It is not to be confused with presentism, a similar but distinct mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas (such as moral standards) are projected into the past.
The idea was first articulated by British literary critic Matthew Arnold in 1880 and later named and defined by American historian David Hackett Fischer in 1970.
The idea that a critic can make erroneous interpretations of past works because of knowledge of subsequent events was first articulated by Matthew Arnold.
What this argument overlooks, says Fischer, citing the work of Roberta Wohlstetter, is that there were innumerable conflicting signs which suggested possibilities other than an attack on Pearl Harbor.
According to Fischer, this technique was pioneered by the American historian Douglas Southall Freeman in his influential biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington.