Out of print title
History in its more populist forms, often bears the mark of the ideologies it is meant to serve. This is all the more true fo the history of war, which easily succumbs to heroic modes of narrative structure in which goodness (us) over injustice, depravity, the incarnation of evil (them). We expect propagandists to create this sort of history while the historians, in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, are supposed to be "the professional remebrancers of what their fellow citizens wish to forget." But where does fiction end, and where does historical science begin? Settting aside the endless debate over the possibility of objectivity, we can perhaps simply stick to the commonsensical insight that the best we can do to come close to some kind of truth in history is to view it from as many perspectives as possible: which, in the case of the Spanish-American War in the Philippines, means that of the winners, the losers, third parties, bystanders. The documents made available to the public in this edition serve as acontribution to this project by providing a perspective which complements American, Spanish, Filipino and other voices: that of a further interested party involved in the imperialist politics of South-East Asia at the turn of the century- Germany, the German Empire (1871-1918) under Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Publisher : National Historical Institute; Four Accounts by Officers of the Imperial German Navy edition (January 1, 2000)
Language : English
Paperback : 83 pages
ISBN-10 : 9715381405
ISBN-13 : 978-9715381406
