The Istoriaphile’s Corner

As a rule, we don’t question many things we are taught.  If your Mom said stuffing should be cooked separately from the turkey and your Dad decreed all Fords are junk, chances are you accepted those statements, at least until you reached adolescence.  If your favorite teacher taught a specific subject, then you probably learned to like the same field.  Maybe you adopted some of the professor’s opinions. All of that is well and good until those beliefs become accepted history.  As somebody said (Orwell? Napoleon? Churchill?) history is written by the winners which means some accepted historical accounts are nothing more than preserved propaganda and lies. You know this if you’ve read Caroline Alexander’s book, The Bounty.  Or do you still loath and fear Captain Bligh? When I was a kid, my cousin used Captain Bligh’s name whenever we pretended we were pirates. According to my cousin, no buccaneer or sailor on the Seven Seas was meaner or sneakier than this terrible man.  Of course, he got his ideas from watching Charles Laughton in “Mutiny on the Bounty”, a wonderful old black-and-white picture that contrasts Clark Gable’s bare-chested nobility with Laughton’s debased and evil Captain Bligh. The picture and source made…