Pseudohistory

Not to be confused with Counterfactual history or Alternate history.

Sonderaktion 1005 was a Nazi project with the explicit goal of hiding or destroying any evidence of the mass murder committed under Operation Reinhard. This was one of the earliest attempts at Holocaust denial, taking place while the genocide of the Jews was still ongoing. Scholars consider denial to be an integral part of genocide itself. ^[1]

The Lost Cause of the Confederacy is a negationist ideology which falsely claims that the spread of slavery was not the central cause of the American Civil War.

The Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum in Turkey promotes the false narrative that Armenians committed genocide against Turks, rather than vice versa. ^[2]

Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohistory derived from the superstitions intrinsic to occultism. Pseudohistory is related to pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, and usage of the terms may occasionally overlap. Although pseudohistory comes in many forms, scholars have identified many features that tend to be common in pseudohistorical works; one example is that the use of pseudohistory is almost always motivated by a contemporary political, religious, or personal agenda. Pseudohistory also frequently presents sensational claims or a big lie about historical facts which would require unwarranted revision of the historical record. ^[3]

Another hallmark of pseudohistory is an underlying premise that scholars have a furtive agenda to suppress the promotor's thesis—a premise commonly corroborated by elaborate conspiracy theories. Works of pseudohistory often point exclusively to unreliable sources—including myths and legends, often treated as literal historical truth—to support the thesis being promoted while ignoring valid sources that contradict it. Sometimes a work of pseudohistory will adopt a position of historical relativism, insisting that there is really no such thing as historical truth and that any hypothesis is just as good as any other. Many works of pseudohistory conflate mere possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did.

Notable examples of pseudohistory include British Israelism, the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Irish slaves myth, the witch-cult, Armenian genocide denial, Holocaust denial, the clean Wehrmacht myth, the 16th- and 17th-century Spanish Black Legend, and the claim that the Katyn massacre was not committed by the Soviet NKVD.

Definition and etymology

The term pseudohistory was coined in the early nineteenth century, which makes the word older than the related terms pseudo-scholarship and pseudoscience . ^[4] In an attestation from 1815, it is used to refer to the Contest of Homer and Hesiod , a purportedly historical narrative describing an entirely fictional contest between the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod. ^[5] The pejorative sense of the term, labelling a flawed or disingenuous work of historiography, is found in another 1815 attestation. ^[6] Pseudohistory is akin to pseudoscience in that both forms of falsification are achieved using the methodology that purports to, but does not, adhere to the established standards of research for the given field of intellectual enquiry of which the pseudoscience claims to be a part, and which offers little or no supporting evidence for its plausibility. ^{[7] : 7–18}

Writers Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman define pseudohistory as "the rewriting of the past for present personal or political purposes". ^{[8] : 2} Other writers take a broader definition; Douglas Allchin, a historian of science, contends that when the history of scientific discovery is presented in a simplified way, with drama exaggerated and scientists romanticized, this creates wrong stereotypes about how science works, and in fact constitutes pseudohistory, despite being based on real facts. ^[9]

Characteristics

Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that:

Pseudohistory is purported history which:

• Treats myths, legends, sagas and similar literature as literal truth
• Is neither critical nor skeptical in its reading of ancient historians, taking their claims at face value and ignoring empirical or logical evidence contrary to the claims of the ancients
• Is on a mission, not a quest, seeking to support some contemporary political or religious agenda rather than find out the truth about the past
• Often denies that there is such a thing as historical truth, clinging to the extreme skeptical notion that only what is absolutely certain can be called 'true' and nothing is absolutely certain, so nothing is true
• Often maintains that history is nothing but mythmaking and that different histories are not to be compared on such traditional academic standards as accuracy, empirical probability, logical consistency, relevancy, completeness, fairness or honesty, but on moral or political grounds
• Is selective in its use of ancient documents, citing favorably those that fit with its agenda, and ignoring or interpreting away those documents which do not fit
• Considers the possibility of something being true as sufficient to believe it is true if it fits with one's agenda
• Often maintains that there is a conspiracy to suppress its claims because of racism, atheism or ethnocentrism, or because of opposition to its political or religious agenda ^[10]

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke prefers the term "cryptohistory". He identifies two necessary elements as "a complete ignorance of the primary sources" and the repetition of "inaccuracies and wild claims". ^{[11] [12]}

Other common characteristics of pseudohistory are:

• The arbitrary linking of disparate events so as to form – in the theorist's opinion – a pattern. This is typically then developed into a conspiracy theory postulating a hidden agent responsible for creating and maintaining the pattern. For example, the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail links the Knights Templar, the medieval Grail Romances, the Merovingian Frankish dynasty and the artist Nicolas Poussin in an attempt to identify lineal descendants of Jesus.
• Hypothesising the consequences of unlikely events that "could" have happened, thereby assuming tacitly that they did.
• Sensationalism, or shock value
• Cherry picking, or "law office history", evidence that helps the historical argument being made and suppressing evidence that hurts it. ^[13]

Categories and examples

Further information: Historical negationism and Pseudoarchaeology

The following are some common categories of pseudohistorical theory, with examples. Not all theories in a listed category are necessarily pseudohistorical; they are rather categories that seem to attract pseudohistorians.

