What is History

             History is more than the past and the present, it is a field of study where many questions are asked and many answers can be found. As a field, it is the interpretations of facts by historians, but how are historians able to objectively interpret the information? As Angus MacFayden said in Braveheart, as the character of Robert the Bruce, "Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes (MacFayden)." History is naught but stories, changed and molded to fit the current society, which are passed down through generations. The study of history is not the answer, but the means of finding the answer for our times.
             The most important object to historians and their field of study are facts. Facts are the skeletal structure to history, and without them, there would be nothing to build history on. As Edward Carr said in What is History, "historical facts are the same for all historians and which form...the backbone of history (Carr 8)." A fact is independent from the historian, but is the historian interested more in single facts or the connection between facts, which then makes it evidence? A single incidence is a fact, but to become evidence it must go through the theory and interpretation of a historian because historians are interested in the connection of facts. Richard Evans summarized it best by saying, "Facts thus precede interpretation conceptually, while interpretation precedes evidence (Evans)." It is the duty of the individual historians to provide an accurate interpretation, just as Houseman says, " 'Accuracy is a duty, not a virtue (Carr).'" But there in lies a contradiction – there is no such thing as accurate interpretation when one is talking of history. Historians must formulate an answer to all of their facts, but these answers are often clouded by the historians' society and upbringing.
             The inter...

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What is History. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:44, April 16, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/92548.html