What is History?

[Michael]

What is history?

Short question, big topic.

Have you ever thought about history? Like what it is besides some record of past events?

We all talk about history books existing and holding all kinds of facts about the past, and we all are jaded post-modernists so we all know that history is written by the victors and all that.

So what does one make of people like Francis Fukuyama making pronouncements that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are witnessing the 'end of history'?

Or the way people always say that history repeats itself? Or the modern twist of seeing history repeat as a spiral coil, not quite a circle.

Or historian Arnold Toynbee's assertion that the rise and fall of civilizations is a game of 'challenge and response' as if a single nation in time can be characterized (and judged) as a single entity.

Or historian E.M.Carr's assertion that the text of a history book tells you as much about the time period of the authorship as it does about the time period being the object of the study?

So what are we to make of all this? What is history? What do we mean when we propose to study history? Is it the record of conflicts of great powers? Or just a record of the propaganda issued by the victors? Is it a reflection of the titanic struggle of civilizations competing for supremacy? Are all past events unique and entirely relative only to their own place and time? If so, application of history to the present is a waste of time. Or is history a process where we can learn for the future?

These are the general questions I have. I'm curious about what other people think about the idea of history itself.

[Michael]

Here are some recovered post replies to this thread discussion...

This is an age old cliche but basically what I've always thought to be true and should never be discarded in any discussion regarding historical events.

History is written by the victors, to cover up their crimes and to promote/justify their views of the world.

That is not to say it's all bullshit, but the majority of it is. The defeated or the victims rarely gets a say in history until very recent, where information propagate much easier due to technological avances, and even that, you have to look close and hard to hear what they have to say.

To give you an exmaple, the proxy wars waged in Nicaragua and El Salvador under Reagan admin. is regarded by the Pentagon and termed by many historians as "low intensity warfare", and by some "proxy wars" to "contain" the Soviet Union. Well, if you were a Nicaraguan or El Salvadorian during that period, you probabily have a very high intensity of suffering, in very non-proxy and direct ways, having your babies dragged behind a motorcycle to death in front of you, and then your genitalia removed, shoved in your mouth while you are left impaled on sticks to decorate the countrysides with your fellow villager. And that, is what actually happened.

To give you an exmaple, the proxy wars waged in Nicaragua and El Salvador under Reagan admin. is regarded by the Pentagon and termed by many historians as "low intensity warfare", and by some "proxy wars" to "contain" the Soviet Union. Well, if you were a Nicaraguan or El Salvadorian during that period, you probabily have a very high intensity of suffering, in very non-proxy and direct ways, having your babies dragged behind a motorcycle to death in front of you, and then your genitalia removed, shoved in your mouth while you are left impaled on sticks to decorate the countrysides with your fellow villager. And that, is what actually happened.
Yes, but that is immediate history. In 50/ 60 years, time will have gone, governing staff will have changed and historians will be "free" or courageaous enough to tell the other side of the truth.

Yes, but that is immediate history. In 50/ 60 years, time will have gone, governing staff will have changed and historians will be "free" or courageaous enough to tell the other side of the truth.
Not if all evidence and records contrary to the official version have been destroyed, or the intellectuals of the time have censored themselves to the point where questionable "facts" are simply presupposed in all discussions regarding the events, in other words boundries are drawn for thinkable thoughts, and bit by bit distortions are perpetuated and history is rewritten over time. An example, Orwell's Newspeak was intended for this very purpose.

Not if all evidence and records contrary to the official version have been destroyed, or the intellectuals of the time have censored themselves to the point where questionable "facts" are simply presupposed in all discussions regarding the events, in other words boundries are drawn for thinkable thoughts, and bit by bit distortions are perpetuated and history is rewritten over time. An example, Orwell's Newspeak was intended for this very purpose.
I am not that pessimistic... There must be something left !
Look what historians ae able to find out about old civilisations.
The time factor is crucial in history, it seems to me.

Orwell's Newspeak is not just about memory but also about language - actually that it what I remember. How the simplicity of the word leads to the simplicity of the mind ...

