What is history?

[peter]

I was watching a BBC three part serial the other day called 'The Dark Charisma of Adolpf Hitler'. It had all the usual stuff - Hitler ranting and raving on the podium, jack-booted nazi's goose-stepping in formation through the streets of nervous looking cities etc. Suddenly it occured to me - it's a bit, well, formulaeic isn't it. Don't get me wrong - I'm no Holocaust denier or anything like that - but watching that program (and the BBC is usually pretty good at that sort of stuff) all of a sudden it seemed a little bit 'good vs evil, big battle, dark skies, good triumphs over evil, happy ever after'. I mean it all seems conveniently simple - so much so that if you wrote it as a story and tried to get it published no-one would touch it with a barge pole! They say that history is always written by the victor - but is that what is going on here. Or maybe it really was like that. The nazi's were the bogey men, we were the good guys, we won and right prevailed over tyranny. It just seems.......I don't know..... somehow to good to be true.

[Orlion]

The varied atrocities committed by Hitler and his regime, coupled with him being opponents of the US, UK, and democracy lovers everywhere during WWII (Stalin? Who's that?) makes him and Nazis great cultural boogeymen for the US and UK. It is rare that you can find such a thing to "fight against" in such a grand, tragic conflict. Hell, the Japanese are not treated nearly the same, and they were part of the same conflict!

People like stories about good vs evil, where the lines are drawn bright and clear. That's why Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings do so well. But to have an actual good vs. evil in real life? That is even more popular and "inspiring" to people. And no where in history can you find a group of people to typecast as demons incarnate than the Nazis of the Third Reich.

Or, more specifically, people that can be typecast as evil that we (the US and UK) have been against. You get the same thing with current Muslim militants. They can not have any sort of human, logical reason for what they do, they simply are irrational savages/hate America/are evil.

[Avatar]

As a group, I think we tend to perceive things quite simplistically. Us against them. And if they are against us, it must be because they are bad. Because we can't be bad. That's why external threats unify.

History changes all the time.

history (n.)
late 14c., "relation of incidents" (true or false), from O.Fr. estoire, estorie "chronicle, history, story" (12c., Mod.Fr. histoire), from L. historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Gk. historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries, history, record, narrative," from historein "inquire," from histor "wise man, judge," from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- "to know," lit. "to see". Related to Gk. idein "to see," and to eidenai "to know."

--A

[peter]

I had intended in my post (as the title implied) to go a bit deeper into what is 'history' and why it is so hard - alas my grand-daughter on her weekly visit wanted to comandeer the computer so I had to curtail my musings (Pheew! they said wiping their brows ). As usual I'm really just chucking out and idea and hoping we can run with it for a while. If not - no probs, it's just thinking aloud really (sorry mods - crisp sharp debate is often absent in my vicinity )

It seems to me that history could be the assembling of 'brute facts' about the past. Or it could be the process of atempting to give meaning to those brute facts (much more difficult) by interpreting them and fitting them into the 'jigsaw' of interpretations that surround them. The problem here is of course almost 'philosophical' in nature in that 'what can we know' as fact (eg as I have stated elsewhere, the Tibetan ocupation (or not) of the 1950's will be represented in entierly different ways depending on whether you read a western or a chinese history book. Which is 'true'. Both. Neither. Something in between). We have trouble enough in ascertaining the truth of what occurs under our very noses, let alone through the reverse telescope view which the passage of time affords us.

My 'nazi' observations above were to some extent meant to be an example of this. Yes - they present one of the rare cases where 'good' vs 'evil' was polarised in such a clear cut manner (the baddies even wore skull symbols on their back uniforms for goodness sake!) but I still can't help wondering if we are not missing something here. I like Nial Fergusson's view of considering the two world wars not as sepparate entities but in the form of really one half century (plus) of conflict - indeed drawing in as well the Stalinist years in Russia as part of the whole phenomena of a world gone briefly mad.

Then of course we have the problem of where history ends and current affairs begins. Like the division of the worlds flora and fauna into 'species' the distinctions are really academic; impositions of our own making onto the shifting fabric of what was/is happening. But what about say the 1980's - Regan and Thatcher. History or current affairs. Similarly Bush and Blair. Not important really. 'History' will reach it's thin grey fingers out to tamper with what we try to achieve in our own time whether we like it or not.

In the face of these things I don't know if what people think of as 'history' is possible at all - but I thank them for trying.

