I have found that what people “feel” about an event drives what they take from it much more than do a set of facts.

At the time of 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor an American reporter in Japan observed that the people there did not seem to see a connection between the 7 Dec 41 attack and the bombing of Hiroshima. Hiroshima was regarded as a terrible tragedy in much the same manner as an earthquake, while the Pearl Harbor attack was just one bombing raid out of many. Feelings have overcome facts.

In my own historical writing I have found a niche, that of explaining how one thing led to another and what the underlying “mythologies” were. So many historians merely chronicle what happened and lack the technical expertise to explain what it means. More than a few people try to distort what occurred for their own reasons; this even occurs in the hard sciences. Stir in some “feelings” into the mix and you find that a great many people know all sorts of things that they never learned.

And I would like to recommend a very thought provoking book that quiet deliberately tackles all sorts of things that we “know” today: Kicking the Sacred Cow, by James P. Hogan.