Who Wrote History?

History has always been written by, or for, those in power, at least in most countries.

History is mostly written by the conquerors and very seldom by the losers.  Most history is written to make the winning group look good!  

Do you ever go around bragging about the bad thins you have ever done?  Not very likely!  Therefore the bad things that you have done will probably not survive as history.  If you write a history about yourself you will probably only include the good things that you have done and you will have amnesia about the things you do not want others to know about.  Newspapers, on the other hand never seem to care if you do something good but they love to report on any bad things that they can find, or make up, about you.

Most of the European History that was written from about the birth of Jesus Christ until the founding of the United States of America was done by, for, or under the influence of, the Catholic Church that ruled most Western Governments during those 1700 years of so.  The recording of History during this time was probably pretty much limited to whatever the Roman Catholic Church approved.  History and other books that did not agree with the leaders of the Catholic Church were destroyed, sometimes along with their authors.  If a person placed any value on his or her life he or she did not produce books that did not agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church.  The Inquisition was good at punishing and eliminating those who presented ideas that were not in line with the official teachings of the Catholic Church.  Most of the surviving History, at least that from Europe, be it right or wrong, probably agreed with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

I am not much up on Asian, African and Australian history but their history was probably also controlled by those in power, and rewritten if need be.

The history of the Mayans which was written did not seem to agree with a Catholic Priest so he had all their documents rounded up and burned.  That is one way to get rid of offending knowledge.  This was probably one of the worst acts ever done by the Church since at that time the Mayans may have been the most advanced people on Earth