After Monday’s class discussion on White’s article on “Historical Text as Literary Artifact,” I found I had far more questions than answers. Having had a few days to reflect, I want to share some of my conclusions that help me wrap my mind around the issue.
First, history is about perspective. We know that ten eyewitnesses to an accident can produce as many as ten accounts of what happened. These accounts are influenced by the witness’s view, mental alertness, emotional state, acuity of eyesight, degree of personal involvement in the accident and past experiences, just to name a few. In historical representations, the author, as well as his sources, may be affected by these factors.
Second, the nature of a written work involves judgement as the author mades decisions about exhaustive his research should be, what material to include, word choice, style, presentation of the article (structure, narrative voice) etc.
Several years ago, I volunteered to be on a Textbook Approval Committe for the AISD. One of the books I reviewed was a history book for elementary students. Even though the book was nearly devoid of literary style in an effort to appear unbiased, there were gross errors of omission and “re-phrasing” of history in order to be politically correct.
I believe the best advice is what we heard in class. The more accounts one gets about a historical topic, the more complete and well-rounded the perspective will be.
P.S. On a personal note…I have never been able to read history textbooks. The dry, fact-laden kind that make a vital subject into a mental exercise of memorizing dates and names, names and dates. It wasn’t until I read historical fiction that I was able to learn anything about history. For me, it takes a Leon Uris novel, with characters that are really human (even though they are fictional!) to reach me on gut-wrenching emotional level that causes me to never forget what people in history went through. Read his book Trinity, and you will never forget the Irish Potato Famine!
