The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History

James M. Banner, Jr. examines how historians interpret and reinterpret the past. He argues that history is not fixed or merely factual, but subject to constant reinterpretation. Drawing on examples from Thucydides through the French Revolution and the Civil War, Banner explores what historians do and why they do it. Banner demonstrates why historical knowledge continually changes, why history as a discipline involves searching for meaning and generating debate, and why history matters to individuals' self-understanding and to groups' and nations' sense of identity and destiny. He explains that all historians are revisionists in their efforts to understand the past more fully, and that historians inevitably bring their own minds, perspectives, and purposes to their subjects of study.