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Good points. I wish to further address the "feel" issue. You are correct that it is an emotional component, but things cannot be understood completely by assuming all is rational. Take for example the launch of Sputnik in 1957. The historian knows that it was a successful launch, knows that it triggered a huge response along with a fear that the Soviets had gotten ahead of us. But does the historian (born after the events) grasp just how hysterical things got? That even though Sputnik was a basketball sized sphere with a few communication tools aboard, and that it was a long way away from offering any sort of threat to the US, the American response was one which suggested that at any moment we were going to be bombarded from space by untouchable orbiting weapon systems?
Or go back a few years earlier and view the McCarthy era. In the aftermath we have the advantage of knowing that McCarthy's imagined threats were just that....imaginary. But do we understand the mentality of the people who took him seriously?
The recent documentary on Vietnam was this odd sense of history and memories which are sitting and waiting to be revisited. There is enough time, and generations who did not grow up with it on the tv over dinner, and it would be interesting to see how different the younger generation viewed it over their parents.
It had this odd disconnect to me. There were the things which immediately drew the memories of 'them', those other Americans who didn't believe as you did, who were *WRONG*. It was strange to see it as history. It took me back to my personal memories of how we learned of an event, and how we reacted, and how it added to the trove of emotion we held. It was extremely interesting to hear the historical view, with everything we know now but didn't know then. But it felt distant, and odd. The only way I could define the overview was to 'step away' and generalize. I can put into words what the 'other side' believed, but cannot let go the feelings which come with the emotions of what come back as if it was yesterday.
That's why history can't be defined until there is a distance. All the big and little points need time to fit into the matrix. The bigger picture comes into view. There was anger. There was blame. It mattered, and helped make things turn out as they did. But if you were among those in the storm, you don't see past it until you move beyond.
Today, we can look at WW2, and dispassionately discuss why horrific things came to be and question if someone's action would have changed it, but back in 1944, when the world found some of them, it mattered more that it had been over why.
Someday, the generations now here will be viewed from only the records of their choices, and seen through the point of view of those who know more, and the whole story will be unfolded. But it won't change how it came to be. Or who made it out alive, or broken. Or what moments changed everything.
When we can see present as passed, or passed as events and the choices of people, then the old can be allowed to be a few words on a page and we can move on.
Someday, the generations now here will be viewed from only the records of their choices, and seen through the point of view of those who know more, and the whole story will be unfolded. But it won't change how it came to be. Or who made it out alive, or broken. Or what moments changed everything.
When we can see present as passed, or passed as events and the choices of people, then the old can be allowed to be a few words on a page and we can move on.
Thoughtful post.
From the Soviet shootdown of the Powers U-2 spyflight in May of 1960, through the end of the Cuban Missile crisis in October of '62, never did the possibility of the Cold war turning hot seem greater. This was the age of the craze for backyard fallout shelters and duck and cover practice in the classrooms. I suspect that all this seems quaint, eccentric and foolish to those born after these years who know of it only through documentation. How absurdly naive it was may be captured somewhat by watching the documentary "The Atomic Cafe" which contains many public service advisories regarding how to survive an atomic exchange. It was almost as if the government was trying to persuade us that an atomic war wouldn't be all that bad.
There was one family on my block which went for the shelter idea and had an underground bunker dug into their backyard with protruding air pipes and a periscope. As a kid I was dying to get a look inside, it sounded really cool, but alas I never did.
I cannot recall a single word ever addressed on the two most obvious drawbacks to the shelters. One was how long a family would have to stay down there in their cramped shelter before radiation levels diminished sufficiently to permit reoccupation. The other was....what was the point in surviving if you were going to emerge in a vaporized city with your means for making a living gone, everyone you knew gone, the government gone etc. You are alive but civilization is dead...you ready for that world?
The magazines of that era quite frequently featured illustrated articles about building your own fallout shelter. I especially like this one which depicts a hopeful Dad poking his head out the door to check on the post apocalypse environment. Everything looks intact and untouched.
From the Soviet shootdown of the Powers U-2 spyflight in May of 1960, through the end of the Cuban Missile crisis in October of '62, never did the possibility of the Cold war turning hot seem greater. This was the age of the craze for backyard fallout shelters and duck and cover practice in the classrooms. I suspect that all this seems quaint, eccentric and foolish to those born after these years who know of it only through documentation. How absurdly naive it was may be captured somewhat by watching the documentary "The Atomic Cafe" which contains many public service advisories regarding how to survive an atomic exchange. It was almost as if the government was trying to persuade us that an atomic war wouldn't be all that bad.
There was one family on my block which went for the shelter idea and had an underground bunker dug into their backyard with protruding air pipes and a periscope. As a kid I was dying to get a look inside, it sounded really cool, but alas I never did.
I cannot recall a single word ever addressed on the two most obvious drawbacks to the shelters. One was how long a family would have to stay down there in their cramped shelter before radiation levels diminished sufficiently to permit reoccupation. The other was....what was the point in surviving if you were going to emerge in a vaporized city with your means for making a living gone, everyone you knew gone, the government gone etc. You are alive but civilization is dead...you ready for that world?
The magazines of that era quite frequently featured illustrated articles about building your own fallout shelter. I especially like this one which depicts a hopeful Dad poking his head out the door to check on the post apocalypse environment. Everything looks intact and untouched.
Remember that Twilight Zone episode where that guy built a bomb shelter and all his neighbors were making fun of him until the air raid sirens went off and then his neighbors were busting down the door of his shelter trying to get in ?
Remember that Twilight Zone episode where that guy built a bomb shelter and all his neighbors were making fun of him until the air raid sirens went off and then his neighbors were busting down the door of his shelter trying to get in ?
The the copyright owner of "The Three Little Pigs" sue for plagiarism?
The Greater Understanding of any historical event have only those who created that historical event. Made it happen. And by far am I not referring to those who say took a rifle and went to........ fill the blank. I am referring to those who manipulated humanity so that that event came to be. those who not only changed history in that sense but, also, changed history as "science" known to men. Adjusted it to suite their needs. Again and again.
To say that historian studying ever changed historical books is to say that one can describe shape of piece of jelly continuously moving it in the palms of his hands into new positions and shapes.
The problem with history is, that even if it is correct in the beginning, it often gets changed over time, so that the events described, would be barely recognizable by those who witnessed them. I've seen several noteworthy things and when I read about them, many years later, some of the dates weren't even correct and some names were misspelled. Some events I've witnessed are totally denied by historians, so I'll take first-hand witness accounts by far, over those of historians. I regard history as a type of fictional literature.
"Events"? Like the Boston Massacre or the Cold War? Are you talking about narrative (descriptive) or interpretative history?
Eye witness accounts of events like the Boston Massacre or labor (police?) riots in the US often conflict or are biased by the inclinations of witnesses. The historian may quote and try to interpret these accounts in a larger context.
The Cold war is not an event. The actors in the Cold War drama also saw it from their points of view and the historian will weave this into the interpretation.
The problem with researching events after they happened is that it all depends on the info a historian gets. Any historian reading (if that will be the word) our newspapers 100 years ago will wonder how in the world Trump got elected, since there are so many negative stories printed about him. What doesn't get into the papers is how desperate people are to grab hold of any promise made by anyone for any reason if there's nothing standing between them and utter failure. How do you manage to get that kind of desperation across in any news story?
But the person who has lived through a significant event may not have a complete understanding of what happened either. Or they may not understand the whole scope of the problem or how the same event affected someone else 2000 miles away in a completely different way.
Somewhere you have to strike a balance between what happened and why and how it affected people. A historian needs to understand that a single event can impact differently on different parts of the world simultaneously, but he can't let the picture get too wide or he risks missing many of the minor details that contribute to why people did what they did in the first place and how they reacted afterwards.
As near as I can figure it, history is the social science of analyzing, and interpreting the past. While people can remember their own past, what they saw, what they did, and how they felt, I would submit that is personal experience and not history. So I would say that, by definition, a trained historian will always have the greater understanding of history.
However, as history is a science, it will always be subject to revision (something which drives some people absolutely bonkers). Historical records are discovered which shed new light upon historical events. New methodologies are invented which expand the tool set for examining the past. People develop new insights into existing information. The events in the past do not change, but our understanding of the past changes.
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