I am not that pessimistic... There must be something left !
Look what historians ae able to find out about old civilisations.
The time factor is crucial in history, it seems to me.

Orwell's Newspeak is not just about memory but also about language - actually that it what I remember. How the simplicity of the word leads to the simplicity of the mind ...
The nature of information is becoming much more volatile than it used to be in ancient civilizations. It's becoming much easier to rewrite history. Contemporary information is just magnetized metallic surfaces. A Babylonian clay tablet can survive several thousand years, a harddisk can't. Not to mention that it would be much more difficult to alter the clay tablet than the info on the harddisk. I could easily change your post to read something different altogether with no trace of any alteration left and it would go down in the Google cache and thus in 'history' as something you would be remembered of having said.

Well, I can understand why the Neo-cons took Fukuyama's assertion seriously - it fully support their view of world politics, with the ultimate and unstoppable advance of Democracy supported by Economy. What I mean is that it is a serious political assertion but not a profound philosophical one.
I think you are missing the significance of the date sequence here. Fukuyama's essay was 1st published in 1989. 1992 is the year it was re-published in book form. The first real sign of the US 'neocons' is the PNAC letter from 1998...

1998: PNAC Letter to Clinton:
Remove Saddam ... vital interests in the Gulf
Jan. 26, 1998. Open Letter to Clinton: Remove Saddam
PNAC's first public action was an open letter to Clinton stating:
Turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. ... including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf." — January, 1998.

Signed by the following members of the Bush Administration:
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, Abrams, Armitage, and Woolsey.

Source (http://zfacts.com/p/780.html)

I think that Fukuyama's essay was not so much an 'enabler' of the neocons, rather that Fukuyama's idea itself was the neocon's inspiration that told them their crazy ideas were good ones and potentially successful ones.

I suppose my point here is that Fukuyama's absurd analysis has turned out to be a very powerful motivator of actual political events - regardless of the intellectual 'quality' of the original historical theory. Ideas backed up by missiles, aircraft and mass media is a mighty powerful thing. Don't need no actual historical 'truth' or even intellectual consistency in order to start bombing the infidels.

Politics is anchored in time and space. Philosophy transcends time and space so that its pronouncements may be applied to any situation.

The profound view comes from Hegel - the advance of the Spirit - and was re-used, well by Marx and by Fukuyama.

If the End of History means the accession to a stable political state, I am not sure that it is a useless idea. In theory all professional politicians should want just that : a stable political state.

I am not sure such a state is possible - but this is another debate.
I am horrified and deeply fear such a "stable political state".

That seems to me the status of 'nothing left to bother arguing about'. Without rival nation-states competing with each other, we will have only one state to smother us all. That's where "political stability" always leads to.

On the whole, I'd prefer a bit of instability here and there, and a few competing nation-states. Sure they are dangerous, but a whole lot dangerous to my liberty than one big monopoly state providing "Microsoft" like "stability". Don't forget that one of the many justifications for the invasion of Iraq was to produce "stability" in the Middle East.

I cannot separate the idea of "political stability" with that of the absolute tyranny of total majority across the planet and seeing this as a fearsome thing. One "politically stable" government would be our worst Orwellian bureaucratic nightmare.

These historians are not necessarily "nationalist" - Christian Jacq for example is specialised on Ancient Egypt. His most famous books are about the Ramses and 40 million copies were sold worldwide. He is on the one hand a very serious egyptologist, scientist and researcher and on the other hand he writes about the love affairs of the pharaons ...
Duly noted for the correction. I'm not familiar with that historian and assumed from the context of your usage that he was of the 'flatter the national history' type of historian that is usually so popular in every nation.

However, I might poke a bit here and suggest that Ancient Egypt holds a very high level of 'romantic-imperial-colonial-adventurism' for the French due to Napoleon's conquest of it. That is to say, writing anything about Ancient Egypt is generally 'flattering' to a reading of French 'nationalist' history by definition.

This is an age old cliche but basically what I've always thought to be true and should never be discarded in any discussion regarding historical events.

History is written by the victors, to cover up their crimes and to promote/justify their views of the world.

