Should we question the truthfulness and objectiveness of history?

Question

Although many people took history as a fact, some of the history that we all learned today maybe the handwritings of the people who may decided to deceive people on the reality of the events that was recorded.

Answer 1

most often, the recorded events are factual, its the interpretation and the leaving out of other information,,,,,, that cast a narrow picture of the event/time.
always look at the author,,,, and the time and circumstances in which the record was written,,,,,, then investigate other opinions, question and find the opinions of all parties involved,,,,,
for example, the current Iraq war ,,,, you would look at it from our governments view,,,, our soldiers, the families of the fallen,,,, the Iraq people(various groups), the insurgents, the iraq army, etc etc

Answer 2

Yes. History is written by the winners of any conflict. You will not find it objective. Here are some good cases to consider:

1. Caligula (the Roman emperor) was murdered by his bodyguard and Claudius was elevated to emperor. All the accounts we have of Caligula suggest that he was mad and perverted and thought himself a god. ALL the contemporary accounts of Caligula were published by the people who gained from his death.

The problem is historians now have decided that Caligula could not have been that bad, but they don't actually KNOW. What they do agree on is Caligula was murdered after just three years in power and he was murdered by his own bodyguard. There had to be some reason and the only reason being given is his madness.

2. Richard III murdered the princes in the tower--his brother's sons--and seized the throne for himself. School kids are taught this, but there's no real evidence it happened except for the accounts of historians who were published by Henry Tudor (Henry VII). Contemporary evidence suggests that the princes were still alive past Richard III's death at the Bosworth Fields and were murdered sometime during the reign of Henry VII.

3. Paul Revere's Ride. Paul Revere didn't make it. Paul Revere and a friend set out on the ride, but had barely started when they met a doctor returning from a late night call. They gave him the news. Minutes later they ran into some British troops who captured Revere and his companion. The doctor was NOT detained and he made the famous ride Revere got credit for.

Answer 3

Absolutely.
History is the interpretation of data that are allegedly facts to make a "truth" about the past?

Problems:
1)Accuracy of the original data
2) Who has collected the data and why?
3)What does this actually reveal?
4) Has it been manipulated? and is it objective?
5) Is the historian ever truly objective?
6) What slant do they put on it unknowingly?
7)Can they really interpret all of the data? What of missing data? Who decides which data is the most important?
8)Does the reader then take something different from the account of history? Words are all subject to interpretation?
9)Is history therefore just literature?

Some of the books below are quite interesting.

Answer 4

Not only can 'facts' presented as objective actually be subjective or wrong but 'history' is just an account of something that someone has, for whatever reason, decided to concentrate on.

When some people think of history, they tend to think of an account of something that seems 'important' that happened relatively a long time ago but you could write a history of anything at all, no matter how recent or how it may seem relatively frivolous to many:

'A history of all the tea stains that were left near my computer yesterday.'

Answer 5

its is indeed true that no history can actually be completely objective! every person who writes has a certain inherent bias even without him/her knowing it...
we must look into the verity of the information being provided, and the interpretation of that information. We must look at the different perspectives and the interpretation... in order to have a balanced idea about what really happened.
The verity of the facts - i.e. whether or not fossils were found in a particular place can be re checked.
The interpretation of those facts need to be analysed!every historian can intepret the same facts in different ways or sometimes even leave out some facts... thinking them to be unimportant.
the best way to learn history, according to be is to look at various perspectives.

Answer 6

Absolutely. Whoever writes the history will do so in a way that reflects their opinions. Gibbons' Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is a good example. Most of the written history of the Civil War is slanted and biased. The old rule, "The winners write the history" is obvious.

Answer 7

Some things are obvious like a war started on a certain day or a certain person was elected. The conclusions that historians draw say on the effectiveness of an administration are a combination of fact and opinion. You can see examples throughout history how opinion changes over time.

Answer 8

.........and not just history.

Too many people accept ridiculous and spurious information from very unreliable sources on trust. There is a whole book writing industry based on it, churning out regurgitated rubbish about The Bermuda Triangle, Ancient Astronauts, Pyramids, etc., etc.

I have nothing against people coming up with "alternative" theories as long as these are properly referenced and properly researched. We should always be given the opportunity to check the facts for ourselves.

History itself is subjective - I always view it as a cross between science and art - and two different historians may take diametrically opposite views of the same source material. In these cases, we need to be able to go to the sources ourselves to make up our own minds.

Answer 9

Why not ? If we don't, history becomes little more than a fable and bearing the words in mind of Santayana : 'If we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.' - which means we are going around in circles. I suspect that's what human history does anyway, but we as individuals can still look for the truth. The truth is often painful but preferable to cold comfort.

Answer 10

Question history? Of course. It's not so much that history is full of deliberate deceptions as it is the case that people who write histories do so from a certain perspective that is not totally objective and disinterested.