National primary and secondary educational systems tend to aim for partisan patriotism rather than scholarly depth and complexity. If you are lucky, you learn a rather more objective way of thinking in university, although in fact that is rare except (and even here it is rare) in democratic societies. The characteristic features of scholarship are providing a wide range of evidence for your argument, and a realization that your argument has a counter that has as well a wide range of evidence. Often, there is more than one counter-argument. Some positions do not hold up well under such an assault, others are credible and worthy of further elaboration.

So, for example, while we might imagine that there is little to be had for a defense of slavery, some scholars will argue that the particular situation is not slavery as commonly understood, and other might argue that the economic advantages of being a slave are substantial. I'm not suggesting that these arguments are convincing or even worthy, but they have been brought forth with vigor and scholarly depth.

Strong societies might allow for scholarly argument and inquiry; weaker ones in general do not. The kind of objectivity I am talking about is very recent, no more than about 150 years old.

I have been preparing a talk I will give on Newton for the Templeton Research Lectures here at USC. His most famous mathematical work is the Principia, whose first edition is 1687. Most of Newton's scholary work was in theology and alchemy, and in so far as that were known in to his contemporaries, he would have been in no position to have his mathematical work published. Moreover, Newton believed that his mathematical/physical work, his alchemical studies, and his theological studies, were of a piece, evidence of God's dominion. Given the religious contentiousness of the time, no wonder he hid the sources of his best known creative work. In fact, he inserts a General Scholium to the third edition of the Principia attesting to his orthodoxy.

Probably the most vigorous national scholarly effort has been the German reconsideration of the Nazi era and the Holocaust. Germany was the source of the modern notions of objective scholarship, so this is quite interesting. You've got to go to the archives, you've got to be comparative, and you've got to know the languages of the various groups and nations. And rather than defending or condemning the state, you have to understand what happened and why.