[bnralt]

Depends on the historian. The overly theatrical way some historians react to the term "dark age" is a bit revisionistic (and perpetual revisionism seems extremely popular among academic historians).

And many get similarly spun up about the term "feudalism" as well.

[secstate]

What is academic history other than repeated attempts at revision?

History is literally the stories we tell ourselves about the past. There are facts there, but the arrangement of such facts will (and should) always be open to revision. Anyone claiming to have figured out the One True history of humanity should be viewed with extreme suspicion.

[thereddaikon]

>What is academic history other than repeated attempts at revision?

I remember a historian answering a similar question once when an ancient list civilization nut accused historians of rejecting information that runs contrary to their narrative. History and archaeology, like the rest of science, builds upon the body of work. Every historian would love to make a discovery that overturns previous knowledge because its career defining. But almost all new work doesn't do that. What it does do is improve and refine our current understanding. It's rare that all new understandings developed.

Revisionist history does not have the connotation of improving and refining. If it did then it wouldn't need its own name because that's the normal state of things. Revisionist history is revising the record to a different understanding or narrative. And that is generally problematic because the burden of proof is very very high. Most of it doesn't live up to that standard.

[secstate]

Yeah, I get that people in established positions feel attacked from many angles these days, so defining things like intention become very important to justifying the belief in why they've chosen their perspective. Also, it's easier than ever for truly bat-shit crazy ideas to catch people's imaginations. But how, then, are we to recognize paradigm shifts?

Herodotus was accused of just making shit up and accepting legend as fact by his near-contemporaries. Now a lot of what he wrote is accepted as being closer to the truth than what almost anyone else wrote down then.

[thereddaikon]

>But how, then, are we to recognize paradigm shifts?

The strength of the argument and supporting evidence. Big claims need big evidence. Simple as. One problem specifically in history today is many historians can get by their whole career by being an X historian where X is some political ideology or social science construct. They can write endless papers analyzing existing work through that lense whether or not it makes sense to do so or really adds anything to the body of work. This is where a lot of revisionist history comes from. They aren't performing original research and finding new evidence and sources. They are merely critiquing the work of others through their chosen lense.

The worst form of revisionist history is of course just denying the facts as they are known and inventing your own. But thats is rare within serious academia these days with a few notable exceptions.

[bnralt]

True, but there's a difference between being open to revisionism and actively trying to spin things in a revisionistic manner because novelty brings more clout.

[janalsncm]

Probably a difference in epistemology. A historian should try to start with facts and primary sources and draw a conclusion from them. A revisionist starts from a (perhaps politically motivated) conclusion and looks for facts to support that conclusion.

[moate]

This is the thing: When you "draw the conclusion" you're making shit up. "The roman empire collapsed" <all good "because..." <beginning of making shit up.

All history books should begin with "A map is not the territory" to remind historians what's going on.

[PeterCorless]

Most British historians. They would prefer "Early Medieval Period" (c. 410 - 1066), spanning from the Rescript of Honorius to the Battles of Stamford Bridge (ending the Viking era) and Hastings (beginning the Norman period).

Within "Early Medieval England," they will eschew the term "Dark Ages" and instead you will talk about specific eras such as "Sub-Roman Britain" (c. 410 - 597), "Anglo-Saxon England" (c. 449 - 1066), "Viking-era Britain" (c. 793 - 1066), or even "Anglo-Danish England" (c. 991-1016).

[bee_rider]

Which historians? I haven’t listened to a ton of them…

The ACOUP guy seems to be pretty even-handed, some of his best stuff is pushing back on silly/impractical/stereotypical elements of Game of Thrones (itself an over-the-top response to Lord of the Rings).

I think in historians we tend to see a lot of excitement for their special thing (like all academics), but the stuff they get excited about looks like details to us.

[ethbr1]

When reading a specialist critique of a popular notion it's important not to conflate the strength of the argument against the popular notion with the strength of the argument for what the author proposes as true instead.

Almost any specialist can muster a well-supported argument to a layperson that "X is wrong."

Unfortunately, it's a substantial turn from "X is wrong..." to "...Y is true."

And a well-supported refuting of X shouldn't be transfered into credibility towards Y.

The acoup guy is a decent author, but sometimes he makes that pivot a bit too glibly and leverages the ignorance of his readers.

[Der_Einzige]

Many of the folks who get worked up about issues in history like this are likely themselves wrong, but in a different way, about what it “really was” back then.

[bee_rider]

We tend to have an overly romantic point of view of history. But to correct it, I think we should not add Game of Thrones type stuff (ultra violence and other grim stuff), but Monty Python’s Holy Grail: rub a little poop, stupidity, and selfishness on everything.

[mountainb]

It's because feudal is a technical term that has a long and misleading history of being used as a deliberately confusing term of abuse. The professors get ornery about it because they have to clear up the same misconceptions every year. For "dark age," many professors also try to take the opportunity to revise their students' perspective by deliberately highlighting brighter themes of art, philosophy, and so on to jazz up their introductions.

Part of that is just that particular specialty trying to make a case for itself in contrast to the more popular classical and modern periods. Then there is the complexity added by the fact that the classical era never really ended in toto; it just stopped being as evenly distributed.