Investigating the Extent to Which Historians Can Be Objective

In a world that filled with disputes and disagreements, it is somehow difficult to describe a conflicting event in a neutral tone based on one’s own judgment, typically for those historians who attempted to examine the events occurred in the past. As a matter of fact, people’s perspectives may be influenced by many conditions such as their cultural identities, genders, religions, emotions etc. Therefore, it is more likely that historians tend to hold biased view that may affect their tone in neutrality. However, to what extent can historians, or more generally the people, learn the history from an unbiased and neutral perspective? In general, as long as people equally analyze the view points from both sides and take the position between

A historian’s role is to inform the human race of the occurrences of the past, for if we forget the past we will repeat the same mistakes in the future. The lessons of the past become the innovations of the now, and it is this very concept that denotes the power of historians. History is all subjects, it is the math, science, and art of the past this makes history the single most vital subject in all of the world, which makes the irony of the fact that history is not a highly regarded area of study quite sad.

The idea of history as a subjective collection of malleable information rather than a gathering of facts confused me as a child. As I grew up, I learned about the effect of culture and context on information and the way it is spread, written, and remembered, and often incorporated this belief into my classwork. The idea of something as both a product of and contributor to its culture and the way that culture shifts its interpretation slowly over time has always been particularly interesting to me. At the time, I had no clue that this way a key concept in new historical criticism, but, then again, I think everyone in our class has repeatedly said that we had not realized that we were using different forms of criticism throughout our careers

The pair collaborated to produce a comprehensive and pointed critique of Guldi and Armitage’s research, or lack thereof, as Cohen and Mandler argue, claiming that The History Manifesto had little research, and what it did have was grossly misconstrued. Cohen and Mandler specifically discussed the methodology that the manifesto placed on a pedestal, the longue-duree, and on the evidence that Guldi and Armitage used, little attention was paid to the function of digital technology in the pursuance of longue-duree. Indeed the lofty overtures continue with language promoting that historians were the only group capable of “saving” the world, due to their unique training, but only if the popular methodology switched from short-term to longue-duree. Cohen and Mandler adopted a contrasting view of this, stating that not only did the time scale of the study depend on the subject matter, but that the sheer diversity of the historical discipline was what made it indispensable to the educational and cultural landscape of

Firstly, I agree with speaker that there are a lot of storytellers who are wrongly considered as historians, although this is an improved translation of the speaker’s statement. Many so called historians try to disguise the historical events so as to implicate what they want to be believed as truth for the aims of their party and so forth. They change the truth of events and in this way they

A New Historicist’ aim, when reading a fictional text is to use the author’s interpretation of that time period and related experiences as a guideline to understanding the true historical context of that time. Compared to

By examining particular eras, authentic history can be revealed. Ranke makes it very clear that history is not influenced by a “universally guided will”, nor is it predestined. The past is not determined by God, but by

Historians can feel pressured to be creative in their interpretation of data in order to present negative information in a positive light. This is not a situation that is specific to higher education historians, as it plagues many researchers, journalists, business leaders, and politicians. Eisenmann reports that researchers should take a strong stance regarding their findings. Ultimately, the historian’s responsibility is to report accurately, not to be someone in the public relations arena. However, early historians may have been under greater pressure, and when re-investigating their findings it is important to put the findings in a historical context and also understand the politics of that

The question of the day for historians and aspiring historians appears to be why study history? Usually this question coincides with the question of what do you do with that? Wood Gray addresses the first of these questions at the outset of the Historian’s Handbook, as well as answering the question of what is history.

The interpretation of a source may indeed be influenced by the historians own personal biases which adds to the subjectivity. Barzun acknowledges this known fact in his critique of Western civilization From Dawn to Decadence in which it states “Waste of breath to point out that every observer is in some way biased”[2]. However it is quite important to note however that although both Barzun and Windshuttle agree that history is somewhat subjective it does however contain concrete facts that according to Windshuttle “do not change, no matter who is looking at them”[3]

Frequently, history is viewed as being biased since it is an individual’s narrative that the historian relies on as a record of events. History continues to be a contentious social science. Today, history continues to be widely debated because it is perceived as tendentious. Historical narratives, whether they are primary or secondary sources, tend to present only one point of view. This perspective is often an inclination or one’s own opinion, which can modify the history that is being documented. Historian Leopold von Ranke believes that a historian’s vital role is to record history as a “strict presentation of facts.” Historian Peter Burke would argue against Ranke’s expectation of history. Burke would deem Ranke’s notion of history as

I think historians have to use information they obtain from different primary and secondary sources. But first, they have to evaluate those sources and listen to other people’s opinions about the sources.

Why do people have different perspectives on history? How do those perspectives affect them, and can those perspectives be useful? History is the study of the events of the past. But, how one acknowledges and understands those events is different among others. Men, such as, Edward Carr, John Barker, Will Durant, Frederick Turner, and Peter Stearns have spent decades trying to learn of the past, in hopes of some explanation that satisfies their curiosity. In the works that each of the men have published, there are more differences in reasons than similarities. One may see history as a never-ending subject on the events that have occurred in the past; another may see history as an explanation of how the world works, but all in all, these authors

Human knowledge of history is muddled with uncertainty. Without a complete record of events, it is easy for people to formulate quick conclusions based on given evidence. This evaluation and conclusion process is limited by the imperfections of logic, intuition, imagination, and every other way of knowing. As a result, the history of the world that we as humans have thus far compiled is far from objective. Objectivity is not always necessary, but a measure of bias can be disruptive in our pursuit of deducing true history; that is, a complete account of every real event. Francis Home, for example, lived just before the time of Edward Jenner. Imperfect historians have written histories about the scholarship of both of these men, and the result

History is all about digging into elements of society to obtain knowledge of historical roots, given the fact that linking lines between past and present never breaks. History can be observed by written records and artifacts and conveyed into films, novels, and others. However, Things are changed based on social, political and economic reasons. There are two main reasons why historians record their journeys, to convey an experience of living from the past, and to hope to get useful knowledge. It’s undeniable that the more we understand the past, the better understanding of the present we will get; and we can do that as simple as just asking questions.