[Cybrweez]

History has two parts, in my mind. What happened, and why (or, maybe 2a, why it matters). The first is possible, tho sometimes not easy. The 2nd, well, maybe not so much. Even taking what certain people said is tricky, b/c we don't know their motives. The what is interesting, but the why is fascinating. And, open to debate.

As for the nazis, they stand out a little bit, I'll disagree w/Av somewhat. Yes, us vs them is a strong dynamic in people. Still, as pointed out, the japanese were against US, yet don't get nearly as much attention. And they actually did more to Americans than the nazis, due to their no surrender and horrible treatment of POWs. The nazis are unique, a bit more than just the old us vs them.

[Avatar]

Maybe. If you're talking about how we look back on it now. At the time though, the Japanese were just as reviled as the Germans if not more...yellow peril and all that.

And of course, as a nation you got ultimate closure on the Japanese, along with perhaps a sense of guilt for what you ended up doing to them. Not something you really had with the Nazis.

And then there's the whole concentration camp thing, which kept the vision of atrocity alive well after the war was actually over.

I had intended in my post (as the title implied) to go a bit deeper into what is 'history' and why it is so hard..

Hard? What do you mean hard? Hard to know whether history is actually true of not? If we look at the etymology, it doesn't matter. History originally meant fiction too.

History is what we claim to remember.

--A

[peter]

Strangely when I was young the Japanese *were* thought of in much more equal terms re their *bogey man* status as the Germans. I agree, the closure of Hiroshima and Nagasaki plus the ongoing presence of the maintained concentration camps etc has done more to keep the Nazi's in the collective mind of thw west.

I meant how hard history is to 'do' Av. It could be equally as hard as philosophy in it's own way. Take for example the fabled 'Schleswig-Holstein Question' - so complex that men are said to have been driven mad in the atempt to get their heads around it's complexities. Lord Palmerston is reported to have said that only three people in the world understood it. "The Prince-Consort who is dead, a german professor who has gone mad and me - and I've forgotten all about it."

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

It seems to me that history could be the assembling of 'brute facts' about the past. Or it could be the process of atempting to give meaning to those brute facts (much more difficult) by interpreting them and fitting them into the 'jigsaw' of interpretations that surround them. The problem here is of course almost 'philosophical' in nature in that 'what can we know' as fact (eg as I have stated elsewhere, the Tibetan ocupation (or not) of the 1950's will be represented in entierly different ways depending on whether you read a western or a chinese history book. Which is 'true'. Both. Neither. Something in between). We have trouble enough in ascertaining the truth of what occurs under our very noses, let alone through the reverse telescope view which the passage of time affords us.

History is what we claim to remember.

Sounds quite right - though it has to at least attempted to approximate it to the truth upon possibility - and to at least keep in mind that same thing about under our very noses - people should understand trying to understand history and the present through it can be beneficial, but relying on that much is dangerous, particularly in judgement about people.

How hard to write? Demands just resources. How hard to get the truth? Next to impossible, it's more like "attempts can be made".

Or, more specifically, people that can be typecast as evil that we (the US and UK) have been against. You get the same thing with current Muslim militants. They can not have any sort of human, logical reason for what they do, they simply are irrational savages/hate America/are evil.

One more observation on this - in the Post-Soviet states it's often viewed differently. That USA and Europe initially were quite fine with the Nazis as a safeguard against the Soviet Union and vice versa, waiting for one to defeat the other and hopefully both getting enough damage to crumble; with the USA and Europe getting into the conflict seriously only after it was obvious who was going to win. But surely the fact the Soviet Union actually tried out a treaty with the Nazis against everyone else gets not much fond remembrance on the Post-Soviet territory. It's sometimes interesting to get the opposite point of view, or one from aside - though the latter is not much possible in this interconnected world. All the governments try to cover their hindquarters, and since those are large, lots of historical papers are going for that purpose.

the baddies even wore skull symbols on their back uniforms for goodness sake!.

I do hope you're not going to suggest arresting Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson

[Avatar]

I meant how hard history is to 'do' Av. It could be equally as hard as philosophy in it's own way.

I didn't think philosophy was particularly hard either.

But it looks to me like you're talking about the possibility of ever knowing the absolute truth, which is not something that can ever be done. Even if we were in position of all the facts, the true motivations of people are forever hidden.

