I have read "What is History" by E.H. Carr and what I've gathered that History can always be a little biased. Since the dawn of history, historical interpretations have always been centered upon the cultural influences on the one who make them. Then again, when was history created? But what we do know is that it is and was man-made, not by any neutral body. Let's take our own country's case after the war in 1971; to Bangladesh the war was the most heartbreaking and glorious chapter in the proud Bengali's lives while to the Pakistanis it would be a completely different thing; they would call this the utmost form of rebel by people they had once had rule on. Carr was well known for his assertions in "What is History?" denying moral judgements in history. He argued that it was ahistorical for the historian to judge people in different times according to the moral values of his or her time. He also said that individuals should be judged only in terms of the values of the historians time and/or place, not by the values of the historians time and/or place. In Carr's opinion, historians should not act as judges. He also depicts that history does not contain every information but the "facts" the historians choose to make use of. In Carr's famous example, he claimed that millions had crossed the Rubicon (a river), but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC is declared noteworthy by historians. In general, Carr held to a deterministic outlook in history.
This item is a great piece of historiography in reading which we start questioning all those history books we read in school. Is any fact we come to know of the past a real fact, or items with prejudice at its core? History is recorded for only those the historians deem to be important. But what is important and who is to decipher this question?
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