Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
How far would you agree with the claim that 'Historical debates are rarely about the "facts" of any particular situation - Instead they revolve around interpretation.' (Carr)
Member rating:
(1 vote)
| Words:
| Submitted: Mon Jun 19 2006
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
How far would you agree with the claim that 'Historical debates are rarely about the "facts" of any particular situation. Instead they revolve around interpretation.' (Carr) This quote arises a seemingly simple question that has sparked a huge furore in contemporary historical thought, what is fact? Recent challenges to the validity and certainty attached to fact has divided the historical community. The vast majority of historians do not dispute that such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall occurred; they simply challenge the embedded opinion and interpretation that has corrupted the actual reality of what really occurred. This postmodern approach to facts is succinctly declared by Jenkins, a leading postmodernist of our age. He accepts the given facts of a situation he simply questions the 'weight, position, combination and significance they carry vis-à-vis each other in the construction of explanations.'1 So if this particular branch of postmodernism embraces the validity...
To see the full version of this document, and 145,328 others
