Monday, May 25, 2009

My two cents on 'History'

There have been quite few news about history lately. People are debating whether certain history has been taken out in textbooks, whether government officials have been hiding behind facts and said things that to please their bosses or serves their personal interests, etc.

History to me has two important aspects: facts and analysis, they both link to each other and are valueless without each other. The important of history is to record what had happened. Then, people can trace the causes and effects of each event to link them together to provide lessons for future reference. So, people will know if these had happened, that could happen, and the effect would be…

For events that didn’t happen too far back in the history, especially those in recent decades, with the prominence of recording technology and the fact that many people who are involved in the events may still alive. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out what had happened. Certainly, every major event would have people taking sides based on their background, and interests. To record the fact, historians should talk to all sides and present their opinions on what and why they did and said. The worse case is to hide and cover certain facts simply because they want to conclude to the pre-set results of their analysis. So, I think that analysis methods and results could be debatable, but the source materials should be the same, because they are facts!

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