Who writes History?

I've been reading Antony Beevor's book "D-Day" these past few days.  It is a meticulous reconstruction of that "Day of Days" when Allied audacity, sheer courage and lashings of good luck changed the tide of World War II for good.

Amidst all the intriguing detail is an amusing vignette of Frenchman Charles de Gaulle.  The general, observes Beevor, was so intoxicated with the glory of the French military that he had once written a history of its exploits but had conveniently forgotten to make any mention of Waterloo. Indeed, what interest would any military historian in his right mind have in the French military without mention of that vital chapter?

Yet the example serves to illustrate an important truth.  "History", said Churchill "is written by the victors".  By this, I assume, he meant that the stuff which supposedly counts - the stuff worth knowing - the stuff which moves us forward as a people - can only really be expected from those left standing.
I think he's right.  Look around you.  Even beyond warfare, society rewards winners - obsesses about their winning strategies - makes virtual gods of them - to the exclusion of the losers whose exploits, character and tenacity, regardless of whether they prevailed or not, are either minimised or tuned out altogether.

This raises some really important questions.  Why, for example, have so few bestsellers - if any - been written about Colonel Claus Philipp von Stauffenberg, the man who led a daring and ultimately futile plot to assassinate Hitler?  Why are we not spoiled for choice by volumes on the heroism and courage of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who was so vocal in his opposition of the Nazis that he was hanged only 23 days before their surrender?

The point is this:  if you double click on failure and defeat, you are bound to uncover a few stories that in themselves, often trump the great victory narratives which so intoxicate us.

Is this what makes the bible such a bestseller?  As a best practice manual for winning it seems to fail quite miserably.  Yet curiously, it is this very transparency which makes it so compelling, reaching out, if not to the "loser", then certainly to the underdog in every one of us.

"Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones.  I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves"

Ecclesiastes 10: 6 and 7