--A

[peter]

It almost seems today that if you are going to make any kind of a 'splash' in the academic history feild, you have to be a revisionist of some kind or another. Well in the light of what we have been saying there appears to be plenty of scope for this activity if nothing else

[Frostheart Grueburn]

The concept of 'history' depends on the point of view. The facts of one become lies to another and vice versa. Take the Finnish Winter War as an example.

During the period between the war and the perestroika in the late 1980s, Soviet historiography leaned solely on Vyacheslav Molotov's speeches on the Winter War. In his radio speech of 29 November 1939, Molotov argued that the Soviet Union had tried to negotiate guarantees of security for Leningrad for two months. However, the Finns had taken a hostile stance to "please foreign imperialists". Finland had undertaken military provocation, and the Soviet Union could no longer hold to non-aggression pacts. According to Molotov, the Soviet Union did not want to occupy or annex Finland; the goal was purely to secure Leningrad.

Another source later used widely in Soviet historiography was Molotov's speech in front of the Supreme Soviet on 29 March 1940, in which he blamed Western countries for starting the war and argued that they had used Finland as a proxy to fight the Soviet Union. The Western Allies had furthermore tried to take neutral Sweden and Norway along with them. Thus, the "masterminds" behind the war were the UK and France, but also Sweden, the U.S., and Italy, who had issued massive amounts of materiel, money, and men to Finland. According to Molotov, the Soviet Union was merciful in peace terms, as the problem of Leningrad security had been solved.

In reality, the Soviet Union attacked first.

Another mildly interesting twist of 'history' could be the way how some foreign parties lump Finns and 'Aryan supreme race' together, possibly due to the high rate of blondes. Ahem, according to Hitler's propaganda, Finns were second-rate citizens and would have eventually suffered the fate of Poles, had certain political scenarios taken actual shape.

[Avatar]

Pretty sure he used the opposite type of propaganda as well, trying to woo Scandinavians to his cause.

Well in the light of what we have been saying there appears to be plenty of scope for this activity if nothing else

All history is revisionist. It has to be, if it must take into account new facts that come to light. (Or old facts are no longer glossed over or outright suppressed.)

You want to see how a history syllabus changes, take a look at my own country. And in this case, it's right that it changes. Although how far in the other direction it has gone I'm not sure, being some time out of school now.

--A

[Iolanthe]

As you probably know by now I'm very much involved in "history".

There are examples above of two different perceptions of the same event. Surely there cannot be a better example than the historic perception of Richard III. The modern view is still based on the Tudor writers Morton, Vergil and Hollinshead from whom Shakespeare took the background for his play. But read the letters RIII wrote to his mother, or the one he wrote when his lawyer wanted to marry Jane Shaw (his brother's concubine) and an entirely different picture of him emerges. I could quote more examples.

I prefer hands on history. Yesterday I was using 19th century documents; the last time I went to the National Archives at Kew I handled a document that was written in the 1400s. Most of the original stuff that I use is about ordinary people, and specifically poor people. What have I learned over the past 30 years? People don't change. Ordinary people who lived 500 years ago had the same aims, problems, attitudes as people have today, within the framework of the time in which they lived. Read a 19th century newspaper and you will find the same crimes, the same concerns in the "Letters to the Editor" columns - in the 1850s they were complaining about the level crossings over the High Street in Lincoln. Last week in the Lincolnshire Echo there were at least two letters about exactly the same thing!

The problem with "history" is that many people believe what they read in books but don't look for the answer themselves - and yes, that is possible now that there is so much original material on-line.

[peter]

I like your observations on studying scource material wherever possible Iolanthe and the idea that people don't change. By implication a medieval baby born magically into todays world would 'fit in' seamlessly (different subject area I know but interesting never the less). Clearly the key words are 'within the framework' - that framework being a very different thing at different times. But I also wonder if there are not some funamental changes in people at the 'society' level rather than the individual. Take for example the fairly sudden and (I believe) pretty much unexplained movement of the general populace (I'm talking about in the west rather than world-wide; we tend to ignore their history in our books and teaching to our shame) away from acts of public cruelty (hangings, drawings, quaterings - public burnings etc). This phenomena happened (IIRC) almost spontaniousely; a sort of sated revulsion to these practices spread through the populace causing their abandonment by the authorities of the day - the oposit way around from what you might expect. Dawkins would probably call this a 'meme' or a 'super-meme', but could it not just be a natural development of the human condition when fear and competition for the basic needs of survival levels fall below a certain point.

