While many people define history as simply what happened in the past, professional historians know it’s a much more complex endeavor. Determining the truth about history, that elusive “what-really-happened,” is a messy and complicated undertaking and is particularly vulnerable to the same problems all human endeavors are: pride, vanity, self-righteousness, bias, and outright perversion of what actually happened.
For one thing, the source materials for history — the clothes, letters and books that provide clues to the past — are often lost, burned, misplaced or ravaged by time and abrasion. This is especially true of the distant past, when it’s almost impossible to have eyewitness testimony to compare with what actually took place.
Even the best historians cannot be certain that the events they are writing about really did take place. The vast bulk of the clothing worn by the people in a certain era, for example, has disappeared, while only a tiny fraction of those letters and books have survived to be rediscovered by modern historians. Even if the evidence is strong, it’s not conclusive, since nobody has a time machine to go back and see for themselves what took place in the past.
The challenge of history is to try and understand the past through the few sources that remain, interpreting what they mean in the context of our own times. It’s a complex task that requires a great deal of patience, skill and attention to detail.
Unfortunately, the general public’s understanding of history is dominated by half-remembered high school classes and pop culture, which tend to promote simplicity and reinforce a particular view of the world. It’s an impasse that has persisted for decades and is difficult to overcome, but there are signs of a growing appetite for history as inquiry and exploration.
There are a few ways to learn about history, but the most traditional way is by reading. There are countless historical novels and non-fiction books that cover a variety of topics, from general overviews in layman’s terms to detailed, academic essays. You can also find plenty of websites and blog posts that explore historical topics in more depth. The Library of Congress website, the National Archives site and the Smithsonian Institution have a wealth of resources that can be explored by anyone with an interest in the past.
Lastly, you can also learn about history through movies, which portray the past in a visual format. Some are accurate, others less so, but some can help you experience a period of history by seeing what it was like for the people who lived through it. A good place to start is by reading biographies of famous historical figures, such as Schindler’s List, The Pianist and The Diaries of Samuel Pepys. These books are helpful for limiting the amount of information you need to remember while helping you understand how different events fit into a larger storyline. Ultimately, however, there is no substitute for being exposed to the actual source material.