What is History

Although this was written for school, I thought it be interesting to see what other people thought about this.
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History keeps track of the longest lasting aspects of the human experience. Thousands of years of past events are recorded and presented for future generations to learn. It functions as the bridge between the old and the new. It acts as a way to understand one’s origins. However, history is not solely fact. The historians that record the events of the past might have a bias in the presentation of the facts. Because of this, history is sometimes biased.

History can be defined as the synthesis and presentation of the events of the past. The historian researches and collects a wide array of information about a topic. Then he or she presents the information in a way that informs and enlightens the reader. It is difficult for a historian to remain purely objective in the analysis of history, because, as a human being, he or she already has an opinion about the event. Information will be found and presented in order to convince the readers of that opinion.

The institution of slavery can be explained differently based on the historian’s bias. In one article, Historian A compares slavery to imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. The information found supports the point that the slaves’ mentality and personality were crushed similarly to those that were imprisoned in the concentration camps. In another article, Historian B argues that the lifestyle as a slave was not as bad as most people thought. He argued that slaves got more than enough of the daily nutrient intake and were rarely punished. Both articles have biases that distort the truth about the slavery and consequently affect the reader’s knowledge of it. The first article is based on an inaccurate comparison. On plantations, slaves had to be kept healthy in order to work whereas prisoners brought to concentration camps to eventually be killed. The second article has biased information. The author of the article researches the daily nutrition intake himself, showing only the information that would bolster his argument. Also, he concludes that slaves were rarely punished after just one interview with a slave owner known to be lenient with his slaves.

The present also influences the reporting of the past. One article about 9/11, titled “The Case for Rage and Retribution”, was published on September 12, 2001. It called for a “unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury” response towards yesterday’s events. Five years later, another article, titled “America in the World: What We’ve Learned since 9/11” was published questioning the effectiveness of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The article mentioned the low approval rating about the war, the animosity directed towards America from other countries and the loss of ethics in warfare to make the reader critically think about the worth of the invasions. Both of these articles exemplified America’s attitude at the time of publishing. This contrast in belief is due to the different times that the event was viewed. As time goes along, historians have different perspectives on an event because they see more of what has resulted from it. In this sense, the present influences the reporting of the past.

Many factors influence the reporting of history, such as time, the author’s bias and the information used. This makes history a collection of perspectives, with facts used to support them. Because of this, there is a difference between the “past” and “history”. The public can indulge in the illusion of understanding the past, rather than knowing history, when several historians can agree on information. However, the past can never be thoroughly explained because history is inherently biased.