Perspective in History

“Try how we will we can never look at the past except through the spectacles of the present” (Oakeshott 37).  I really like this quote because I think that those who are a historian or those who aspire to be, truly believes that presenting facts is the only way to pass on history.  However as this quote shows, the issue is not whether or not history should be a collection of facts, the issue is that it cannot possibly be.  I think that the overall theme here in all these articles is that history is what we make it.  History does depend on who recorded it as well as who is reading it, teaching it, hearing it, absorbing it, etc.  By that I don’t mean that as future imparters of knowledge we should make up events or embellish stories.  I mean that history is what our experiences let us see it as.

On a larger scale I, like Foner, believe that “all history is contemporary history” (1).  While we as individuals see history as our experiences let us, society as a whole sees history as its experiences let it.  Foner uses the attacks on 9/11 as an example to show that a society that had been changed by the events of that day will look upon history differently on 9/12 than they did on 9/10.

I’m not sure that the word interpretation gets the right meaning across.  I’m not exactly sure what word would be better to use but I just get the wrong idea thinking that history is open to interpretation.  I really like how Jensen says it, “assess factual assertions…weave them together…construct and explanation of how and why things happened” (1).  To me Jensen sounds more concrete, like constructing an explanation is a job to be completed.  I don’t really know how to explain it but interpretation sounds too abstract or something like that to be applied to constructing history.  I do agree though that the teaching of history cannot rely completely on the relaying of facts.  That’s definitely way too boring and doesn’t do any justice to the subject.  History can be fascinating to just about everyone but definitely not if its taught as a compilation of data.