What Problems Face Historians History Essay

What Problems Face Historians bill EssayHistory whitethorn be the past plainly the reflections on that past and the different mediums that avouch and shape us slightly the past moldiness be imaged for their verity and usefulness. These documents and sources present the historian with m whatever problems as they ar often use as a cumulative question of a period beneath study. Yet what be the voicelessies that ar inherent in these sources and testimonies.Both primary winding and secondary sources contain pitf eithers that stinkpot trap and blind the historian in his pursuit of historical accuracy. The veracity of the particular source, the motives do- zero point the source and the origins of the exhibit are all concerns for the historian. In conjunction with these problems stick out be the come-on to subsume personal and modern-day reports and evidence for the purposes of a grander and more varied historical narrative.Hew Strachan believes that hindsight can disfigur e and reduce the essence of tale. Hindsight refers to the might to understand an unconstipatedt or situation only after it has happenedi1and Strachan believes that this can imbue the historian with an arrogant view of those who did non soak up the bigger express or understand the deeper motives behind historical events. Does this have virtually truth and if so can it distort history to much(prenominal) a degree that it almost erases the individual struggle or achievement? Or does this problem exist merely at bottom a wider spectrum of historical concerns? History must be ab protrude balance so is a group meeting of both the personal and the panoramic manageable?Strachan writes that hindsight distorts history th prepare elevation arrogance. In his book The jump World struggle he dialog of the fact that sightly because other(a) ideas and ideologies seem foreign to us, this does not resist their charge for those who went to state of war in 1914iiso therefore this muti ng of the past does not push us to understand it merely obfuscates the truth. Yet what is history, provided an blast to see the grander picture and how ideas fit into individual histories and testimonies.The primary sources that are near for historical examination bring with them not just their face mensurate but an blast to re wee the conceits and facets behind them. In 1946 Ellen Hammer wrote in an article on Americas relations with the Vichy government that without the war study filtered into neutral capitals but only on the speckle sources could report with any authorityiii, but just how knobbed are these on the spot accounts?It is certainly true that primary sources retain an immediacy and relevance that is difficult to ignore. It is through letters, diaries and newspapers that we have built up much of our acquaintance of the First World War. Without these sources we would be dependent on fractious second-hand testimony or oral traditions resplendent with hyperbole.Fo r the historian it is necessary to look at the facts behind the facts. The researcher must certainly avail himself of hindsight and retrospection but must not allow themselves to become dupes of them. Isaac Deutscher wrote that the historian deals with fixed and irreversible patterns of events all weapons have already been firedivand as the historical inquiry gathers rate the historian is aware that he is surveying a spent field of battle but how accurate are the bullets he has examined? on that point is perhaps zero more alive in the consciousness of Europe than the concerted attempt to exterminate European Jewry by the Nazis during the Second World War. According to gilbert in his study of the subject merely to sustain image by ones own testimony was, in the end, to contribute to a moral victory. scarcely to survive was a victoryvand it is a testament to the human causation that so some survived. These terrible events have continued to be explored in witness accounts an d literature and another event that has been extensively written close has been the vast or First World War. The last remaining subsister of that conflagration recently passed away so now that the survivors have died out and can no longer contribute to their own victories, will upcoming generations have their knowledge mold by hindsight and retrospection when it comes to those times?It is central to note that both hindsight and retrospection can give us many valuable lessons on historical experience. Dr Johnson wrote that when a design has ended in marriage or success, when all(prenominal) eye and every ear is witness to general discontent or general satisfaction, it is then a fitting time to disentangle confusion and exposit obscurityvi2and it is within this educational activity that a study part of the rationale behind history can be identified. Although the canvas of history is vast, the minutiae helps build up the overall picture and hence hindsight aids that process as well as retrospection. There are certain elements in any event that are not known and cannot possibly be known at the time of the event. At the end of the Great War who could have known that the aftermath would propose the bedrock for the Soviet Union and force a reluctant united States onto the war machine personnel stageviibut these were the consequences of that conflict, although not recognized in their arena at the time. The problem that the historian faces is that this knowledge can give special(prenominal) onus to events that had none and rob other events of their posterity. However, how can we disentangle and illustrate without letting individual values and beliefs, perhaps vastly removed from those we are studying, intrude on the historians research? This is what Strachan talks of when he mentions the disadvantages of hindsight.Kenneth Baker writes that warehousing plays tricks with the past, events are sometimes recorded only in partviii3and in todays present-da y(a) media saturated society, it may seem strange to consider just how versatile and varied accounts of the past were.Yet this removal from the events that unfolded can give us, existent and imagined distance, between the understanding and interpretation.The two biggest conflagrations of the twentieth century, both World Wars, are probably two of the most written some subjects in history. Their single arcs spanned the globe and brought devastation and reassign to many aspects of piles lives. However, their documenting and recording throw up countless testimonies and accounts of those times which are not always possible to examine with straight forward simplicity.One of the first problems that the historian is presented with is the sheer deficit of material that is available. Fest writes that once in a while it is necessary for the chronicler to swan aside his magnifying glass. For the way things fit together has a significance of its own and can give us information that no m ere examination of details canixbut this chronicle involves thousands upon thousands of minute details that are its integral parts. The motivations and recollections of those at the time as well as their possessions and other sources can easily be brushed aside as hindsight condemns them to the underwood of history. After Austria-Hungarys declaration of war on Serbia, accounts have been written of the jubilancy that greeted the announcement. The joy and euphoria may have been real but condescension the later disillusionment with the war, this does not mean we can learn nothing from that day. These testimonies are still valid and tell us more about attitudes to war than about the war itself. The temptation for the historian is to conclude that the dying of WW1 shows how the enthusiasm evaporated but up until the very end, there were those who embraced the war. Adolf Hitler, then an efface corporal speaks of the war years as the greatest and most unforgettable time of my earthly e xistencexbut despite what we know about Hitlers later life and his absent moral compass, this testimony is still pertinent because of its immediacy.The combination of personal and professional in the recollections and remembrances of participants can add fire texture and nuance to historical investigation. Strachan writes in his book on the Great War about Conrad Von Hotzendorff, the Austrian Chief of the General Staff and of how Hotzendorff was in love with a married woman. Hotzendorff saying a triumphant income tax return from the battlefield as an integral part of gaining acceptability for this relationship and Strachan writes that Conrads resolution to Franz Ferdinands assassination was more visceral than rationalxi. This highlights an important problem when traffic with sources. The actions and motivations of participants can seem indicative of one course of action but this motivation can contain a number of individual facets and aims.As well as the hindrance of gleanin g motive, testimonies and documents of the period can fall victim to retrospective thinking. The particular feelings and emotions of a person can undergo variation as time flows and if that particular person is not around at that moment, then the historians interpretation could be colored by emotions that only resurfaced at a present time. The human condition is so multi-faceted that it constantly fluctuates and seeks to change into a particular set of perceptions that are prevalent at the time.The actions and thoughts of individuals likewise present problems when constructing historical timelines as they are often belied by diplomatic effort and policy-making reflection. Strachan over once over again writes of the events leading up to the Great War that the experience of earlier crises had conditioned statesman to put events in the broader mise en scene of European international relationsxiiand this goes in tandem with subjective testimonies connect by individuals or grou ps. Richard J Evans argues that the historians questions should be formulated not by some present theory but from the historical sources themselvesxiiiwhich leads to the observation that whose history is being recorded?The emphasis on high administration and political history has a tendency to negate the other factors that can watch out events. In the case of primary sources, the testimonies of survivors can be brushed turned as subjective ruminations that incorporate too much personal experience. It is the major players in the games of politics and power, the elite, which therefore can and must be relied on because they are the ones who were in the driving seat. This rationale beats on the very characteristics of the lot it reveres as it reduces history to an elite club of statesmen and hierarchies whose actions were the engine in world history. Yet a solitary emphasis on the actions of the people or social history can be just as exclusivist. a lot of the paper on the First W orld War concerns the massive blemish of life during the military campaigns of The Somme and Ypres and in this sense it can give a picture of an event being merely the sum of its battles and military maneuvers.Yet Strachan writes of the Home Front that at the end of 1917, the British people were desperately tiredxivand Gilbert observes all over Europe, and in every country that had sent men to fight in Europe, the memorials to those who had been killed were being knowing and put in placexvso any reliance on one type of source of history can in Johnsons language obfuscate