Living Witness & Revisionist History

[Panem et circenses]

I was just reading through the Memory Alpha entry on the episode and noticed that the revisionist history angle was one that Braga was purposefully going for. This quote stood out to me:

It's [partly] a show about revisionist history, which is a very topical issue. Cultures are taking issue with the way history is portrayed in the books right now, and controversies come out of that. Is the revisionist history accurate? Or is it being done to bolster one's cultural identity in the present? There are no easy answers, and that is one of the issues we try to tap into in that show.

It comes from an interview in Cinefantasique. But the bit that stood out to me is that he said it is a very topical issue in 1998.

Does anybody know why revisionist history was a particularly topical issue for 1998?

I can't seem to find anything through googling, and it would be interesting to know what he is talking about in this quote.

 

[MacLeod]

Hasn't revisionist history nearly always been an issue?

Writing history in such a way as to make you look more favourable than you might actually have been or glossing over the more unsavorable aspects of your countires history etc...

 

[Panem et circenses]

You are right, it has been and probably always will be an issue in some form or another. Which is partly why I really like the episode.

I just wondered whether there was anything specific going on in 1998 that made Braga say it was topical. I might be on a wild goose chase, but thought someone else might know something I don't.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's only not an issue in 1998 because of the revised history telling us it wasn't

 

[Refuge]

Pick up a news paper or go to a news site and there is revisionist history under the guise of journalism.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Revisionist history is why I bought a set of used encyclopedias in 2012.

I heard that a major company was no longer going to have a print version of its famed collection, and I recalled a story I heard in the 1970s about the USSR. It seems someone fell out of favor with the government and TPTB decided to erase him from history. To that end they sent out a memo to ask all of the schools using a particular set of reference books to take a razor to the book, remove the page with offending gentleman's name /bio and replace it with another page TPTB kindly provided of a guy with a name that could reasonably fit into that alphabet sequence.

I figured it was a lot of work to try and erase someone back then, but not so hard to erase or corrupt the entries of a totally digitized reference now.

So, for 136 dollars I picked up a "gently used" set of encyclopedias from an online seller, circa 2005. They may sound old, but since my other two sets predated my birth in the 1950s, I figure I'm closer to being up to date than I've been in decades.

And, of course, I'm ready should an EMP ever disrupt all electricity and thus all the devices that run on it.