E. H. Carr and the Thesis of What Is History?

In The Death of History is Bunk, Patrick Watson argues that the decrease of historical content in the curriculum does not indicate that history, as a subject, is declining. While many complain about the decreasing prominence of history classes in Canadian schools, the content of those classes is excessively dull as it consists of memorizing lists of facts. Despite this, there are still protests that knowledge of “defining events” is required to contribute to “the National Conversation”. However, history is not so simple as a list of events—it is the sum of the small happenings in society around the events. A whole variety of factors influence history, which is created by the common people. Unlike Americans, who turn to their constitution for

Is History True? Handlin argues yes, while McNeill argues no. I am not one to decide for someone else if they think it is or not. However, I do believe most history is. Although, a great deal of our history went unrecorded, the amount we have can suffice to show that what’s happened in the past can happen again in a contemporary situation.

Studying history can be an active, often arduous process, dependent on making assumptions with the evidence available and proving those assumptions to be correct or otherwise. But it can also be an easy task if done incorrectly, one of cutting corners and assuming falsehoods to be true for the sake of convenience. This is the way that many historians, amateur or professional, approach history. Not only does this approach exclude any possibility for well-constructed conclusions to be made, it can also leave the populace ignorant of the truth. In “The Strange Death of Silas Deane”, James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle argue that history is not merely the act of collecting data-rather of making assumptions about the data-through the use of countless rhetorical questions, paragraph organization, and a sardonic tone.

She carries the audience through her argument in a logical sequence. First, she makes her claim that student do not know history and explains her reasons (250). She then elaborates on what history students are taught and what exactly is wrong with the methods by which they learn (251). After this, she explains the job of a historian to the reader – how historians confront primary sources to “make some sense of what once happened” (252). To end the article, Simon describes how students can better learn history through exploring primary sources (253). This structuring and organization helps the reader to understand and to believe Simon’s

I do not know if there is any other field of knowledge which suffers so badly as history from the sheer blind repetitions that occur year after year, and from book to book.

The idea of the exclusion of important narratives is a common theme amongst many of the historians involved in the discussion. The omission of such narratives would only stand to present an unfinished version of history from which one cannot grasp the lessons history intends to teach. Catherine Emerson would be the first to

In Telling the Truth About History, three historians discuss how the expanded skepticism and the position that relativism has reduced our capacity to really know and to expound on the past. The book talks about the written work of history and how individuals are battling with the issues of what is “truth.” It likewise examines the post-modernist development and how future historians

Throughout time, there will continue to be a considerable divorce between academic and popular historians. As Margaret Conrad argues, popular historians have established the tension, by recreating “historical films without the involvement of trained historians”. This underscores the troubling gulf that sometimes separates public academics approaches to the past. Academic historians have been “too long focused” on professionalism, and discarded “generating” a “dialogue” (Conrad) with their contextual audiences. The substantial dissolution between academic and popular historians is evident in a range of sources, essentially from Michelle Arrows to Herodotus and Thucydides to Bury.

4. History as a record of events is uncertain and unimportant, but history as a model or type or myth to be made present and lived is of supreme importance.

Allison, Graham, and Niall Ferguson. “Don't Know Much About History.” The Atlantic, Sept. 2016, pp. 28–29.

Through the study of past evidence, historians become capable of creating educated interpretations of the past based on such evidence and previous knowledge. Difficulty in interpretation does not come from insufficient evidence, with an abundance of preserved historical works from writers, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus for example, but the unreliable nature of literary tradition (Cornell, 1986) resulting in differentiated opinions of the usefulness of ancient evidence particularly with the incompatible stories of Roman foundation. The usefulness of stories from Romans can become increasingly valuable though there are some historians of the opinion the

“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth.”

Overall, the argument of The Great Cat Massacre was that a historian could use the writings of a particular point in history to determine the psychology of the people of that time. In this case, it was of the French people in the decades before the French Revolution. Like Natalie Zemon Davis, Darnton claimed he had the ability to know the mental landscape of the people he studied, understanding their motives based on the few words that were placed before him. But is this determination of a people’s mindset possible? How much of the cat massacre was Darnton’s thoughts and beliefs and how much were of the people he was studying? The truth is that there is no way of knowing what is history and what is Darnton’s perception of history. Like Davis, Darnton ran the fine line of telling history as it was, and using that history to support his own beliefs and opinions, and the critics, as before, had a problem with this practice.

The definition of history, is a question which has sparked international debate for centuries between the writers, readers, and the makers of history. It is a vital topic which should be relevant in our lives because it?s important to acknowledge past events that have occurred in our world that deeply influences the present. This essay will discuss what history is, and why we study it.

However, Carr rebuts this, as he states that ‘the belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate.’ This statement explains the misconception that history is made up entirely of facts without the interference of opinion and biases. Carr’s argument is that for facts to become historical facts they must be interpreted and analyzed by the historian. This requires the process of selecting facts, evaluating and interpreting them, which inevitable will contain certain elements of personal prejudices. It is based on this reasoning which he therefore claims that facts can only become historical once they have been selected by a historian and this is what makes them significant. He therefore questions the extent to which a historian could be objective as experience could affect what we perceive as being important, meaning that historians are determining what the facts of the past are according to the own biases and agendas, whether they are consciously or unconsciously aware. Hence emphasising Carr’s point that history is an interpretation. He uses several examples to explain this for example it was the historian that decided Caesar crossing the Rubicon was a significant event whilst ignoring the many others that crossed it before and after him. Thus,