Well, on the first line...heh...does anyone remember how often Rus used to say [roughly] that only the people there at the time are unbiased, and everything else is "worldview?" Sometimes I miss that guy.peter the barsteward wrote:Yes Cyberwheez - I would certainly agree that scource material is much more likely to be tainted by bias the closer to the event it is recording it gets - and depending on which side of the fence they are sitting. At some point it ceases to be history writing at all and becomes 'reportage'. Once this state prevails all the angles must be studied or the ensueing history's value will be much reduced.
As to Av's point about all history being revisionist - I don't know. Isn't much history work (like much science) done within the framework of existing understanding; more of a 'fleshing out' of the detail rather than a revision. Again like science the true revisionist works are surely those which turn an accepted 'viewpoint' on its head and require a total reapraisal of the event concerned. The best example of this I can think of would be how 'Scott of the Antartic' has been re-formed as an inept bungler who led a group of men to their deaths from the 'stiff upper-lipped British hero' he was presented as in the days of my boyhood.
It's at least ironic [and maybe meaningful, but I don't feel like looking up the etymology right now] that history is made up of "His" and "Story." [and that probably says everything that needs to be said about what I think about most of historical works, fiction or hypothetically non-...but of course I won't stop just cuz that says enough...]
I mean...we teach things as history even now that aren't. To use my favorite absurdity [I've probably used it in some thread somewhere, cuz it is one of my favorites even if not the best or directly on point] it's generally still taught that everyone thought the earth was flat, and Columbus and Magellan and such proved it wasn't.
But people...at least educated people...didn't think the earth was flat.
One thing I think leads to serious problems in telling history is the need/desire [maybe subconscious] for everything to be cause/effect, for it to be consistent, and full of intention. For human decisions to be the source and force of most events/turning points, and to downplay the incidental, coincidental, random. It's really a dynamic interaction between "shit happens," "what the hell do we do," and "That dude on the rock seems to know what he's talking about!" [and sometimes he...or she...does.]