Why Do Historians So Often Differ?
Early in the twentieth century, when the professional study of history was still rela- tively new, many historians believed that questions about the past could be answered with the same certainty and precision as questions in more-scientific fields. By sift- ing through available records, using precise methods of research and analysis, and pro- ducing careful, closely argued accounts of the past, they believed they could create definitive histories that would survive with- out controversy. Scholars who adhered to this view believed that real knowledge can be derived only from direct, scientific ob- servation of clear “fact.” They were known as “positivists.”
A vigorous debate continues to this day over whether historical research can ever be truly objective. Almost no historian any longer accepts the positivist claim that his- tory could ever be an exact science. Dis- agreement about the past is, in fact, at the heart of the effort to understand history. Critics of contemporary historical scholar- ship often denounce the way historians are constantly revising earlier interpretations. Some denounce the act of interpretation itself. History, they claim, is “what hap- pened,” and historians should “stick to the facts.”
Historians, however, continue to differ with one another both because the facts are seldom as straightforward as their critics claim and because facts by themselves mean almost nothing without an effort to assign meaning to them. Some historical facts, of course, are not in dispute. Every- one agrees, for example, that the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and that Abraham Lincoln was elected pres- ident in 1860. But many other facts are much harder to determine—among them, for example, the question of how large the American population was before the arrival of Columbus, or how many slaves resisted slavery. This sounds like a reasonably straightforward question, but it is almost impossible to answer with any certainty— because the records of slave resistance are spotty and the definition of “resistance” is a matter of considerable dispute.
Even when a set of facts is clear and straightforward, historians disagree— sometimes quite radically—over what they mean. Those disagreements can be the re- sult of political and ideological disagree- ments. Some of the most vigorous debates in recent decades have been between schol- ars who believe that economic interests and class divisions are the key to understanding the past, and those who believe that ideas and culture are at least as important as material interests. Debates can also occur over differences in methodology—between those who believe that quantitative studies can answer important historical questions and those who believe that other methods come closer to the truth.
Most of all, historical interpretation changes in response to the time in which it is written. Historians may strive to be ob- jective in their work, but no one can be entirely free from the assumptions and po- litical concerns of the present. In the 1950s, the omnipresent shadow of the Cold War shaped histories of Communist countries
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Not all aspects of the exchange were disastrous to the Indians. The Europeans intro- duced important new crops (among them sugar and bananas), domestic livestock (cattle, pigs, and sheep), and, perhaps most significantly, the horse, which gradually became central to the lives of many native peoples and transformed their societies. Less beneficially, the transfer of European grass seed and the grazing and feeding habits of European animals devastated local flora.
The exchange was at least as important (and more advantageous) to the Europeans. In both North and South America, the arriving white peoples learned from the natives new agricultural techniques appropriate to the demands of the new land. They discovered new crops—above all maize (corn), which Columbus took back to Europe from his first trip to America. Such foods as squash, pumpkins, beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes also found their way into European diets.