The Facts and Values of History

The facts of history, the values and interpretations of history can all be a subject of repeated debate; it is contested and perceived differently by different types of groups of people and ideas. At the same time it is important to remember that history is a part of our culture, it is something we all share and no individual group owns it. It is our past heritage and although it is gone, we feel a …

…that no source is ever perfect or impartial. When Carr speaks of a historian he says, “ As he works, both interpretations and the selection and ordering of facts undergo subtle and perhaps partly unconscious changes through the reciprocal action of one or the other.”3 Carr seems to treat history as constantly changing and that modern historians are different from those of the past and therefore there interpretations will be opposing. History in constantly being rewritten.