Historical Revisionism

Legitimation
States rewrite, distort, or selectively erase the historical record—denying documented atrocities, manufacturing official memory, and recasting contested events as settled fact—to legitimize present-day political claims, territorial ambitions, and the delegitimization of rivals.
Author
Affiliation

E. Rosalie Li

Information Epidemiology Lab

Published

February 17, 2026

Legitimation

States rewrite, distort, or selectively erase the historical record—denying documented atrocities, manufacturing official memory, and recasting contested events as settled fact—to legitimize present-day political claims, territorial ambitions, and the delegitimization of rivals.

FIMI Taxonomy by Information Epidemiology Lab.

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{li2026,
  author = {Li, E. Rosalie},
  title = {Historical {Revisionism}},
  date = {2026-02-17},
  url = {https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/historical-revisionism.html},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Li, E. Rosalie. 2026. “Historical Revisionism,” February. https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/historical-revisionism.html.