History’s biggest whoppers: 調書をとる／予約する 調査するs 調査する of 2,000 years of outrageous untruths
SOCIETY?
A Short History Of The World In 50 Lies by Natasha Tidd (Michael O’Mara £12.99, 288pp)?
Author Natasha Tidd tells us of the 中世 chronicler, Gerald of むちの跡s, who （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he knew a man on whom tiny devils appeared every time he was 直面するd with lies.
井戸／弁護士席, Gerald’s devils would be kept busy through any reading of Tidd’s lively 調査する of 2,000 years of outrageous untruths. She 範囲s from Julius Caesar’s （人命などを）奪う，主張する that 犠牲者s of a 大虐殺 in Gaul were not killed by his 軍隊／機動隊s but committed 集まり 自殺, to the 回避s surrounding the 核の 事故 at Chernobyl in 1986.
Not all the lies Tidd 診察するs were life-脅すing. Some were 簡単に hoaxes. It’s hard to see much 害（を与える） in the 1835 newspaper 報告（する）／憶測s, published in the New York Sun, that the famous 天文学者 and inventor Sir John Herschel, using a 巨大（な） telescope, had discovered ‘a whole society of sophisticated 存在s’ on the Moon. They were, he said, half-men, half-bats, and had built 広大な／多数の／重要な 寺s and mammoth monuments.
If anything, the story 追加するd to the gaiety of nations, although Tidd argues that the Sun’s 新聞記者／雑誌記者s had invented a new genre ― 偽の news.
Author Natasha Tidd tells us of the 中世 chronicler, Gerald of むちの跡s, who （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he knew a man on whom tiny devils appeared every time he was 直面するd with lies (在庫／株 photo)
Earlier legends also 伸び（る）d traction because, as Tidd 収容する／認めるs, ‘いつかs in history, it doesn’t 事柄 if a story is a 嘘（をつく）, if that story is entertaining’.
She is referring to the myth that a 9th-century pontiff, later to be known as ローマ法王 Joan, gave birth in a （人が）群がるd Roman street. She was thus inarguably 明らかにする／漏らすd as a cross-dressing Englishwoman.
Her words could 平等に 適用する to the 14th-century 調書をとる／予約する Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, which 述べるs its author’s visits to ‘fantastical lands where griffins 飛行機で行く … and men have hooves for feet and 長，率いるs for torsos’. Most of it was nonsense, of course, and the 見込み is there was no such person as Sir John Mandeville. However, it was 広範囲にわたって read for centuries. Even Christopher Columbus used it as a 言及／関連 work.
Not many of the 50 lies in Tidd’s 調書をとる／予約する 供給するd such 害のない entertainment. The most dangerous resulted in 抱擁する loss of life. The Malleus Maleficarum (大打撃を与える Of Witches) was a 調書をとる／予約する by Heinrich Kramer, a 15th-century German priest with a 評判 for 使い込み，横領 and 窃盗, and a paranoid belief that witches were everywhere. It became a witch- hunter’s bible and, Tidd argues, played a part in the deaths of 50,000 supposed witches, おもに women.
平等に malevolent in its 衝撃 was the 嘘（をつく） known as the ‘血 名誉き損’ ― the idea that Christian children were killed by Jews, and their 血 used in sacrificial rituals. Tidd 焦点（を合わせる）s on the 事例／患者 of two-year-old Simon of Trent (now Trento in Italy) who was 設立する dead in 1475. He probably 溺死するd accidentally, but the city 当局 decided he was a 犠牲者 of ritual 殺人. Jews were 拷問d into 自白s and 燃やすd at the 火刑／賭ける.
The 事例／患者 of Simon of Trent was still 存在 引用するd as an example of supposed ユダヤ人の infamy by Nazi propagandists in the 1930s.
Jews have all too often been the 的 of malign lies. The 議定書s Of The 年上のs Of Zion, first published in 1903, 趣旨s to 明らかにする／漏らす an international ユダヤ人の 陰謀（を企てる） to 達成する world 支配.
It is, of course, a 偽造. Tidd calls it ‘a Frankenstein 編集 of … anti-Semitic greatest 攻撃する，衝突するs’, but, as she continues, ‘Just because something is 偽の doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous’. It has 始めるd pogroms, 与える／捧げるd to the racial theories behind the 大破壊／大虐殺 and is still 引用するd by far-権利 groups today.
‘It would not be an understatement,’ Tidd 令状s, ‘to say that millions of people have died thanks to its contents.’ It would be 慰安ing to think that history’s lies have grown いっそう少なく 流布している in the modern 時代 but, as the 議定書s shows, this is not the 事例／患者. It’s no 事故 that nearly a third of Tidd’s 調書をとる／予約する covers the 20th century. From British World War I 宣伝, 描写するing the Germans as ‘one 広大な ギャング（団） of Jack the Rippers’ indulging in ‘wild orgies of 血 and debauchery’, to the 試みる／企てるd American cover-up of the My Lai 大虐殺 of 非武装の 非軍事のs during the Vietnam War, the lies k eep on coming.
The Dreyfus 事件／事情／状勢 divided フラン in the late 19th and 早期に 20th centuries. Alfred Dreyfus, an 完全に innocent ユダヤ人の 軍の officer, was 罪人／有罪を宣告するd of スパイ and 非難するd for life to the 刑務所，拘置所 on Devil’s Island.
The 証拠 against him was a pack of lies. In his defence, the 小説家 Emile Zola wrote, ‘The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it’.
In this instance, Zola was 権利. The 判決 against Dreyfus was 結局 overturned. He was 解放（する）d and 容赦d. However, A Short History Of The World In 50 Lies shows that the march of truth isn’t always unstoppable. Lies have their own 力／強力にする and 勢い.
