The Objectivity of History
Uploaded by ErinGrace on Mar 31, 2002
The issues that are raised in this source by Marc Trachtenberg are is whether or not objectivity is still a relevant idea, and if it is not then is history in fact dying. Keith Jenkins’ “What is History?,” Carl Becker’s “What are Historical Facts?” and Richard Evans’ “In Defence of History” will be used to discuss and examine these issues.
Marc Trachtenberg is questioning if objectivity is possible and desirable in today’s society, and this is a question that many historians have pondered. Keith Jenkins and Richard Evans are the two historians that will be used in relation to this debate. Trachtenberg believes that history should be ultimately obtainable however, he is worried that the way in which society is heading that it will soon become an obsolete ideology. His believes that history’s ultimate goal is to discover the truth. Trachtenberg believes that you should “put your political beliefs aside and frame questions in such a way that the answers turned on what the evidence showed.” He realizes that this may be a slightly naïve idea however he still stands by this belief even when others such as Keith Jenkins have totally given up on objectivity.
Keith Jenkins in his article “What is history” sets outs his opinion on why objectivity is in fact impossible to achieve in the study of history. His perception is that that “actual past has gone” and in its place we have created history in the present and that the “content is as much invented as found.” His theory is that a historian cannot escape his or her own preconceived ideas and personal motives to the extent that history could be written in an objective way. He goes as far to set out the steps and within the reasons why historians write the way they do. He says that through the selection of evidence the historian’s prejudices are at work, disregarding pieces that do not fit in with their own ideologies. Jenkins was a post modernist historian and his context is important in why he thought they way he did. The post modernist movement was one that believed that historical objectivity was an oxymoron and that history was more of an entertainment than an arm of academic study. The post modernism movement was established after the confusion of the World Wars. This explains why their notions on history because scientific history had been the prevailing...