02-24-2003, 05:08 PM
Ah, well, it's not a modern phenomenon. People have laways distorted history for political and racial purposes. The 19th century German and French nationalist movements tried to play up the Teutons and the Gauls as the founders of Europe, and they squabbled over whether the Franks were really German or French. The Nazis notoriously played the historical race card, and the Communists tried to co-opt Spartacus as the first social rebel, so much so that in Howard Fast's book, Spartacus wants not only to destroy Rome but abolish slavery, as if somebody back then had a viable alternative to the slave system. Shouldn't blame new agers and dim professors, I guess. <p></p><i></i>
