What is the importance of understanding a historical event from different perspectives?

Answer 1

This is all about bias. When ever anyone talks about, writes about, records, etc. an event they color it with their own bias. Sometimes this is intentional, most of the time it is unintentional. Everyone is biased in some way, just to varying degrees and from different points of view.

When you are looking at historical documents, remember that they are always going to be colored with the writer's bias. Primary sources are best (for example an eye-witness account of an event), secondary sources are not as good (for example somebody writing about another's eye-witness account of an event).

The importance at looking at multiple perspectives is the more sources you get, the more you for yourself decide what is "colored" and what is more fact. Find points in common between sources. When you are looking at a conflict, it is important that you look at sources from opposing sides of that conflict.

It is also important to study your sources. Who were they? What role did they play in an event? What might their biases be? Did they have anything to gain or lose with what they had recorded?

When you look at things from different perspectives, you often get a truer picture of what actually occurred.

Answer 2

That is one of the great questions of history. Ultimately, everyone has a different view of what an event means. It's not the event itself that has meaning, it's the person or group behind it that attaches meaning to it that is critical.

For example, one might suggest that the 4th of July is important because it granted America its freedom. Simple enough. Then an African-American comes along and states, truthfully and with historical accuracy that the 4th of July didn't do anything for slaves. While Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were claiming that "All men are created equal" and "Give me liberty or give me death" ... they OWNED slaves!

So now there are two different perspectives on the same event. However, wait, there's even more ... after all of this is discussed, then someone comes along and states, historic accuracy as well - that the 4th of July really is a totally meaningless date. As John Adams remembered in his diary, "The 2nd of July is a date that will go down in the history of the world". He was there and he rightly wrote that the date we should be remembering is the 2nd of July, not the 4th, because in fact, nothing happened on the 4th beyond the public announcement of what happened on the 2nd.

So, depending on where a person is coming from and what is important to them, a historic event can mean wildly different things. EVERY historical event is the same ... Pearl Harbor may mean something to Americans but it's completely different for a person from Japan. To paraphrase a quote, 'history is not what it is, it is what we are'.

Answer 3

Take a look at the Indian wars. To the settlers the American Indian was a road block that had to be removed for progress. To the American Indian the settlers were destroying the world in which they lived. My question is who was right and who was wrong. Both parties have a point of view and if you can see both a middle ground can be found. We learn from our past mistakes. History is no different.

Answer 4

I think it is important so we don't repeat our mistakes as we
are in Iraq. Our leaders should read and pass a test on the
history of the crusades before ever going to war. The first
crusade was around the year 996. Well I do understand that
this is not a crusade but that's what G.W. Bush called at the
be gaining and so now the enemy regards it as such.

Answer 5

I think it is hard to understand history from different perspectives because history was written by the conquerers. I mean, really, how often are we getting the true story about something that happened a thousand years ago?