historical (fake ((fake news) news))

December 22, 2021 5:38 AM

If you weren't reading Colorado papers in 1899, you might not have learned that a cabal of Chicago business leaders were secretly negotiating to dismantle the Great Wall of China and use the stone to build US roads. If you weren't reading the The National Review [paywalled] in 1939, you may not have learned that this was all a newspaper hoax. If you haven't been reading the right uncritical books about hoaxes, attending the right sermons, or listening to radio announcer Paul Harvey, you might not have realized that international outrage over this lead directly to the Boxer Rebellion. That's because it's almost entirely untrue. The Constant podcast presents a nice hour long audio summary.

Non-paywalled first link of unknown legality or permanence.

Note that all the other sermon links I found are hour long videos on facebook, one broken radio station link, and a church newsletter. All five are from within the last few years, though it's not clear to me that it's as common as implied in the last link.

Also, this should not to be confused with the other so-called "Great Wall of China hoax," which involves supposed historical anachronisms and even more contemporary racism.

posted by eotvos (7 comments total)

Damnit. It wasn't actually "US roads," but one big road in China. I always get at least one detail wrong.
posted by eotvos at 5:53 AM on December 22, 2021

(North American Review. National Review wasn't founded until 1955)
posted by BWA at 6:23 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Thanks, BWA. Make that two details.
posted by eotvos at 8:45 AM on December 22, 2021

That is fantastic, thanks. So many levels of fake, interesting historical perspective, and nice headline too.
posted by blue shadows at 10:35 AM on December 22, 2021

great story, well framed and just when I thunk, I knew, Metafilter comes through with some wild stuff on the blue.
posted by clavdivs at 4:10 PM on December 22, 2021

Thanks for shouting out to The Constant, which is one of my favorites. More people should know and listen. The current episode is a 2 parter about “petrified man” hoaxes in the US. Right?!??
posted by TheAliceMunroSingers at 8:00 PM on December 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

i finally got a moment to listen to this, and I can't tell you how much I'm glad the hoax didn't lead to the Boxer Rebellion. Too many of us, for good or ill, tend to consider American/Western publications to be more trustworthy when it comes to our governments' corruption, since that's one of the few media places that's out of governmental grip, and when one of us gets a local scandal be given coverage, it is to be validated. If this little piece of historical Americana was true and became part of the general noise when it comes to our public discourse... But now that I see that it is already circulating in Christian circles, this is a great advance warning for me, because that just mean I can anticipate it showing up here regardless. (like Jack Chick tracts about Muslims when this is literally a Muslim-majority country with substantial official infrastructural support yet somehow I have evangelical friends credulously passing me stuff about a moon god. surely minority Muslims in Christian-majority societies don't share similar behaviours... but who the heck knows!)
posted by cendawanita at 11:31 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]