American Voices [antikvár]

What is History? What is history? As one noted historian has explained, historians have three definitions of history. First, there is what happened, which may or may not be open to investigation. Second, there is what the past left behind for historians to investigate, or what is referred to as the historical record. This includes not only written and printed sources — diaries, journals, memoirs, court records, newspapers, and the like — but physical and institutional artifacts as well, such as buildings, language, laws, and theories of government. Third, there is the interpretation of that historical evidence. This is the principal concern of the historian. Because most historical facts are not questionable, historians seldom argue about what happened. For example, you will not find historians debating whether the Civil War occurred, but you will find them arguing about why it happened and debating its consequences. This is not to suggest that facts are irrelevant. However, historians do more than merely record events. Rather, they try to explain and interpret what happened. As the late E.H. Carr wrote, "The historian without his facts is rootless and futile; the facts without their historian are dead and meaningless." In formulating an explanation of the past, historians refrain from looking at events in isolation. Instead, they consider events within their complex historical context, or as a part of a long chain of events. The task of the historian is to sort out the complexity of the past, to determine which events are most significant, and to explain why he or she believes so. Different historians will have different answers. Every historian has a bias that will influence how he or she interprets the past. Moreover, historical questions are often determined by present issues. The example of how historians have interpreted Reconstruction will demonstrate this point. Writing in 1897, U.S. historian William A. Dunning argued that the experiment in extending civil liberties to African Americans had been a mistake. Like many people of his day, Dunning believed in the natural inferiority of blacks and was convinced that the two races were incapable of coexisting. Any attempt to legislate equality, therefore, was doomed to fail. The Dunning interpretation remained the accepted view until the 1950s, when a new H is in essence a history of ideas. school of scholars, influenced by the civil rights movement, reevaluated Reconstruction. Led by Professor Kenneth Stampp, these historians accused Dunning of distorting and exaggerating Reconstruction's failures and of overlooking its accomplishments. The 14th and 15th amendments, they argued, were radical achievements that provided the legal basis for the civil rights movement. Historian Eric Foner has provided the most recent interpretation of Reconstruction. Although he praises Stampp's challenge to Dunning, Foner criticizes Stampp for seeing African Americans as passive victims of the actions of others. Instead, Foner views African Americans as active participants. As the example of Reconstruction illustrates, history is a dynamic discipline. Historians often see the same events differently. Facts can be marshalled to reach opposite conclusions and diametrically opposed interpretations. Moreover, you can see that each generation of historians reinterprets the past. The orthodox, or accepted, interpretation of a generation also has given way to a new orthodoxy. Today's accepted interpretations of the American past are not final. For these reasons, you should approach all works of history, including your textbook, with a questioning mind. You should realize that what you are reading is not the definitive word on the past but only contemporary historians' interpretations of the past. It is up to you, the critical reader, to determine whether they are convincing. uman history H.G. Wells, Outline of History, 1920