does history tell the truth or is it a or could it be a lie? how can you you prove?

Question

the extend of truth in history...

Answer 1

Right, generally history is NOT written by those who won. Who the heck won the life of Plato? Or who won the invention of penicillin? This is a hideous saying.

However, it is true that history tends to FOCUS on the world power at the time it was written, as well as the time it was perceived. History between 100 C.E. and 200 C.E. tends to focus on Rome, because Rome was the world power at the time. Likewise, history about Rome written between 1800 and 1900 tended to focus on the male upper-class, because the modern world at the time was focused on those things. As minorities and women began to gain rights in modern times, historians then went back and researched the history of minorities and women in Roman times.

History attempts to be "a truth" not "the truth." It is true that King Aethelberht of Kent lived around the end of the 6th century and that he received St. Augustine into his realm. That is a truth. However, is it the truth that he converted to Christianity almost right away? Is it the truth that he did so out of conviction, rather than political gain?

Historical facts - that someone lived during a certain period, or that a certain battle happened at a certain time to a certain immediate outcome - either are true or can be proven to be true. More general truths are theoretically possible, but practically improbable merely because not all the relevant information was preserved. However, the problem doesn't lie entirely with those who wrote the history but also with us as we interpret the history. Is Roman history more "true" now that women and minorities are included? It certainly is more complete, but I am not sure if that by itself qualifies are being more "true" (since not much of the old history was scrapped or changed, just added to).

To prove history, one needs a specially trained mind that has good general knowledge of the time period that one is studying, a good understanding of the basic concepts that universally effect human life (social issues, military concepts, economic factors, etc). Beyond that, one needs to be aware of logical fallacies, in order to better judge the writings of historians. A firm understanding of archeology is critical, to check historical facts against archeological facts. Reading history in the original language is also important; modern English words have different meanings from old Anglo-Saxon, and much more so with ancient Greek or Chinese lettering.

As for interpreting the sources themselves, one must always ask three questions: Did the source know the truth? (more than one historian in ancient times wrote about something that they had no direct knowledge of) Was the source willing to tell the truth? (more than one historian wrote histories for personal or political gain) and Was the source allowed to tell the truth? (Sometimes, though relatively seldom, sources were forced to write one history due to fear for their lives or something as such). One can also judge the usefulness of a source depending on if it is a primary source (eye witness, written during the event or "shortly after"), a secondary source (either an eye witness who wrote "a while after it happened" or someone who interviewed someone who lived through it), or a tertiary source (not-first hand, written a long while after the event; modern history books are tertiary sources, at best). Needless to say, primary sources are the best, but we mostly have secondary and tertiary sources for our information regarding the past.

Answer 2

"History" is not always the truth - it is just the version of the truth as told by the people who survive it or who happened to write it down. The only way I think you could prove the extent of truth in history is by reading accounts from people of differing viewpoints - somewhere in the middle of all of it is the truth. Many times history is not the truth vs. a lie, but an omission (deliberate or non-intentional) - if it's not in the history books that they teach in school, "history" doesn't show that it happened, even though it did. It takes brave souls to get the word out that some things in history have occurred, even though no-one in "history" likes to talk about it.

Answer 3

History has been and always will be written by the winners. Therefore The truth will be in the eyes of the writers. It will bear some form of the actual truth but it will have a bend to it to make the writer look better. The only way you can prove something is to have actual knowledge of the event. But even then it will have a slant to it as you are you and you see things differently than I do.

Answer 4

History may reveal facts, but the truth is going to be a matter of perspective. For example, Rameses the Great once put up a great monument celebrating a victory against the Assyrians. But the Assyrians claimed it as a victory for themselves. Finally, a group of Egyptologists got the answer. They discovered the tomb of an Egyptian general who served in the battle. That tomb contained a passage which exactly matched the account of the Assyrians. So it's really a matter of finding as much evidence as you can to see who's really telling the truth.

Answer 5

History is not what happened. It is what was written down. People are ruled by their opinions, politics, religion, emotions as well as personal agenda's and ambitions. Let's face it folks, history has nothing to do with actual facts...it's all about the person who writes it down. To truly study history you have to have an open mind. You have to be able to find many different view points and look at what wasn't written down as well as what was.

Words and terms have different meanings in the past as well. Just because there is a definition in the dictionary now doesn't mean that we 1. still define/use it the same now. 2. It ever meant anything in the past. Look at the slang that has become common in our daily conversations....

Answer 6

A good historian strives to be objective, to gather all facts, to interpret them appropriately, and to present them without bias.

Historical writing is a conversation between historians. Joe writes about event A and Mary says, Yeah Joe, but what about this? Then Sue comes in with her ideas and perspective -- all gathered from research of primary documents AND what other historians have said.

Do historians lie and present the wrong history? Oh, you betcha.
Fortunately, many more strive to present the truth.

Interesting reading: Lies MY Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen.

Uwilling Germans? The Goldhagen Debate, by Robert R. Shandley

Answer 7

If you Analise the facts you will find a lot of thinks that are opposite to others and deny them but they are written as complementary things. For ex. people were smaller than today but their weapon was big and heavy. How they have made moves with 50 kg. war equipment. How the exact monkey became man because of lac of food when much bigger of then it still ins not human. I don't want to discus about political facts.
Basically the future is based on history. History is create to made goo base for better future. Iven if you are present on happenings there is many possibilities to for different presentations of the things

Think what you want, believe in what you want but consider that you future will be based on your opinion for the past

Answer 8

History is a teaching tool, and each of us learn different lessons from it's course. Sometime it is in how I see the lesson and how the facts have proved to be consistent, It to takes a path, but what is on that path determine the outcome. Cows follow a path across a field and thoughts follow a path, where then would be a difference for the life that follows?

Answer 9

Get fifteen people together and have them write about something that happened a few months ago. Some of them should be minorities, women, oppressed people, rich people, and people with disabilities. Read all the accounts. Are they the same? Which ones are accurate or true? Then wait a hundred years and have your great-grandchildren read them. What are they going to conclude? Perhaps they will conclude that nobody really understood what was going on. It's our best guess as to what happened.

Answer 10

history does not always tell the truth. it could also be a lie. historians are sometimes prompted to write a certain part of history to conceal the truth; to make it appear more interesting to read or to know; or it could also be that personal emotions of the historian is reflected does certain biases are evident.