Different Views of History

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Recommended: The perspective of history

The authors of After the Fact The Art of Historical Detection, make the assertion that history is not an account of what happened in the past because what happened in the past is only the raw material: "History is not some inert body of knowledge `out there' in the past, but a continual act of construction whose end product is being reshaped and made anew every time someone ventures into the archives" (Davidson and Lytle IX). Davidson and Lytle mean that the interpretation of history changes based on the methods of investigation used by the historian. Interpretations also change based on how long "after the fact" we choose to go back and investigate. Current beliefs, social trends, and a person's racial background can't help but play an influential role in how we perceive a past event. In chapter 8, the authors demonstrate how recorded observations of a slave's life may have been prejudiced by the people who wrote them: "The vantage point of white Americans observing slavery was emphatically not that of the slaves who lived under the `peculiar institution' nor of those freedpeople forced to cope with their dramatically changed circumstances (181). If a white person during that era were to give an account of the conditions faced by the slaves, it might be biased considering the fact that he/she had never actually been on the receiving end. On the other hand we would probably assume an account given by an ex-slave accurate based on the fact we are receiving the information straight from the source. Our interpretation of history also changes based on whose story you choose to believe. If you wanted to believe that slaves were happy with their lot in life then you might choose to focus on those narratives that support this theo... ... middle of paper ... ...zation process model relies on the premise that the left hand is unaware of what the right hand is doing and there is no communication within the groups: "By treating the decision to drop the bomb not as a single act but as the outcome of many organizational routines, historians can see more clearly why progress on the bomb came slowly" (332) We can see clearly that both these models will yield diverse results. Which model a historian leans toward and how they relate these events will influence our individual interpretations of history. Davidson and Lytle have demonstrated throughout the book is that by using various tools of investigation, we will continue to find different ways of looking at events that have taken place in history. The authors have clearly communicated their opinion that history is what you make of it.

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