Seven Clues to History

Seven Clues to History

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

-          Kurt Vonnegut

All history is interpretation. I was reminded of this in a phone call from Daniel Scavone, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Southern Indiana. He is a well known and highly respected medievalist scholar. Indeed all history is interpretation just as science is. And like science, interpretations change from time to time as new information is discovered, uncovered and recovered. Theories emerge and new theories replace old ones. What is most important is that the historian is as thorough as he can be, completely defining the problem, gathering as much relevant information as possible and verifying it. Then, and then only can he infer a best explanation. In this sense, he is no different than a scientist.

Let’s look again at what I previously called Nickell’s dicey proposition. Nickell’s had said, quite simply that there was no history before the 1350s. Now let’s restate this proposition has a historian might: