Saturday 11 December 2010

Morning Scepticism: Armchair History

Imagine if someone were to say that Hitler didn't really die during World War II but exiled himself to Iraq where he helped in orchestrating the 1948 invasion of Israel. Sound absurd? Of course it is. We know history isn't in the eye of the storyteller but that there must have been one chain of events, that however imperfect our reconstruction isn't amenable to wild unfounded speculation. We need good evidence to back up such claims, making a "just so" account with nefarious motivations dancing in the mystery of facts lost to time is only going to fictionalise what little we know.

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