PICKING THE BONES：RECLAIMING THE PAST FROM THE POLITICIANS

Book ID/图书代码： 08430004R00125

English Summary/英文概要： While politicians seek evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq they overlook the fact that in human history, war itself has always been the greatest weapon of mass destruction. Its tools, whether machine guns, bombs or missiles of one form or another, are merely variations on a theme. The atomic bomb in Hiroshima killed as many as 100,000 civilians in a matter of seconds while the British naval blockade of Germany between 1914 and 1919 killed 1,000,000 Germans by slow degrees.
Since the terrorist strikes of 11 September, history, its methodology, terminology and its particular concern with objective truth have been damaged – the language of historians subverted by politicians and the media; the past pillaged for examples to support modern political agendas. Picking the Bones strikes back in an attempt to restore the integrity of historical studies by demonstrating that the future is never merely a reworking of the past.
Regan explores the drawbacks of demonising and glorifying historical characters for political purposes – Hitler is always the architect of the Holocaust and never the successor of Bismarck, and Churchill the man of Britain’s ‘finest hour’, never the leader who planned to use anthrax on German cities in 1944.
Mythologising history has become a tactic of unscrupulous politicians, along with disinformation and a new misleading rhetoric used to describe war and liberation. How should we really define weapons of mass destruction – are they elusive biological and chemical devices still being hunted months after the supposed end of a ‘victorious’ war against Saddam Hussein or are they the UN sanctions which inflicted death on 500,000 children under five in Iraq
By questioning the pronouncements of the twenty-first century’s experts at ‘spin doctoring’, Picking the Bones reveals, through evidence and historical appraisal, that the myths upon which current political agendas are based are historically dishonest and biased, and honour the past in name only.
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• Extracts and features in the national press and articles in relevant magazines upon publication
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Chinese Summary/中文概要： 2004.4出版,简装,208页,ISBN: 1 84018 830 8 当政治家们忙着在伊拉克寻找核武器，化学武器和生物武器时，他们忽略了一个历史事实，即战争本身才是最大的大规模杀伤性武器。至于所用的武器，并非最重要的事。广岛的原子弹在几秒钟内杀死了10万人，然而1914—1919年间英国对德国的海上封锁慢性地杀死了100万德国人。9.11以后，历史研究的客观性受到了损害。历史学家们的语言被政治家和媒体左右。本书认为，未来决不是过去的翻版，历史研究应当恢复公正。为了政治目的而丑化或美化历史人物是不足取的。如希特勒就只是大屠杀的罪魁祸首，而不是俾斯麦的继承人；丘吉尔则总是英国最光耀的人，没人提及他在1944年打算对德国城市使用炭疽杆菌。到底什么才是大规模杀伤性武器？是推翻萨达姆几个月后还不见踪影的生物和化学武器，还是造成伊拉克50万5岁以下儿童死亡的联合国制裁？

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About the Author/作者介绍： Geoffrey Regan is one of Britain’s leading popular historians and is the author of some 30 historical and military titles. His most recent publications include The First Crusader, which was nominated for the Wolfson Prize for History in 2002, Let Them Eat Cake: Historical Anecdotes and Great Military Blunders. He frequently contributes to magazines such as BBC History and History Today Geoffrey Regan是英国历史学家，写过很多历史和军事方面的著作，最近的书有：“最早的十字军参加者”，“最大的军事失误事例”等。他还常给历史杂志写稿。

Format:TRADE PAPERBACK

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