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Don't use the phrase "revisionist history" when you mean "lying." As in so and so is engaged in. Just say they're lying.
Casual use of the phrase by journalists & pundits is corrosive of better & necessary public understanding of how what we know abt the past evolves.
Casual use of the phrase by journalists & pundits is corrosive of better & necessary public understanding of how what we know abt the past evolves.
This is critical is two dimensions. One, sharing how our understanding of the past develops w new information, new methods, and new perspectives --like all knowledge, like medicine, say--is important. Revisionism is crucial.
And second, by using the phrase when what someone means is that a person (usually a political opponent) is lying, it both degrades our efforts to share how history is always evolving. AND it capitulates to the notion that revisionism is bad by equating it w bad actors/ actions.
Have heard the corrosive use of "revisionist history" so many times just this week on news in print, live, podcasts and more (and by folks I know understand the importance of history, scholarship, research) --it's made me 
It also means that when someone is criticizing historical scholarship for having revised our understanding of the past eg in Britain of Colonial Countryside, we need to be able to press that lack of understanding w/out the burden of this other usage.