and hide the greater picture.The reason for statements and articulations also have to be taken into account when considering historical evidence and never more so than when considered in a war situation. The Great War threw up some such examples of this practice. It is natural in wartime to seek to demonstrate how much of a threat the enemy is. Strachan uses this example in his book citing the Governor of Bosnia in 1914 as saying of the Serbs that towards such a population all world and all kindness are out of placexviand this can be contrasted with Hitlers utterances to his Generals during the Second World War regarding the Russians and Jews. Propaganda and the uses that particular pieces of testimony were created for can create an obstacle in tackling historical sources.Stanley Weintraub writes in his book Silent Night, which deals with the Christmas cease-fire of 1914 that for rival governments, for which war was politics conducted by persuasive force, it was imperative to adopt even temporary peace unappealing and workablexviiwhich for todays horse opera governments seems even more callous than war itself. Politicians of all persuasions unite to cite how this possibility was a call to arms for us all and how in the frenzy of war, sanity was temporarily regained. This is in itself an example of both hindsight and retrospection. The ideals that were being fought for during that war w ere those of liberalism against force, freedom versus tyranny and since those ideas have been won for a majority of the world, it is seen as an episode of hope amidst war.This may be true but it was these hold governments that frowned upon this truce at the time and now in retrospect see its benefits. Thus, in some measure history can be distorted.Weintraub goes on to write that this impromptu truce seemed dangerously akin to the populist politics of the streets, the spontaneous movements that topple tyrants and autocratsxviiiand one does not need to go remote to see just how Strachan might be right in writing of hindsight as arrogance. The not too distant past saw a sitting government ignore the protests and cries of its people during the recent Iraq debacle. Once again it seems that the lessons of history are that those in power know best.It is important to remember that much of the sources that we have from the end of World War One were from captured documents but most importan tly from the views of the Allies themselves, the victors. In such an environment it is possible for particular viewpoints to emerge that reinforce such origins. Wohlsetter writes that after the crisis, memories fade and recriminations take their placexixand this underscores much of what we know of our own history. The aftermath of both wars saw the division of Europe into different spheres of interest and thus once again the victors to an extent dictated the course of history.This use of sources could take place within the sphere of Eurocentrism. Nordenbo describes this as an historical point of view which perceives modernity, first and best as a unique modern European subterfugexx, a construct which sees the West as the leader in civilization and invention and the rest of the world as a kind of other. This Europe appears to non-Europeans as a land of milk and honey, a promised land and certainly contains the seeds of a European hegemonic system.Edward utter writes in his thesis Orientalism about the construction of this other. It is contained in Marxs maxim that they cannot represent themselves, so they must be represented and Said argues that to the West, the Orient is an other-worldly realm peopled by exotic, hedonistic infidelsxxiand though dealing with the Orient this can be transposed to the examination of sources. It is possible because of the difficulty of obtaining documents in many places to merely stereotype and generalize using Western maxims and rationales. The problems of translation from other languages can also impede investigation and again ties in with this idea of Eurocentrism, that English lexicons and idioms are the natural record of history. To celebrate this thought system is to deliver an irrevocable blow to the historical mindset.Hindsight also relies on the process of causation. This links a series of causes and sketches a rough timeline between events. This can blur the line between reality and impression. It is sometimes asserte d that the Treaty of Versailles and its perceived harshness was instrumental in create the Second World War. This was not the only factor and its overall jounce can be negated. Several other factors must be considered, such as Hitlers own personal bent and drive, the expansionist drive of the German military and political elite and the notion of a Messianic savior, a Strong Man, destined to lead Germany to greatness.It is possible to agree with Strachan that hindsight does breed arrogance. The ideas and realities of contemporary life are quite removed from the realities of yesteryear.It is the job of the historian to puddle sense of these past times and draw conclusions and lessons from them. This can be problematic as the sources are as rich and varied as the events that shaped them.There is arrogance in history, people find it hard to enliven and identify people who gave themselves for ideals and causes, and hence label them with contemporary judgments However just as hindsight does not give us the complete picture, so not all historical investigation is tainted by this thinking. The problems and difficulties of looking at sources are myriad and sometimes frustrating but only through careful sifting and collaboration of method can we attain that knowledge of the past that so informs the historians rumination on the present.