Should Historians Interpret The Facts Analysis

Understanding History

Why is the emphasis on "facts" insufficient for an understanding of history? Facts are very important to history, without facts, history would be merely guessing. Historians use facts to interpret and present their conclusions of what happened and why it happened. Some historians however, interpret facts differently, which leads to different conclusions. They also lead to different conclusions by using different sets of facts, while dealing with the same event. They use different facts because historians believe that certain facts are more important to their own conclusions. To further explain, historians do not have all the facts because not everything was recorded, nor do they use all the facts available to support

This is called determinism. Not all historians believe in determinism and have to more vaguely interpret a conclusion on just historical facts. Historians using determinism may also lead to the problem of having different theories of human motivation and piecing together different evidence that they think is important to fill in. Now one sees that there are many interpretations, and many different ways to get them. All interpretations cannot be correct, so history is now no longer a definite thing based on “facts” it is, as the article states, “a matter of choosing one good interpretation from among many. Historical truth becomes a matter of personal preference.” In conclusion, the article is saying that, “facts” are insufficient for the understanding of

Conflict historians argue that conflict is a very important part of American history, and ignoring it is “homogenizing” or simplifying American history. While the US may have originally agreed on the fundamentals and foundations of the country, that still had significant differences that lead to vast and interesting conflicts that cannot be ignored. Some of the most significant events in history revolve around conflict and not talking about them is like only putting forth some history and leaving out the rest. Americans do not want to believe that America has had many problems in its past, therefore they cling to the ideas of what makes them or America unique and greater than other countries. Conflict historians grip the reality that America was and is not perfect. Studying the past can help one in the future, but not if there were no problems to learn