Main categories

Alternative chronologies

An alternative chronology is a revised sequence of events that deviates from the standard timeline of world history accepted by mainstream scholars. An example of an "alternative chronology" is Anatoly Fomenko's New Chronology, which claims that recorded history actually began around AD 800 and all events that allegedly occurred prior to that point either never really happened at all or are simply inaccurate retellings of events that happened later. ^[14] One of its outgrowths is the Tartary conspiracy theory. Other, less extreme examples, are the phantom time hypothesis, which asserts that the years AD 614–911 never took place; and the New Chronology of David Rohl, which claims that the accepted timelines for ancient Egyptian and Israelite history are wrong. ^[15]

Historical falsification

Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain , a scene from which is shown in this fifteenth-century illumination, was a popular work of pseudohistory during the Middle Ages.

In the eighth century, a forged document known as Donation of Constantine, which supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope, became widely circulated. ^[16] In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth published the History of the Kings of Britain , a pseudohistorical work purporting to describe the ancient history and origins of the British people. The book synthesises earlier Celtic mythical traditions to inflate the deeds of the mythical King Arthur. The contemporary historian William of Newburgh wrote around 1190 that "it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others". ^[17]

Historical revisionism

The Shakespeare authorship question is a fringe theory that claims that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. ^{[18] [19] [20] [21]}

Another example of historical revisionism is the thesis, found in the writings of David Barton and others, asserting that the United States was founded as an exclusively Christian nation. ^{[22] [23] [24]} Mainstream historians instead support the traditional position, which holds that the American founding fathers intended for church and state to be kept separate. ^{[25] [26]}

Confederate revisionists (a.k.a. Civil War revisionists), "Lost Cause" advocates, and Neo-Confederates argue that the Confederate States of America's prime motivation was the maintenance of states' rights and limited government, rather than the preservation and expansion of slavery. ^{[27] [28] [29]}

Connected to the Lost Cause is the Irish slaves myth, a pseudo-historical narrative which conflates the experiences of Irish indentured servants and enslaved Africans in the Americas. This myth, which was historically promoted by Irish nationalists such as John Mitchel, has in the modern-day been promoted by white supremacists in the United States to minimize the mistreatment experienced by African Americans (such as racism and segregation) and oppose demands for slavery reparations. The myth has also been used to obscure and downplay Irish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. ^{[30] [31]}

Historical negationism

While closely related to previous categories, historical negationism or denialism specifically aims to outright deny the existence of confirmed events, often including various massacres, genocides, and national histories.

Some examples include Holocaust denial, Armenian Genocide denial , ^[32] as well as Nakba Denial in the 1984 work From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters. ^[33]

Psychohistory

Main article: Psychohistory

Mainstream historians have categorized psychohistory as pseudohistory. ^{[34] [35]} Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities. ^[36] Its stated goal is to examine the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. It also states as its goal the combination of the insights of psychology, especially psychoanalysis, with the research methodology of the social sciences and humanities to understand the emotional origin of the behavior of individuals, groups and nations, past and present.

Pseudoarchaeology

Pseudoarchaeology refers to a false interpretation of records, namely physical ones, often by unqualified or otherwise amateur archeologists. These interpretations are often baseless and seldom align with established consensus. Nazi archaeology is a prominent example of this technique. ^[37] Frequently, people who engage in pseudoarchaeology have a very strict interpretation of evidence and are unwilling to alter their stance, resulting in interpretations that often appear overly simplistic and fail to capture the complexity and nuance of the complete narrative. ^[38]

Various examples of pseudohistory

(These following examples can belong to a variety of the above mentioned categories, or ones not mentioned as well).

Ancient aliens, ancient technologies, and lost lands

Main article: Ancient astronauts

Immanuel Velikovsky's books Worlds in Collision (1950), Ages in Chaos (1952), and Earth in Upheaval (1955), which became "instant bestsellers", ^[7] demonstrated that pseudohistory based on ancient mythology held potential for tremendous financial success ^[7] and became models of success for future works in the genre. ^[7]

In 1968, Erich von Däniken published Chariots of the Gods? , which claims that ancient visitors from outer space constructed the pyramids and other monuments. He has since published other books in which he makes similar claims. These claims have all been categorized as pseudohistory. ^{[7] : 201} Similarly, Zechariah Sitchin has published numerous books claiming that a race of extraterrestrial beings from the Planet Nibiru known as the Anunnaki visited Earth in ancient times in search of gold, and that they genetically engineered humans to serve as their slaves. He claims that memories of these occurrences are recorded in Sumerian mythology, as well as other mythologies all across the globe. These speculations have likewise been categorized as pseudohistory. ^{[39] [40]}

The ancient astronaut hypothesis was further popularized in the United States by the History Channel television series Ancient Aliens . ^[41] History professor Ronald H. Fritze observed that the pseudohistorical claims promoted by von Däniken and the Ancient Aliens program have a periodic popularity in the US: ^{[7] [42]} "In a pop culture with a short memory and a voracious appetite, aliens and pyramids and lost civilizations are recycled like fashions." ^{[7] : 201  [42]}

