Do you believe that all history is true and accurate?

Answer 1

Oh curren. History is always exaggerated to a certain extent.

Answer 2

This is a relativity question. I'm under the belief that there are underlying "absolute truths". Though, our perception of those truths vary (kind of like the situation of a divorce or the weather). So, to answer your question, all of history is true and accurate, as in events do happen in history. Though, the "perception" or the written and traditions of that history is not true and accurate as the desires, biases and other factors of the players in the thread of historical events warps the "history" that is transmitted. In short, you can trust that the history you read in your history books does not contain the whole picture (a good example is to look at the Japanese textbooks about World War II and those in Korea...boy! Don't get into that hot debate!).

Answer 3

History itself is true and accurate.

However, I feel you are trying to ask whether or not the perception of history is true and accurate. The answer to that is no. As the above person said, historical perception is mostly written by those who are in power at the time. Even then you still have large debates over historical accuracies with the little material we have. We as a people seem to view history in different ways depending on our personal life experiences. Many people would say that we used to be savage beasts. And then there are a lot of people that say things were better way back then, before they went corrupt. In the human scope, we will probably never have a true and accurate perception of history. However, history itself and the events that have already happen continue to exist on their planes of time, and we can do nothing to change that.

Answer 4

notice that Yahoo has history in Arts and Humanities not Science.......

Science ( should) be very cut and dried. 3 x2 is 6 , not 5 not 7. Water is H20 not H30. Things fall down, not up.


Art is very subjective......ie very much an individuals opinion. Renoir, Degas, Picasso and Warhol are all artists but what they put down couldn't be more different. Madonna, Beverly Sills, Sheryl Crowe, Celeste Dion are all singers.....

History is somewhat the same. Some parts of history are facts. FDR was President of the USA in 1944.
Much is open to interpretation. FDR was the greatest President ever.

The fun of studying history is separating facts from opinions and then forming your own

but be warned: It's a lifetime job!

Answer 5

No - - much is subject to opinion & point of view aka perspectiuve. Even dates & spellings can be in dispute. That said dates are largely true - - - records tell when people were born and when they died, when planes collide with building and buildings yield to the forces nature.

A true 'historian' be an amature or a professer, a person truly interested in a subject will read several sources on a subject and forge an opinion. One's opinion is subjective to that persons take on this thus one will find books presenting differing interpetations of 'true' events. Thus the issue of whether Slavery in America was 'wrong' or 'right' is open but it is indisputabloe that people were held in various forms of bondage from Colonial times to the 1960's (not a typo).

Peace....

(and do not fear reading 'alternative sources.' I'm a 'Jew' and I have read pro Nazi & Klan books & articles. Unique perspectives do pop up. During the 1960's proud machio Southerners might repeat gossip about LBJ banging black boys but in their view they were repecting the President by assigning him the top position,)

A final note; biographies rate as history yet can vary wildly. Ingrid Bergman the actress is a great example. Is her AutoBiography to be trusted more that what others wrote about her?

Peace.....

Answer 6

Accurate? What is that?

History is always coloured by the sources used and the bias of the teller.

I am reading "The Last Mughal" by William Dalrymple at the moment. It is a recounting of the Indian Mutiny/First War of Independence (and that dichotomy answers your question, in itself).

He claims that he has used Mughal sources more than most other writers in English, but acknowledges that there is an archive of these sources, and scholarly writings based on those sources but not in English. The events have a different slant depending on the sources used.

Anthony Beevor and Annie Applebaum, to name two of many, are re-interpreting "history" based on access to Soviet archives.

There are always at least two sides to any event, and generally we hear only one.

Answer 7

no, because everyone put their own spin on what happened -remember the saying - three versions of what happened- my side, your side, and the truth. Also, sometimes "the whole picture" is just too large a thing to be quantified. History is part detective work and part armchair quarterbacking, It's hard to understand a time far removed. Mostly people have different motives now than they did in the distant past, so 'errors in translation' will pop up.

Answer 8

History is written by the victors, and is necessarily skewed to make the victors look good. All you need is to read the history of the Viet Nam War. The first casualty of any war, is truth. Remember, Bush used 'weapons of mass destruction' as the excuse for going to Iraq. So far as I've been able to determine, weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq. Go figure...

Answer 9

History books are written by the winners and the power brokers at first. Then they are gone and the books get rewritten to reflect the beliefs and agenda's of the new powerful people. Believe it or do not it is true.!

Answer 10

Considering that it's mostly (if not, only) the winners who write the history books, then no, I have a feeling that more or less of it itsn't all true.

I also think that the way we view history is changing. More scholars and historians are looking deeper, to find the story under the story. In a sense, it's becoming more personal.

Answer 11

No, I believe there are biases that make it impossible to believe all history is true and accurate.