Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Isn't the danger of this sort of interpretation that the popular history becomes the de-facto truth, regardless of whether it properly reflects reality?
If a popular history presents the facts in such a way that it feeds the audiences preconceived ideas about how this sort of thing plays out, then this becomes just a process of confirming existing biases in the audience and no longer teaches the audience anything new. (cf. search bubbles on the Internet.)
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Academic history is also interpretation. There is no way for a writer to stand back completely from the material. Contemporaneous reporting and first-person accounts are likewise only snapshots of reality, not the entire story.