The author Graham Hancock has sold over four million copies of books promoting the pseudohistorical thesis that all the major monuments of the ancient world, including Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids, and the moai of Easter Island, were built by a single ancient supercivilization, ^[43] which Hancock claims thrived from 15,000 to 10,000 BC and possessed technological and scientific knowledge equal to or surpassing that of modern civilization. ^[7] He first advanced the full form of this argument in his 1995 bestseller Fingerprints of the Gods , ^[7] which won popular acclaim, but scholarly disdain. ^[7] Christopher Knight has published numerous books, including Uriel's Machine (2000), expounding pseudohistorical assertions that ancient civilizations possessed technology far more advanced than the technology of today. ^{[44] [45] [46] [47]}

The claim that a lost continent known as Lemuria once existed in the Pacific Ocean has likewise been categorized as pseudohistory. ^{[7] : 11}

Furthermore, similar conspiracy theories promote the idea of embellished, fabricated accounts of historical civilizations, namely Khazaria and Tartaria.

Antisemitic pseudohistory

See also: Blood libel

American edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion from 1934

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a fraudulent work purporting to show a historical conspiracy for world domination by Jews. ^[48] The work was conclusively proven to be a forgery in August 1921, when The Times revealed that extensive portions of the document were directly plagiarized from Maurice Joly's 1864 satirical dialogue The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu , ^[49] as well as Hermann Goedsche's 1868 anti-Semitic novel Biarritz. ^[50]

The Khazar theory is an academic fringe theory that postulates the belief that the bulk of European Jewry is of Central Asian (Turkic) origin. In spite of the mainstream academic consensus which conclusively rejects it, this theory has been promoted in Anti-Semitic and some Anti-Zionist circles, they argue that Jews are an alien element in both Europe and Palestine.

Holocaust denial in particular and genocide denial in general are widely categorized as pseudohistory. ^{[8] : 237  [51]} Major proponents of Holocaust denial include David Irving and others, who argue that the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Armenian genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the Greek genocide and other genocides did not occur, or accounts of them were greatly exaggerated. ^[51]

Ethnocentric or nationalist revisionism

See also: Historiography and nationalism and National mysticism

Most Afrocentric (i.e. Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories, see Ancient Egyptian race controversy) ideas have been identified as pseudohistorical, ^{[52] [53]} alongside the "Indigenous Aryans" theories published by Hindu nationalists during the 1990s and 2000s. ^[54] The "crypto-history" developed within Germanic mysticism and Nazi occultism has likewise been placed under this categorization. ^{[55] [56]} Among leading Nazis, Heinrich Himmler is believed to have been influenced by occultism and according to one theory, developed the SS base at Wewelsburg in accordance with an esoteric plan.

The Sun Language Theory is a pseudohistorical ideology which argues that all languages are descended from a form of proto-Turkish. ^[57] The theory may have been partially devised in order to legitimize Arabic and Semitic loanwords occurring in the Turkish language by instead asserting that the Arabic and Semitic words were derived from the Turkish ones rather than vice versa. ^[58]

A large number of nationalist pseudohistorical theories deal with the legendary Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. British-Israelism, also known as Anglo-Israelism, the most famous example of this type, has been conclusively refuted by mainstream historians using evidence from a vast array of different fields of study. ^{[59] [60] [61]}

Another nationalistic pseudohistorical theory is Antiquization or Ancient Macedonism, which postulates direct demographic, cultural and linguistic continuity between ancient Macedonians and the main ethnic group in present-day North Macedonia. ^{[62] [63]} The Bulgarian medieval dynasty of the Komitopules, which ruled the First Bulgarian Empire in late 10th and early 11th centuries AD, is presented as "Macedonian", ruling a "medieval Macedonian state", because its capitals were located in what was previously the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. ^[64] North Macedonian historians often replace the ethnonym "Bulgarians" with "Macedonians", or avoid it. ^{[65] [66]} North Macedonian scholars say the theory is intended to forge a national identity distinct from modern Bulgaria, which regards North Macedonia as an artificial nation. ^[67] The theory is controversial in Greece and sparked 2018 mass protests there. ^[68] A particular item of dispute is North Macedonian veneration of Alexander the Great; mainstream scholarship holds that Alexander had Greek ancestry, he was born in an area of ancient Macedonia that is now Greece, and he ruled over North Macedonia but never lived there and did not speak the local language. ^{[67] [69]} To placate Greece and thereby facilitate the country's entry into the European Union and NATO, the Macedonian government formally renounced claims of ancient Macedonian heritage with the 2018 Prespa Agreement. ^{[67] [68]}

Dacianism is a Romanian pseudohistorical current that attempts to attribute far more influence over European and world history to the Dacians than that which they actually enjoyed. ^[70] Dacianist historiography claims that the Dacians held primacy over all other civilizations, including the Romans; ^[71] that the Dacian language was the origin of Latin and all other languages, such as Hindi and Babylonian; ^[72] and sometimes that the Zalmoxis cult has structural links to Christianity. ^[73] Dacianism was most prevalent in National Communist Romania, as the Ceaușescu regime portrayed the Dacians as insurgents defying an "imperialist" Rome; the Communist Party had formally attached "protochronism", as Dacianism was known, to Marxist ideology by 1974. ^[74]

