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.
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