Page "Retroactive continuity" Paragraph 31

Though the term " retcon " did not yet exist when George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, the totalitarian regime depicted in that book is involved in a constant, large-scale retconning of past records.

For example, when it is suddenly announced that " Oceania was not after all in war with Eurasia.

Oceania was at war with Eastasia and Eurasia was an ally " ( Part Two, Ch.

9 ), there is an immediate intensive effort to change " all reports and records, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks and photographs " and make them all record a war with Eastasia rather than one with Eurasia.

" Often it was enough to merely substitute one name for another, but any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination.

Even the geographical knowledge needed in transferring the war from one part of the world to another was considerable.

" See historical revisionism ( negationism ).