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Korean War - Some thoughts on cold war histography.

maxparrish

maxparrish

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One of the more interesting developments since the end of the cold war has been the arc of historical research. From the early 60s to the early 90s there were two broad categories of histography, the "conventional" and the "revisionist". Simplifying it, the revisionist historians gained increased credibility in challenging the idea that the west wore the white hats and communist-third world fellow travelers wore the black hats in the cold war. In the case of Korea, such revisionists blamed South Korea and the US for the Korean war...starting with provocation and military attack initiated by the South against and an innocent North Korea.

As it turned out, after the opening of the Soviet archives, revisionism was largely debunked and the conventional cold war histories confirmed.

It is curious how liberal/left historians fell for these "blame America first" tropes, no more so than Korea.

Any thoughts?
 
That is not what historiography means, and rather ironically no matter which side of the event one stood the history of what lead up to the Korean War (and the Cold War itself) is well established.
 
maxparrish said:
One of the more interesting developments since the end of the cold war has been the arc of historical research. From the early 60s to the early 90s there were two broad categories of histography, the "conventional" and the "revisionist". Simplifying it, the revisionist historians gained increased credibility in challenging the idea that the west wore the white hats and communist-third world fellow travelers wore the black hats in the cold war. In the case of Korea, such revisionists blamed South Korea and the US for the Korean war...starting with provocation and military attack initiated by the South against and an innocent North Korea.

As it turned out, after the opening of the Soviet archives, revisionism was largely debunked and the conventional cold war histories confirmed.

It is curious how liberal/left historians fell for these "blame America first" tropes, no more so than Korea.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Man who embrace the revisionist histories are the same type that embrace Conspiracy Theories...

The whole "no one told us about minor border scuffles" therefore the US/ROK are hiding something nonsense is pure CT thinking.
 
The left wing never give the context.

For example, Latin America. The left wing will tell you we overthrew governments and put dictators in their place.

It sounds insane.

What the context is:

1. The elites in Latin America treated their poor like ****.
2. The poor wanted to rise up and overthrow their rich, killing them and taking their stuff.
3. The poor turned to communism.
4. The poor got weapons and training from the Soviet Union.
5. America and the Soviet Union were fighting the Cold War.
6. To stop Soviet expansion in Latin America, America backed anti-communist forces.

You can see a living example of this in Venezuela today, though the Soviets are all gone.

Once you have the context, which the left leaves out, it doesn't seem so crazy.
 
I've never seen any wide spread arguments that South Korea is at fault for starting the war. Early South Korea certainly wasn't a pleasant place, but that's not really the same argument.
 
OrphanSlug said:
That is not what historiography means, and rather ironically no matter which side of the event one stood the history of what lead up to the Korean War (and the Cold War itself) is well established.
Click to expand...

It is well established now, but not so in the minds of revisionists of the 70s through the 90s. Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, Robert R. Simmons, and Cummings being the more well known in this genre.

Revisionism in regards to Korea as opposed to traditional accounts is differentiated by:

a) Fault for the initiation of hostilities, including actions taken in years leading up to the war.
b) Emphasis on the war as a civil war.
c) Emphasis on war atrocities committed by S.K. and U.S.

As it turned out, for the greater part, the revisionists were (as noted) wrong.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
I've never seen any wide spread arguments that South Korea is at fault for starting the war. Early South Korea certainly wasn't a pleasant place, but that's not really the same argument.
Click to expand...

see post 6.
 
maxparrish said:
It is well established now, but not so in the minds of revisionists of the 70s through the 90s. Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, Robert R. Simmons, and Cummings being the more well known in this genre.

Revisionism in regards to Korea as opposed to traditional accounts is differentiated by:

a) Fault for the initiation of hostilities, including actions taken in years leading up to the war.
b) Emphasis on the war as a civil war.
c) Emphasis on war atrocities committed by S.K. and U.S.

As it turned out, for the greater part, the revisionists were (as noted) wrong.
Click to expand...

This is not the first event in human history to end up debated, the good news is in this case those works were largely ignored by the history academia community. The points brought up by all of them were largely debunked by the known actions of North Korea and the USSR.
 
maxparrish said:
see post 6.
Click to expand...

A cursory glance at some of the works published on the Korean War don't seem to indicate an overwhelming appearance of revisionist work, at least from what I looked up.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
A cursory glance at some of the works published on the Korean War don't seem to indicate an overwhelming appearance of revisionist work, at least from what I looked up.
Click to expand...

Most likely because it was a cursory glance at popular works repeating traditionalist history, not academic works.
 
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