History is often presented as a set of facts and dates, of victories and defeats, of monarchs and presidents, all consigned to an unchanging past.But it’s not like that at all. History is the knitting together of rival interpretations, deliberate manipulations of the truth, and, sometimes, alternative facts.
History is never fixed; it’s a cultural and political battleground. And national mythologies are usually a combination of conflicting versions, full of distortions, legends, myths and lies.