Love the observations on Richard III as well. Last night by coincidence I read Geoffry of Monmouths account of Lear and his daughters Gonerail, Regan, and whatever her name was. Presumably Shakespear took this story and 'bigged it up' because their was no madness, no death of Cordelia etc. I think WS understood Monmouth's position on story telling - if your going to do it , make it wort the candle. Doesn't make it easy for todays people though

[Iolanthe]

That is an interesting subject, Peter, the change in attitudes of people towards violence. But have they changed? Whereas people would walk 30 miles to watch a good drawing and quartering, or a good hanging, nowadays people only need to go to the cinema, or play a violent computer game, or search the web to see blood and gore. It's cleaner and safer but it seems to me that some people still enjoy seeing the effects of violence.

Our attitude to being violent has certainly changed, but I don't think this happened quickly. Blood and gore was an everyday sight in medieval times - life was cheap. Even in the 19th century great numbers of people witnessed horrific accidents - imagine what a steam threshing machine could do if a body part was accidentally caught in it (I don't have to imagine as I've read many inquests with graphic descriptions of the accidents that caused death). These accidents were witnessed by a lot of people as so many were employed in the fields at that time. There has been so much progress in safety, new machinery, medicine etc. etc. in our own time that we are no longer used to seeing such sights, except of course in war and if the war is on another continent we do not have to witness the results. I wonder if the attitude towards violence of those who do live in recent war zones is different to that of us who are not exposed to such sights.

Living in violent times, constantly seeing the results of violence, surely makes people immune in a way to the effects of violence. At the same time, attitudes have changed slowly as the world around them has progressed, as more mysteries have been understood.

Philosophy is not my area, I'm afraid, and I'm having difficulty here explaining what I mean. Perhaps someone else will do it better.

[Avatar]

The problem with "history" is that many people believe what they read in books but don't look for the answer themselves - and yes, that is possible now that there is so much original material on-line.

Well perhaps, but if I want to know about the Tudor kings, I'm not going to go hunting for and poring over source material at random. I'm going to read a book by somebody who has spent years doing that.

--A

[Iolanthe]

The problem with "history" is that many people believe what they read in books but don't look for the answer themselves - and yes, that is possible now that there is so much original material on-line.

Well perhaps, but if I want to know about the Tudor kings, I'm not going to go hunting for and poring over source material at random. I'm going to read a book by somebody who has spent years doing that.

--A

That's OK if the history book that you read quotes sources, and gives the text of sources, rather than, or as well as, giving the author's own interpretation of events. For instance, I have a book called "The road to Bosworth Field" by P. W. Hammond and Anne F. Sutton which consists entirely of original documents from Richard's lifetime. There is no attempt to interpret the documents or give personal views. Therefore the reader is able to read what was said about him, and what he wrote himself and make up their own mind. Probably people would rather read "The Sunne in Splendour" by Sharon Penman which is a factional account of his life, but a good read all the same. Problem is, a lot of people will think that they are reading a history book rather than a novel when reading the latter.

I hope that history via original documents presented as in the first book I mentioned will catch on, then people might be tempted to think for themselves instead of accepting other peoples' interpretation of history.

I have also read Thomas More's account (thought to be a copy of the writings of John Morton) for balance.

[Cybrweez]

Yea, source material is better. But it has its own shortcomings, especially when written by someone involved. Their insight into the event is limited. So reading multiple sources, studying the times (what people felt, thought) and putting it all together is needed as well - both angles. And all those angles have a bias/slant, even if w/o intention. That's the rub that I think peter brings up.

[peter]

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.

[Iolanthe]

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.

I was not clear. By "source material" I mean documents generated at the time - letters, government documents, etc. not commentaries. You could say that Thomas More's account is contemporary, but he was only 7 when Richard died and it is thought that he simply published something that John Morton, who was contemporary with Richard, had written. The Croyland Chronicle is contemporary, but heresay. Mancini was contemporary - he actually met Richard, but he was the Italian ambassador and didn't speak a word of English. Some care needs to be taken even with "source material"!

It would be difficult to use contemporary documents for the 2nd World War, for instance, because of censoring. This makes newspapers useless, even letters from the front. War diaries however were not censored. Neither were the letters that my grandfather sent back from the Boer war, and government documents now released after 60 years can also be used.