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I was reading the entry for “Pseudohistory” in Wikipedia, and I came across this curiosity (bold mine):
In many countries, such as Japan, Russia, and the United States, the subject taught in the primary and secondary schools under the name "history" is censored for political reasons. To give just a few of many examples: in Japan, mention of the Nanking Massacre has been removed from textbooks; in Russia under Stalin, history was rewritten to conform with communist party doctrine; and in the United States the history of the American Civil War had been censored to avoid giving offense to white Southerners.[1][2][3] This practice goes back to the earliest recorded times. In Book Three of The Republic, Plato recommends that citizens be taught lies in order to instill patriotism.[4]
So, does anyone know if this is true about the South? Or is the author of the Wikipedia entry engaging in a form of "pseudo-characterization"?Speaking of the "pseudohistory" entry in Wikipedia, feel free to go to that page and scroll down to "Examples of pseudohistory". Feel free to add anything you'd like. 😀
I call BS. There was none of this in my son's history class last year in Texas. Sounds like typical wikipedia garbage. That is why you should take everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, you read on wikipedia with a block, not a grain of salt.
or ignore it completely. :-[I only use it for general, NON-POLITICAL stuff just to get familiar and then research the other terms in the wiki article using real academic sources. Funny, every professor I had at AMU always say this is not a valid source, yet I can't believe how many students will still use it in their citations.
Wikipedia is great for certain things, particularly learning technical terms in my field as well as background information on obscure people I want to know about for context. You know what you're going to get there because of the way the information is arranged, and you can usually find sources for the Wiki entries that lead to more trustworthy information. That said, I think it should really never be used as a cited source in a paper. And I think it goes without saying that political information there is unreliable. But you guys already knew that.