Matriarchy

Main article: Matriarchy

The consensus among academics is that no unambiguously and strictly matriarchal society is known to have existed, though many societies are known to have or have had some matriarchal features, in particular matrilineality, matrilocality, and/or matrifocality. ^{[75] [76]} Anthropologist Donald Brown's list of human cultural universals (viz., features shared by nearly all current human societies) includes men being the "dominant element" in public political affairs, ^[77] which is the contemporary opinion of mainstream anthropology. ^[78] Some societies that are matrilineal or matrifocal may in fact have patriarchal power structures, and thus be misidentified as matriarchal. The idea that matriarchal societies existed and they preceded patriarchal societies was first raised in the 19th-century among Western academics, but it has since been discredited. ^[78]

Despite this however, some second-wave feminists assert that a matriarchy preceded the patriarchy. The Goddess Movement and Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade cite Venus figurines as evidence that societies of paleolithic and neolithic Europe were matriarchies that worshipped a goddess. This belief is not supported by mainstream academics. ^[79]

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories

Main article: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

Excluding the Norse colonization of the Americas, most theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact have been classified as pseudohistory, including claims that the Americas were actually discovered by Arabs or Muslims. ^[80] Gavin Menzies' book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World , which argues for the idea that Chinese sailors discovered America, has also been categorized as a work of pseudohistory. ^{[7] : 11}

Racist pseudohistory

Josiah Priest and other nineteenth-century American writers wrote pseudohistorical narratives that portrayed African Americans and Native Americans in an extremely negative light. ^[81] Priest's first book was The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed (1826). ^{[82] [81]} The book is regarded by modern critics as one of the earliest works of modern American pseudohistory. ^[81] Priest attacked Native Americans in American Antiquities and Discoveries of the West (1833) ^{[83] [81]} and African-Americans in Slavery, As It Relates to the Negro (1843). ^{[84] [81]} Other nineteenth-century writers, such as Thomas Gold Appleton, in his A Sheaf of Papers (1875), and George Perkins Marsh, in his The Goths in New England, seized upon false notions of Viking history to promote the superiority of white people (as well as to oppose the Catholic Church). Such misuse of Viking history and imagery reemerged in the twentieth century among some groups promoting white supremacy. ^[85]

Soviet communist pseudohistory

Supporters of Soviet communist pseudohistory claim, among other things, that Joseph Stalin and other top Soviet leaders did not realize the scope of mass killings perpetrated under the Stalin regime, that executions of prisoners were legally justifiable, and that prisoners in Soviet gulags performed important construction work that helped the Soviet Union economically, particularly during World War II. Scholars point to overwhelming evidence that Stalin directly helped plan mass killings, that many prisoners were sent to gulags or executed extrajudicially, and that many prisoners did no productive work, often being isolated in remote camps or given pointless and menial tasks. ^[86]

Israeli pseudohistory

In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Amin Al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, gave Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders the idea for the Holocaust. Historians across the world, along with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the German government, characterized the claim as historically baseless. The PLO and the Zionist Union said the statement was politically motivated because it wrongly places blame for the Holocaust on Palestinian nationalists, whom Netanyahu opposes, while implicitly absolving Hitler. ^{[87] [88]}

Anti-religious pseudohistory

See also: Bible conspiracy theory and Christ Myth Theory

The Christ myth theory claims that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as a historical figure and that his existence was invented by early Christians. This argument currently finds very little support among scholars and historians of all faiths and has been described as pseudohistorical. ^{[89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98]}

Likewise, some minority historian views assert that Muhammad either did not exist or was not central to founding Islam. ^[99]

Religious pseudohistory

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln is a book that purports to show that certain historical figures, such as Godfrey of Bouillon, and contemporary aristocrats are the lineal descendants of Jesus. Mainstream historians have widely panned the book, categorizing it as pseudohistory, ^{[100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107]} and pointing out that the genealogical tables used in it are now known to be spurious. ^[108] Nonetheless, the book was an international best-seller ^[107] and inspired Dan Brown's bestselling mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code . ^{[107] [7] : 2–3}

Although historians and archaeologists consider the Book of Mormon to be an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that it describes ancient historical events in the Americas.

