Is history always propaganda ?

Post Reply New Topic

I seem to think that I am someone who looks at history and try and figure out what we read about sometimes is really what is made out to be, its like for example the roman emperor Caligula we were always told he was a 100% pure maniac but was he really as insane as he is made out to be ? Historians now believe he was not as insane as we portray him and maybe was no worse than other emperors but records from his time have long been lost and so historians unable to find surviving sources had to rely on guess work and speculation. I seem to think I might be a type of revisionist who wants to try decipher the fact from fiction behind the lives of certain historical figures from bygone days which seems rather difficult. I even seem to think we make some figures look more like monsters than they were and caricature them as they did in recent times with the dictator Idi Amin. I remember watching an interesting documentary about him and one comment responded that the Brits were worse than he was which I understand because Uganda was part of Britain's colonial empire. A part of me is even absurdly thinking was the British press therefore racist to portray him that way when he was brutal leader but maybe not as mad and insane as we think. Also just to note I am not defending him by the way.

History is always influenced by biases.
The 'canon' of history is obvious propaganda.