Discussion Responses Required - Sample Response attached for Reference - 7 Hours

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For my Project, I will be researching and writing about perspective, specifically history perspective. History is written by the victors, a notion adopted and most widely acknowledged to be used by Winston Churchill, but its true origins are unknown. Perspective, specifically when dealing with the historical perspective has shaped history, and thus, history is inaccurate. When we read history (or anything for that matter), we tend to assume what we are reading is true. A lot of people believe that history is an unequivocal fact. However, the history of the world that we know and study lacks just as many facts as it contains if not even more” (Ryder). History is not grounded in facts, but rather it’s the winners’ account of what happened.

The best way to piece together this research will be to present it as a traditional academic piece written in a persuasive style. I chose this topic and genre because I’ve always found the historical inaccuracies interesting and how we only ever get half the story. Native Americans, for instance, are one of the most oppressed groups of people in the world, yet we rarely talk about them (Ryder). Why? Because they weren’t the victors. American history has been dominated by white men. History (and people) have been inaccurately recounting the experience(s) and perspective(s) of battles since the beginning of time when man could record history. The victors have always been the ones to have the last say, the final word, and the only word on what occurred. In history, when a battle was one, the victors would burn and destroy the others’ temples, scripts, history and teachings. Accounts of the experiences and hardships felt by the losing side of a battle were only ever recorded in the winners’ view (Historians.org, 2020).

Just like with the Native Americans, there’s no detailed account of the brutality of the British militia which lead to the Jacobite uprising and the downfall of the Highlander way of life at the Battle of Culloden (National Trust for Scotland, 2017).  The Highlander history and recounts of the Battle of Culloden talk about the profit benefit to highlanders and barely touch on how “Clan chiefs were deprived of their legal powers and clansmen of their weapons; Jacobite estates were seized by the Crown; and the kilt and tartan were banned” (National Trust for Scotland, 2017). 

The first step in organizing this undertaking was developing the topic/thesis that history is not grounded in facts as it is written by the victors. The next step will be defining no more than four battles to focus on in order to limit the scope of research and not spend years focusing on this project. The next step will be to gather sources and research on each of the battles and develop the argument to support each one based on the thesis.

Sources for gathering the research for this project will include historical textbooks detailing the accounts of the American wars as well as the Battle of Culloden, online sources detailing historical accounts, and as seen below, accounts from respective sources that have credibility and authority. The battle of Culloden, for instance, has a record of prisoners with their names, but there is no account from their perspective of what transpired. I will also be looking into scholarly articles focusing on Winston Churchill’s words, “History is written by the victors,” in order to do a philosophical account of the meaning to be able to dive into reaching the notion that history is in fact, grounded in perspective.

In my presentation, I think it would be most beneficial for this piece to serve as written documentation and research findings of the fact, but I will be including some visual representations. For instance, I think it would be beneficial to see a prisoner of war log/record, if available, a visual representation of the Colonies when the Native Americans were the inhabitants versus when settlers began coming in.

Works Cited