In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespan, or phenomenon by introducing contrary evidence or reinterpreting the motivations and decisions of the people involved. Revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation as they come to light. The process of historical revision is a common, necessary, and usually uncontroversial process which develops and refines the historical record to make it more complete and accurate. One form of historical revisionism involves a reversal of older moral judgments. Revision in this fashion is a more controversial topic, and can include denial or distortion of the historical record yielding an illegitimate form of historical revisionism known as historical negationism (involving, for example, distrust of genuine documents or records or deliberate manipulation of statistical data to draw predetermined conclusions). This type of historical revisionism can present a re-interpretation of the moral meaning of the historical record. Negationists use the term "revisionism" to portray their efforts as legitimate historical inquiry; this is especially the case when "revisionism" relates to Holocaust denial. Source: Wikipedia (en)