Searches for Noah's Ark have also been categorized as pseudohistory. ^{[109] [110] [111] [112] [113]}

In her books, starting with The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), English author Margaret Murray claimed that the witch trials in the early modern period were actually an attempt by chauvinistic Christians to annihilate a secret, pagan religion, ^[114] which she claimed worshipped a Horned God. ^[114] Murray's claims have now been widely rejected by respected historians. ^{[115] [116] [114]} Nonetheless, her ideas have become the foundation myth for modern Wicca, a contemporary Neopagan religion. ^{[116] [117]} Belief in Murray's alleged witch-cult is still prevalent among Wiccans, ^[117] but is gradually declining. ^[117]

Hinduism

The belief that Ancient India was technologically advanced to the extent of being a nuclear power is gaining popularity in India. ^[118] Emerging extreme nationalist trends and ideologies based on Hinduism in the political arena promote these discussions. Vasudev Devnani, the education minister for the western state of Rajasthan, said in January 2017 that it was important to "understand the scientific significance" of the cow, as it was the only animal in the world to both inhale and exhale oxygen. ^[119] In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering of doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha showed genetic science existed in ancient India. ^[120] Many new age pseudohistorians who focus on converting mythological stories into history are well received among the crowd. Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy is a related event when Capt. Anand J. Bodas, retired principal of a pilot training facility, claimed that aircraft more advanced than today's aircraft existed in ancient India at the Indian Science Congress. ^[121]

As a topic of study

Courses critiquing pseudohistory are offered as undergraduate courses in liberal arts settings, one example being in Claremont McKenna College. ^[122]

See also

• Big lie  – Propaganda technique
• List of pseudohistorians
• Pseudoscientific metrology
• Disinformation

References

1. Herf, Jeffrey (2006). The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during the World War II and the Holocaust. Harvard University Press. p. 127. ISBN   978-0-674038-59-2.
2. • Marchand, Laure; Perrier, Guillaume (2015). Turkey and the Armenian Ghost: On the Trail of the Genocide. McGill-Queen's Press. pp. 111–112. ISBN   978-0-7735-9720-4. The Iğdır genocide monument is the ultimate caricature of the Turkish government's policy of denying the 1915 genocide by rewriting history and transforming victims into guilty parties.
   • Hovannisian 2001, p. 803. "... the unbending attitude of the Ankara government, in 1995 of a multi-volume work of the prime ministry's state archives titled Armenian Atrocities in the Caucasus and Anatolia According to Archival Documents. The purpose of the publication is not only to reiterate all previous denials but also to demonstrate that it was in fact the Turkish people who were the victims of a genocide perpetrated by the Armenians." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHovannisian2001 (help)
   • Cheterian 2015, pp. 65–66. "Some of the proponents of this official narrative have even gone so far as to claim that the Armenians were the real aggressors, and that Muslim losses were greater than those of the Armenians." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCheterian2015 (help)
   • Gürpınar 2016, p. 234. "Maintaining that 'the best defence is a good offence', the new strategy involved accusing Armenians in response for perpetrating genocide against the Turks. The violence committed by the Armenian committees under the Russian occupation of Eastern Anatolia and massacring of tens of thousands of Muslims (Turks and Kurds) in revenge killings in 1916–17 was extravagantly displayed, magnified and decontextualized." harvnb error: no target: CITEREFGürpınar2016 (help)
3. "Joseph Goebbels On the "Big Lie"". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
4. Monthly magazine and British register, Volume 55 (February 1823), p. 449, in reference to John Galt, Ringan Gilhaize: Or, The Covenanters, Oliver & Boyd, 1823.
5. C. A. Elton, Remains of Hesiod the Ascraean 1815, p. xix.
6. The Critical review: or, Annals of literature, Volume 1 ed. Tobias George Smollett, 1815, p. 152
7. Fritze, Ronald H. (2009). Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-Religions. London: Reaktion Books. ISBN   978-1-86189-430-4.
8. Shermer, Michael; Grobman, Alex (2009). Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN   978-0-520-26098-6.
9. Allchin, D. (2004). "Pseudohistory and pseudoscience" (PDF). Science & Education. 1 (13): 179–195. Bibcode:2004Sc&Ed..13..179A. doi:10.1023/B:SCED.0000025563.35883.e9. S2CID   7378302. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
10. Carroll, Robert Todd. The skeptic's dictionary. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons (2003), p. 305.
11. Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 224, 225
12. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, p. 225 (Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2005 ed.). ISBN   978-1-86064-973-8
13. Ellis, Joseph J. American Dialogue: The Founders and Us. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. p. 168.
14. Novikov, S. P. (2000). "Pseudohistory and pseudomathematics: fantasy in our life". Russian Mathematical Surveys. 55 (2): 365–368. Bibcode:2000RuMaS..55..365N. doi:10.1070/RM2000v055n02ABEH000287. S2CID   250892348.
15. "In his book A Test of Time (1995), Rohl argues that the conventionally accepted dates for strata such as the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in Palestine are wrong" – in Daniel Jacobs, Shirley Eber, Francesca Silvani, Israel and The Palestinian Territories: The Rough Guide, p. 424 (Rough Guides Ltd., 2nd rev. ed., 1998). ISBN   978-1-85828-248-0
16. "Before Jon Stewart". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved February 19, 2017.
17. Thorpe, Lewis. The History of the Kings of Britain. p. 17.
18. Hope, Warren and Kim Holston. The Shakespeare Controversy (2009) 2nd ed., 3: "In short, this is a history written in opposition to the current prevailing view".
19. Potter, Lois. "Marlowe onstage" in Constructing Christopher Marlowe, James Alan Downie and J. T. Parnell, eds. (2000, 2001), paperback ed., 88–101; 100: "The possibility that Shakespeare may not really be Shakespeare, comic in the context of literary history and pseudo-history, is understandable in this world of double-agents . . ."
20. Aaronovitch, David. "The anti-Stratfordians" in Voodoo Histories (2010), 226–229: "There is, however, a psychological or anthropological question to be answered about our consumption of pseudo-history and pseudoscience. I have now plowed through enough of these books to be able to state that, as a genre, they are badly written and, in their anxiety to establish their dubious neo-scholarly credentials, incredibly tedious. … Why do we read bad history books that have the added lack of distinction of not being in any way true or useful …"
21. Kathman, David. Shakespeare Authorship Page: "... Shakespeare scholars regard Oxfordianism as pseudo-scholarship which arbitrarily discards the methods used by real historians. ... In order to support their beliefs, Oxfordians resort to a number of tactics which will be familiar to observers of other forms of pseudo-history and pseudo-science."
22. Specter, Arlen (Spring 1995). "Defending the wall: Maintaining church/state separation in America". Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy . 18 (2): 575–590.^{[ dead link ]}
23. Leopold, Jason (14 January 2008). "House Passes, Considers Evangelical Resolutions". www.baltimorechronicle.com. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
24. Boston Theological Institute Newsletter Volume XXXIV, No. 17, Richard V. Pierard, January 25, 2005
25. Boston, Rob (2007). "Dissecting the religious right's favorite Bible Curriculum", Americans United for Separation of Church and State, American Humanist Association. Retrieved on April 9, 2013
26. Harvey, Paul (10 May 2011). "Selling the Idea of a Christian Nation: David Barton's Alternate Intellectual Universe". Religion Dispatches . Retrieved April 9, 2013.
27. David Barton (December 2008). "Confronting Civil War Revisionism: Why the South Went To War". Wall Builders. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
28. Barrett Brown (27 December 2010). "Neoconfederate civil war revisionism: Those who commemorate the South's fallen heroes are entitled to do so, but not to deny that slavery was the war's prime cause". TheGuardian.com. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
29. "Howard Swint: Confederate revisionism warps U.S. history". Charleston Daily Mail. June 15, 2011. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
30. Linehan, Hugh. "Sinn Féin not allowing facts derail good 'Irish slaves' yarn". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
31. Kennedy, Liam (2015). Unhappy the Land: The Most Oppressed People Ever, the Irish?. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. p. 19. ISBN   978-1785370472.
32. academic.oup.com https://academic.oup.com/book/37362/chapter-abstract/331336915?redirectedFrom=fulltext . Retrieved 2024-03-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
33. Sa'di, Ahmad H.; Abu-Lughod, Lila (2007-04-10). Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory. Columbia University Press. p. 304. ISBN   978-0-231-50970-1. The myth advanced by Joan Peters in her pseudo-historical book , From Time Immemorial
34. Barzun, Jacques (1989). Clio and the Doctors: Psycho-History, Quanto-History and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 3. ISBN   978-0226038513 . Retrieved 30 July 2017.
35. Hunt, Lynn (2002). "Psychology, Pschoanalysis and Historical Thought – The Misfortunes of Psychohistory". In Kramer Lloyd S. and Maza, Sarah C. (ed.). A Companion to Western Historical Thought. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 337–357. ISBN   0-631-21714-2.
36. Paul H. Elovitz, Ed., Psychohistory for the Twenty-First Century (2013) pp. 1–3.
37. "What did the Nazis have to do with archaeology?". HowStuffWorks. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
38. Fagan, Garrett G. (1963). Archaeological Fantasies: how pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public. Routledge. p. 27. ISBN   0-415-30593-4.
39. Michael S. Heiser. "The Myth of a Sumerian 12th Planet" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
40. Carroll, Robert T (1994–2009). "Zecharia Sitchin and The Earth Chronicles". The Skeptic's Dictionary. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
41. Fritze, Ronald H. (November 2009). "On the Perils and Pleasures of Confronting Pseudohistory". Historically Speaking. 10 (5): 2–5. doi:10.1353/hsp.0.0067. ISSN   1941-4188. S2CID   144988932.
42. Fritze, Ronald (8 July 2009). "Ronald H. Fritze, On his book Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-Religions, Cover Interview". July 08, 2009. Rorotoko.com. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
43. Sheiko, Konstantin (2012). Nationalist Imaginings of the Russian Past: Anatolii Fomenko and the Rise of Alternative History in Post-Communist Russia. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society. Vol. 86. Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem-Verlag. p. 83. ISBN   978-3838259154.
44. Merriman, Nick, editor, Public Archaeology, Routledge, 2004 p. 260
45. Tonkin, S., 2003, Uriel's Machine – a Commentary on some of the Astronomical Assertions.
46. Merriman, Nick, ed. (2004). "The comforts of unreason: the importance and relevance of alternative archaeology". Public Archaeology . London: Routledge. p.  260. ISBN   978-0415258890.
47. Tonkin, Stephen (2003). "Uriel's Machine – a Commentary on some of the Astronomical Assertions". The Astronomical Unit. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
48. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
49. Philip Graves (August 16–18, 1921). "The truth about "The Protocols"". The Times. London.
50. Segel, Binjamin W (1996) [1926], Levy, Richard S (ed.), A Lie and a Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, University of Nebraska Press, p. 97, ISBN   0-8032-9245-7 .
51. Lipstadt, Deborah E. (1994). Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. New York: Plume. p.  215. ISBN   0-452-27274-2.
52. Sherwin, Elisabeth. "Clarence Walker encourages black Americans to discard Afrocentrism". Davis Community Network. Retrieved 2007-11-13.
53. Ortiz de Montellano, Bernardo & Gabriel Haslip Viera & Warren Barbour (1997). "They were NOT here before Columbus: Afrocentric hyper-diffusionism in the 1990s". Ethnohistory. 44 (2). Duke University Press: 199–234. doi:10.2307/483368. JSTOR   483368.
54. Nanda, Meera (January–March 2005). "Response to my critics" (PDF). Social Epistemology. 19 (1): 147–191. doi:10.1080/02691720500084358. S2CID   10045510. Sokal, Alan (2006). "Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers?". In Fagan, Garrett (ed.). Archaeological Fantasies: How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public. Routledge. ISBN   0-415-30592-6.
55. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. 1985. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press. ISBN   0-85030-402-4. (Several reprints.) Expanded with a new Preface, 2004, I.B. Tauris & Co. ISBN   1-86064-973-4
56. Kristkoiz, Suzanne (2021-04-21). "The Utilisation of Historically Revisionist Narratives by the FPÖ and the AfD". E-International Relations. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
57. Aytürk, İlker (November 2004). "Turkish Linguists against the West: The Origins of Linguistic Nationalism in Atatürk's Turkey" (PDF). Middle Eastern Studies. 40 (6). London: Frank Cass & Co (Routledge): 1–25. doi:10.1080/0026320042000282856. hdl: 11693/49528 . ISSN   0026-3206. OCLC   86539631. S2CID   144968896.
58. Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003), Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-1403917232 , p. 165.
59. Melton, J. Gordon (2005). Encyclopedia of Protestantism . New York: Facts on File, Inc. p.  107. ISBN   0-8160-5456-8.
60. Cross, Frank Leslie; Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0192802903.
61. Shapiro, Faydra L. (2015). Christian Zionism: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books. p. 151.
62. Anastas Vangeli, Nation-building ancient Macedonian style: the origins and the effects of the so-called antiquization in Macedonia. doi : 10.1080/00905992.2010.532775 Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018.
63. Todorović, Miloš (2019). "Nationalistic Pseudohistory in the Balkans". Skeptic Magazine. 24 (4). Retrieved 26 January 2020.
64. Svetozar Rajak, Konstantina E. Botsiou, Eirini Karamouzi, Evanthis Hatzivassiliou ed. The Balkans in the Cold War. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, Springer, 2017, ISBN   1137439033, p. 313.
65. Македонски историк призна: Да, има фалшификации в историографията ни
66. Коста Църнушанов "Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него". София, Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски“, 1992. стр. 428
67. Higgins, Andrew (June 19, 2024). "Who Owns Alexander the Great? It's a Diplomatic Minefield" . The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved August 26, 2024.
68. Kitsantonis, Niki (June 12, 2018). "Macedonia Agrees to Change Its Name to Resolve Dispute With Greece" . The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved August 26, 2024.
69. Willi, Andreas (October–November 2009). "Whose Is Macedonia, Whose Is Alexander?". The Classical Journal. 105 (1): 59–64. doi:10.5184/00098353.105.1.59 . Retrieved August 26, 2024.
70. Boia, Lucian (1997). Istorie și mit în conștiința românească. Bucharest, Romania: Humanitas. pp. 160–161.
71. Boia 1997 , pp. 149–151
72. "Doar o vorbă SĂȚ-I mai spun". George Pruteanu (in Romanian). 26 March 1996. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
73. Boia 1997 , p. 169
74. Boia 1997 , pp. 120, 154–156
75. Goldberg, Steven, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (William Morrow & Co., 1973).
76. Eller (2000) harvp error: no target: CITEREFEller2000 (help)
77. Brown, Donald E., Human Universals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), p. 137.
78. "The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development now is generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed." Encyclopædia Britannica (2007), entry Matriarchy.
79. Ruth Whitehouse. "The Mother Goddess Hypothesis and Its Critics," in Handbook of Gender in Archaeology, Sarah Milledge Nelson (ed.), pp. 756–758
80. "Did Muslims Visit America Before Columbus?". hnn.us.
81. Williams, Stephen (1991). Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
82. Priest, Josiah (1826). The Wonders of Nature, and Providence Displayed. Albany: E & E Hosford.
83. Priest, Josiah (1835). American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West. Albany: Hoffman and White.
84. Priest, Josiah (1843). Slavery, As It Relates to the Negro. Albany: C. van Bethuysen & Co.
85. Regal, Brian (2019). "Everything Means Something in Viking". Skeptical Inquirer . Vol. 43, no. 6. Center for Inquiry. pp. 44–47.
86. Мне говорят, что репрессий в СССР не было. Как с этим спорить?
87. Botelho, Greg (2015-10-21). "Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu criticized for saying Holocaust was mufti's idea, not Hitler's". CNN. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
88. "Germany tells Netanyahu: We are responsible for the Holocaust". BBC News. 2015-10-22. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
89. In a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship, Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) wrote: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" B. Ehrman, 2011 Forged : writing in the name of God ISBN   978-0-06-207863-6. p. 285
90. Robert M. Price (an atheist who denies the existence of Jesus) agrees that this perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars: Robert M. Price "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" in The Historical Jesus: Five Views edited by James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, 2009 InterVarsity, ISBN   028106329X p. 61
91. Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant 2004 ISBN   1898799881 p. 200
92. Richard A. Burridge states: "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that anymore." in Jesus Now and Then by Richard A. Burridge and Graham Gould (2004) ISBN   0802809774 p. 34
93. Did Jesus exist?, Bart Ehrman, 2012, Chapter 1
94. Sykes, Stephen W. (2007). "Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus". Sacrifice and Redemption. Cambridge University Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN   978-0-521-04460-8.
95. Mark Allan Powell (1998). Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee . Westminster John Knox Press. p.  168. ISBN   978-0-664-25703-3.
96. James L. Houlden (2003). Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: Entries A–J. ABC-CLIO. ISBN   978-1-57607-856-3.
97. Robert E. Van Voorst (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 14–16. ISBN   978-0-8028-4368-5.
98. Dickson, John (24 December 2012). "Best of 2012: The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
99. "Review of: Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. ISSN   1055-7660.
100. Thompson, Damian (2008). Counterknowledge. How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History. Atlantic Books. ISBN   978-1-84354-675-7.
101. Jarnac, Pierre (1985). Histoire du Trésor de Rennes-le-Château. Saleilles: P. Jarnac.
102. Jarnac, Pierre (1988). Les Archives de Rennes-le-Château. Editions Belisane. Describing The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail as a "monument of mediocrity"
     Chaumeil, Jean-Luc (1994). La Table d'Isis ou Le Secret de la Lumière. Editions Guy Trédaniel.
103. Etchegoin, Marie-France; Lenoir, Frédéric (2004). Code Da Vinci: L'Enquête. Robert Laffont.
104. Bedu, Jean-Jacques (2005). Les sources secrètes du Da Vinci Code. Editions du Rocher.
105. Sanchez Da Motta, Bernardo (2005). Do Enigma de Rennes-le-Château ao Priorado de Siao – Historia de um Mito Moderno. Esquilo.
106. Morley, Neville (1999). Writing Ancient History. Cornell University Press. p. 19. ISBN   0-8014-8633-5.
107. Miller, Laura (22 February 2004). "The Last Word; The Da Vinci Con". The New York Times.
108. Laura Miller (2006). Dan Burstein (ed.). Secrets of the Code. Vanguard Press. p.  405. ISBN   978-1-59315-273-4.
109. Fagan, Brian M.; Beck, Charlotte (1996). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-507618-4.
110. Cline, Eric H. (2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-974107-6.
111. Feder, Kenneth L. (2010). Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN   978-0-313-37919-2.
112. Rickard, Bob; Michell, John (2000). "Arkeology". Unexplained Phenomena: A Rough Guide Special. London: Rough Guides. pp. 179–83. ISBN   1-85828-589-5.
113. Dietz, Robert S. "Ark-Eology: A Frightening Example of Pseudo-Science" in Geotimes 38:9 (Sept. 1993) p. 4.
114. Purkiss, Diane (1996). The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations . Abingdon, England: Routledge. p.  62. ISBN   978-0415087629.
115. Russell, Jeffrey B.; Alexander, Brooks (2007), A New History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans, London: Thames and Hudson, p. 154, ISBN   978-0-500-28634-0
116. Simpson, Jacqueline (1994). "Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her and Why?". Folklore. 105 (1–2): 89–96. doi: 10.1080/0015587x.1994.9715877 .
117. Rabinovitch, Shelley; Lewis, James (2002). The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism. New York: Kensington Publishing Corporation. pp. 32–35. ISBN   0-8065-2407-3.
118. Kumar, Ruchi (12 October 2018). "The Threat of Pseudoscience in India". Undark. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
119. "Cow only animal to inhale and exhale oxygen: Rajasthan minister". Hindustan Times. 16 January 2017. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019.
120. Maseeh Rahman (28 October 2014). "Indian prime minister claims genetic science existed in ancient times". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
121. Lakshmi, Rama (4 January 2015). "Indians invented planes 7,000 years ago – and other startling claims at the Science Congress". The Washington Post. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
122. "Examination of 'pseudohistory' and how to uncover trustworthy accounts focus of next Modern China Lecture | CSUSB News". inside.csusb.edu. Archived from the original on 2019-12-22. Retrieved 2019-04-26.

External links

• "Pseudohistory and Pseudoscience" Program in the History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
• Pseudohistory entry at Skeptic's Dictionary
• The Hall of Ma'at
• "The Restoration of History" from the American Skeptic magazine.