s true to one is an absolute and outright lie to another. I guess that’s what makes historical fiction so compelling.

By: Frugal Kiwi

Frugal Kiwi — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:26:54 +0000

One of the interesting things about living in New Zealand is that it is such a young country. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. A blink of an eye ago really.
Whilst the Maori weren’t treated well by the colonists at times, the managed a lot better than most native people around the world. Primarily because they were successful warriors against the Europeans I’m sure there are many nasty secrets swept under the rug, but the secrets aren’t so old and the Maori weren’t annihilated as a people.

By: Winston

Winston — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:59:06 +0000

Who knows what the sanitized version of our own history will look like in the future? Well, I do know it will take more than a can of Bon Ami and a good stiff brush to do a proper job on the 21st century thus far.

I have an online friend, a creative Argentine called Montoto, whom I met via my shameful addiction to the game The Sims (another story). He has written to me much about enclaves of Buenos Aires (his home) where the Tango lives on as fervently as in the early 1900s. Recently, his job has removed him to Spain where he is quite unhappy.

By: Cindy A

Cindy A — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:40:03 +0000

So true, Ruth. History does seem to get spiffed up in later tellings. You will never hear anyone in my family ever say that we are descendants of slave owners (except me), and there is definitive proof. Among my great great Confederate grandfather’s letters from the Civil War is a register of slaves that he sold, including prices. It made me cry the first time I saw actual dollar values assigned to a young man, an old woman, a child. There’s not much that could ever atone for that.

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:57:45 +0000

I love it, Ruth. You always hit at the marrow. I hate it when world history is intentionally sanitized or changed.
Yet I love my family’s lies…um…stories. We’re storytellers, so the truth often gets colored a lot and passed down to the next generation. I tend to love stories about my ancestors who were freaks, outlaws, or pirates. But even those versions have been turned into myth, and the pirate is portrayed as a lovable character. That’s just a family narrative, though, so it doesn’t seem to hurt the world. We’re not important or earth shaking folks. In reality, my ancestors were probably as boring as I am.

By: Julie Brown Casey

Julie Brown Casey — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:59:57 +0000

I think South America needs a twitter account. History and self-promotion in 134-character posts or less. That’s all the next generation will read, anyway!