Reading Snippet - In Defence of History (3)

The craft of constructing history from base materials

After a discussion of the fads in and the exact nature (science vs. art) of historical studies, the author then turned his attention to how history was constructed from base materials - the sources. This topic spanned across two chapters demonstrating its criticality, and has a hidden agenda as a counter-attack against postmodernist view of history.

History sources are considered from a number of angles. A starting angle is how source data should be viewed - in its purest form as a historical artefact to be judged with its contemporary mindsets and conditions, or with present-day understanding? Both views were presented, but the author favoured the infusion of modern theories and frameworks when utilising sources. After all, this enables historical knowledge and understanding to be built, with sources interacting with latest understanding to create new understanding. In some extreme cases, such as understanding the culture of witches in medieval Europe, the initial framework-setting could be turbo-charged by grafting it on anthropological studies in African religions and cultures, allowing historians to advance rapidly.

Another angle is the possible multitude interpretations regarding each source. Given that the sources were written in the past, there would be words and sentences no longer in circulation, and even those similar to modern-day texts may carry very different meanings. An argument that arises from this is that a modern historian would struggle to decipher the exact meaning of any historical text and construct an "accurate" view from sources, owing to this type of inaccuracy (or inability to assert confidence on any interpretation). The author's counter-argument is that within the same period the words and sentences would carry specific pattern, and a learned historian could start to acquaint with the exact meanings, thereby interpreting with confidence.

The author also revealed the trade of historical sources - contrary to conventional beliefs that the sources are necessarily texts or written accounts, but can be anything left from that period - inscriptions, graffiti, parish records etc. This means even if few texts remained, it is possible to obtain a wealth of sources to developing a historical narration from. Furthermore, there is traditional a distinction between primary sources such as witness' accounts, and secondary sources which are collated texts such as a historian's book. The primary sources carry immense value, but as do the secondary sources which should be studied and subjected to the same type of scrutiny when deriving historical conclusions from primary sources.

After all these considerations regarding sources, here comes the post modernist challenge - there are a lots of snippets and even more that are lost or not present, and the snippets were created in the past with their own initial interpretation, such that the real meanings can never be deciphered correctly. Furthermore, texts are produced with the authors' hidden agenda and consciousness which are never revealed, and once written they are then read in the future without the authors' presence, such that all these contextual information could not be revealed. The argument brought forward by the postmodernist is thus these sources could be combined & interpreted in however many "styles" possible in the absence of such contextual revelations, all of which could make sense and be logical, and it is not possible to distill or argue for the "truth". Even though the historical event has taken place, there would never be enough information to dig it out and all historians' attempts are analogous to historical literature - they are stories based on historical sources, but by no means historical reconstructions. This also implies that no distinction needs to be made between primary and secondary sources - the primacy of primary sources breaks down as truthful interpretation is not possible but only the readers' own indirect interpretation.

To this, the author countered that despite the absence of contextual information of the authors or artefacts creators, the sources could in fact come together to triangulate against each other, from which the sets of theories could be narrowed into a number of feasible sets - the more sources and types of sources, the better the triangulation would work. In regards to the inability to 'read' historical sources, the fact that rules and common meanings could be derived through comparing grammar and conventions across and within periods would break down some of the issues of cross-period interpretation issues. The context of texts is also not completely hidden, as some of those contexts (such as diplomatic documents) are known and a set of valid context would emerge.

In regards to primary sources, it is simply that when a new piece of work is written based on other sources, the sources become important in verifying any claim or analysis made. From this, the distinction between primary and secondary sources become apparent and undeniable.

In a world of rampant with "post truth" and conflicting views (such as investing in countries with known child labour abuse), a post modernist view of "there is no truth" or "no truth could ever be argued or supported" becomes appealing is discrediting any claim of truth or principles which should be abided by (such as human rights). But from this short illustration, it is easy to see that there is really something called "truth" which should be protected and promoted.