Historians are written by genetic material as well as experiences and reactions to both.

History is

Anne Frank wasn't a historian.

And historians work for the victors.

"Just plain wrong" is not a proper response to "food is served hot"

I don’t know what your second example is referring to.

Quotes from Chairman Mao, the very apotheosis of a victor writing history.

Seriously, how is that an example of history being written by the victors?

HP is a fantastic glamorization of elementary students growing up during the domestic fascist turn in the wake of WW2. It isn't simply a story about wizard kids, but an allegory describing liberals coming of age during the 60s and 70s. The heroes and villains and side-characters are all fictional re-imaginings of period figures. Had the English come out on the wrong side of the World Wars, you'd likely be reading a similar set of books translated off the German, telling a similar coming-of-age story about growing up in post-war globally dominant Germany as a young wizard coming of age with evil (((monsters))) hiding in the school basement that only a clever and talented Draco Malfoy could grow up to defeat.

History is not written by the victors. It is written by those who are most able to write history.

The folks most able to write history are the ones in the position to conduct research, formulate a narrative, and distribute it most aggressively. Those people are inevitably working on behalf of the most wealthy and influential business and political interests in the region. Aka "the victors".

Quotes from Chairman Mao

You could argue that there is some history in the Bible, but a lot of it is not history at all.

I mean, you can functionally argue this with any book. Certainly, there are a great many people who take Biblical events as historical facts. And that's precisely because of the success of centuries of militant evangelism. Which takes us back to the whole "history written by the victors" thing. If nothing else, the Council of Nicaea - hosted by Constantine the I - was an explicitly recognized congregation of "winners". And they were very literally codifying the historical narrative of what would become the largest religion on earth for at least the next millennium.

Also, the Old Testament was written by the Jews while they were part of the Persian Empire

The Old Testament that we refer to in the modern Bible is but one version of the original manuscripts maintained by Jewish priests living in a minor kingdom at the far edge of the Persian Empire. It persisted in large part because Judaism gave way to Christianity, which became the state religion of the continent spanning Roman Empire. Had Constantine lost the civil war with Maxentus, there's no saying what the prevailing religion of the Mediterranean (and then the rest of the world) would have been. But I suspect we'd have seen at least a few notable variances to the modern incarnation of the faith.

History is written by people who write it down (and then get it successfully accepted/disseminated to a certain degree).

That's a huge one, thanks

But the Mongols willingly assimilated into Chinese culture for ease of administration, becoming the Yuan Dynasty. So a lot of the 'Chinese' sources were written by people of Mongol ancestry, or people who worked for them.

Not sure this is a great example for your point, given that in between then and now Europe conquered most of the world. I don't think it'd be hard to argue that in the long term they were the "victors" and as such their great opponents and fears became The Enemy in the history books.

This only really works as a counter-point if you interpret it overly literally as only referring to the winners of a particular conflict, whereas in my experience at least, this isn't what most people repeating the sentiment actually mean. Usually it's something more akin to "history is often written and taught in a way that furthers the goals of the current hegemon," that's just not quite as snappy.

I'm guessing the issue that makes people talk past each other when talking about this idea is that it's most famously used in reference to World War II where "winner of the conflict" and "leader of the global order" were about as close to the same thing as they have ever been.

Modern sensibilities see them as the good guys, but for most of colonial history they were painted as the bad guys. Kids played cowboys and Indians the same way they played cops and robbers.

Native American oral history portrays some initial contact and treaties as mutually amicable, the Treaty of Niagara for example, and there's a common sentiment that returning to original treaties could be a good thing. Also common knowledge now but they weren't just a group of people but many nations. The "wise native" trope and the notion they were like peaceful hippies who lived easy lives with nature are arguably positive racist stereotypes.

The westward expansion and "free real estate" project of settlement is where things turned, and the new capitalist economic order taking hold. It wasn't all a violent takeover either, there were very mundane layers of land leasing and real estate issues happening as well.

Strangely you have misunderstood my comment. It was clearly meant about the saying that history is written by the winners. There is no saying that winners are the good guys.

Even more strangely you are not the only one. I can only surmise that people are really itching to get offended by something. Or do you think it's something else?

Strangely you have misunderstood my comment. It was clearly meant about the saying that history is written by the winners. There is no saying that winners are the good guys.

Even more strangely you are not the only one. I can only surmise that people are really itching to get offended by something. Or do you think it's something else?