On Jul 8, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Alan Dayley wrote:

> True history is vastly important.

The trouble here is that history is always written by someone.  It is,  
by definition, an *interpretation* of past events.  A history that  
does nothing but report facts is incomplete and deceptive in its own  
right.  Events have meaning in context, and without that context, the  
meaning is lost.  It's the job of the historian (like a journalist) to  
present a fair portrait of the events which occurred, and to make an  
argument about their meaning.

Presenting incorrect facts is of course wrong, as is presenting a  
controversial/unusual interpretation as uncontroversial.  I'm not  
saying you can just make this stuff up, because you can't and informed  
people won't let you get away with it.  But, I think it's only  
possible to talk about 'true' history if you take a very simplistic  
view of what a historian does.

regards,
alex

ps - So... history was my field before I got into programming.  Fun to  
see it pop up here.