Historians go to great lengths attempting to retell the past. They dig through journals of all different perspectives, affidavits, old newspapers, and anything that will help them recreate what actually happened. They also attempt to determine which of the accounts are incorrect if contradictory events are found. It is a very tedious task and there are often alternate story lines presented using the same historical accounts and facts. Richard Bushman, an American historian describes this process in relation to the story of Joseph Smith like this:
“Let me begin by talking about the facts, we sometimes think like these are little nuggets, like marbles they are just there, irreducible. But um…you know in any given letter there are a million facts, and facts only become significant when they are turned into evidence. And they become evidence when there is a perspective, or a theory, or an idea that makes those facts relevant. Then they become evidence. And the reason I stress that is that what we think of are just compelling facts, they just demand, also have underlying them a perspective on Joseph Smith that ties those facts together into some scheme, and until we recognize that whoever is telling us these facts is selectively choosing out of the millions and millions of little facts the ones that he or she wants to tell his particular story. So it isn’t just a matter of controverting the facts. It is identifying the story that is being told and asking is there another story that can contain those facts that ends up being a different picture.”
- Richard Bushman concerning “the animal we call history”,
Mormonstories.com lecture 048, Part II at 12:20-19:50;
The act of not presenting historical events in a way that follows the peer evaluated story is known as pseudohistory. Pseudohistory can occur as a result of naivety, which is understandable, as much of the information to particular events in history may not have been available at the time the history was presented. Pseudohistory can also occur as a result of a desire to deceive for the purpose of hiding embarrassing historical information. This deception may be "for the greater good", or it may just take time to change a history that has been so deeply ingrained into its audience. This begs to ask the question whether the one presenting the history is a conned-man, meaning he honestly doesn't know of the details that are contrary to the view of history that he is presenting, or if he is a conman, meaning that he is intentionally presenting incorrect history for a purpose.
From Wikipedia:
The prefix pseudo- is used to mark something as false, fraudulent or pretending to be something it is not.
Pseudohistory covers a variety of theories that do not agree with the view of history that is commonly accepted by mainstream historians, of which are often not properly researched, peer-reviewed, or supported by the usual historiographical methods.