That is not to say it's all bullshit, but the majority of it is. The defeated or the victims rarely gets a say in history until very recent, where information propagate much easier due to technological avances, and even that, you have to look close and hard to hear what they have to say.

To give you an exmaple, the proxy wars waged in Nicaragua and El Salvador under Reagan admin. is regarded by the Pentagon and termed by many historians as "low intensity warfare", and by some "proxy wars" to "contain" the Soviet Union. Well, if you were a Nicaraguan or El Salvadorian during that period, you probabily have a very high intensity of suffering, in very non-proxy and direct ways, having your babies dragged behind a motorcycle to death in front of you, and then your genitalia removed, shoved in your mouth while you are left impaled on sticks to decorate the countrysides with your fellow villager. And that, is what actually happened.
Yes, I did note that history is almost always written by the victors in the OP. That's an important point to always keep in mind on this topic.

As for the issue of technology, that's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I think the 'fluidity' of electronic imprints is unstable, short-lived and very easy to manipulate. As Dominick noted above, old stone tablets and moldy manuscripts have a certain 'physical' property about them that cannot be
denied. Electronic records are whatever you want them to be. Actual 'historical facts' (whatever they are) can be maniplated by political oration, advertising campaigns and public relations messages - even without actually physically altering 'the record'.

On the other hand, the proliferation of information and the growth in our information distribution model (i.e. the internet) is very encouraging and suggests that the efforts of the powerful to control their messages will not be enough to control ALL messages.

That is to say, the distribution of electronic communications technologies may favor the powerful and increasingly autocratic governments, but these same technologies also favor and empower opposition to the same. Only time will tell.

The nature of information is becoming much more volatile than it used to be in ancient civilizations. It's becoming much easier to rewrite history. Contemporary information is just magnetized metallic surfaces. A Babylonian clay tablet can survive several thousand years, a harddisk can't. Not to mention that it would be much more difficult to alter the clay tablet than the info on the harddisk. I could easily change your post to read something different altogether with no trace of any alteration left and it would go down in the Google cache and thus in 'history' as something you would be remembered of having said.
Yes, I agree. But there is so much information available now. You may change my mail and another mail will be found to prove what I was saying etc.
As I see it, it is the tasks of critical historians to find the truth - or let say its many facettes.

I think you are missing the significance of the date sequence here. Fukuyama's essay was 1st published in 1989. 1992 is the year it was re-published in book form. The first real sign of the US 'neocons' is the PNAC letter from 1998...
I wasn't aware of the dates sequence.

I am horrified and deeply fear such a "stable political state".

That seems to me the status of 'nothing left to bother arguing about'. Without rival nation-states competing with each other, we will have only one state to smother us all. That's where "political stability" always leads to.

On the whole, I'd prefer a bit of instability here and there, and a few competing nation-states. Sure they are dangerous, but a whole lot dangerous to my liberty than one big monopoly state providing "Microsoft" like "stability". Don't forget that one of the many justifications for the invasion of Iraq was to produce "stability" in the Middle East.

I cannot separate the idea of "political stability" with that of the absolute tyranny of total majority across the planet and seeing this as a fearsome thing. One "politically stable" government would be our worst Orwellian bureaucratic nightmare.
Well, you have just explained why a "stabel political state" is not possible ..


Duly noted for the correction. I'm not familiar with that historian and assumed from the context of your usage that he was of the 'flatter the national history' type of historian that is usually so popular in every nation.

However, I might poke a bit here and suggest that Ancient Egypt holds a very high level of 'romantic-imperial-colonial-adventurism' for the French due to Napoleon's conquest of it. That is to say, writing anything about Ancient Egypt is generally 'flattering' to a reading of French 'nationalist' history by definition.
Readers like to be flattered but I don't think this is what they are looking for here. I think what they are interested is the daily life and routine, love affairs rather than wars and political conflicts, the kind of stuff you learn at school.

Reg. your second point, yes in any case, it is quite clear that Napoleon's conquest was the starting point of a very high interest in Egyptology and Egypt altogether.