John-paul Wilson

Political Bias in Historical Writing John-paul Wilson

The first step to writing a historical narrative is to understand the current state of knowledge of a given subject as it has been developed by other historians. From this understanding, one must then develop a methodology from which further research can be conducted to fill gaps and resolve inconsistencies within the existing body of knowledge. The present author began to develop a historical account of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and its development in the following decade. In that study, it became clear that great discrepancies and inconsistencies existed in the record of historical analysis including many large contradictory conclusions. Many such discrepancies were resolved in the author's prior research but it became clear that a systematic approach to quantitatively analyze the source of these contradictions was needed. In the present research, the author has developed both a theoretical framework for understanding the source of these contradictions and quantitative methods of content analysis to examine the numerous analytical works written by North American authors about the Sandinistas throughout the 1980s. Using this framework and results of content analysis, linear studies along specific topic lines examine specific dynamic variables of Nicaraguan history in relation to the revolution, beginning a process toward the development of a more consistent history.