Short Version: No.
Long version: Professional historical writing is, fundamentally, concerned with interpreting the past. All interpretations are, inherently, an individual's perspectives of the sources they examine (and all sources are created with a specific intent too). Here is an example: somebody witnesses an assassination and writes about it in their diary. Two hundred years later, somebody stumbles upon it and reads it. The diary is, already, somebody's internal reflections on how they perceived a specific event at that moment in time. Then somebody hundreds of years later, in a different cultural context, is trying to dissect the significance of the diary entry while lacking the context the original author had. This is a fantastic source, but there will always be 'perspective' present.
Now you may ask: what about census records, or direct transcripts of speeches? People still decided that these particular items were significant and took precedence. Even then, you have to be cautious of how somebody recorded the information or intricacies with language inherent to the time.
Historical studies can be factual and historians can, often successfully, offer authentic interpretations of the past. These perspectives are still, however, perspectives.
Dear colleague,
Apparently, your question which is a pertinent one cannot be answered, if we fail to define what is history. In the field of philosophy of history there are many definitions of history. If we had to stick to Collingwood's definition of history, one can equate history to a thinking process, and it evolves in cycles.
In my opinion there are myriads of determinants that shape the mind setting and agenda of the historian, be it political adherence (from the perspective of political theory), cultural bias, normative considerations, religious perspectives, influences from literature and movements governing the era in which he is writing history, the personal make up of the historian himself/herself.
When conducting historical writing resulting from research, whether purely archival, whether archival and archealogical, whether ethnographic (especially through the construction of collective memory), whether demographic, politico-economic, or socio-economic perspective, or other means of historiographic research, the perception of the historian is grooved in his completed opus. And this explains how in various occasions there exists more than one explanation on the course of events culminating in undisputed historical facts.
The perception of the historian most often surfaces in the analysis of the characteristics and the leadership styles of key figures in history, or for example, in the birth or death of historical movements and/or political idealogies.
Strictly speaking, writing history and detaching perception of the author is impossible, because even the choice of the subject matter and methodology by the historical writer reveals certain and definable perceptions.
Regards
Stefan
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Writing