Telling the Truth about History

What does it mean to “tell the truth” about history? This question isn’t as simple as it might sound. “What really happened” is one simple response. And indeed this might work—if your question is straightforward enough and there is sufficient certain evidence to answer it. A true answer is easy for a descriptive question such as “When was Abraham Lincoln killed?” There is plenty of evidence (newspaper accounts, photographs) from the time clearly attesting that he died from a gunshot to the head in April 1865.

But what does it mean to tell the truth about history when the question isn’t descriptive and straightforward or when surviving evidence isn’t clear or comprehensive? The most interesting questions about the past involve “why?” or “how?” and usually don’t have straightforward descriptive answers. “Why did the US Civil War happen?” “How could the Union defeat the Confederacy despite losing so many early battles?” These are complex question without simple answers. Even different experts would give different expert answers to them—but they are the kinds of important questions that people really care about when they talk about history.

People talk about history because it is how the world came to be the way it is. More than just fascination with where things today came from, there is also a sense that the past is important because it matters to our identity, who we are, and why we believe what we believe today. It is why different social and ideological groups argue over “what happened” and the meaning of the past, over what should be included in school history textbooks or get taught in the classroom. Even many people who say they “don’t like” history still care about political and cultural issues that are very much affected by history. One of the most effective tactics in contemporary political debates is to compare a policy today to one that happened in the past (“History teaches us that…”). Given how powerful uses of history can be, a robust understanding what “truth” means in history becomes crucial.