More to History

I talked with a few intellectual friends of mine about what I read in the course packet about Fasolt and history. They were very open to the new found knowledge about history and Fasolt’s view on it. So, what is history? Well, I will quote what history isn’t according to Fasolt. He states that to study history, is to not “take a stand, to stake a claim, and oppose real enemies (Fasolt, 31). History is more than that. More than taking a side and making your point. Also, towards the beginning of the book, Fasolt distinguishes the past, which is history, and the present, which is now. There is no fine line that can distinguish it because the present becomes the past and the past was once the present. Fasolt utilized the term immutable for history. However, I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, that Fasolt believes history is more than immutable. On page 16, he states, “the pursuit of objectivity is only half the point. Historians who miss the other half mistake the meaning of their work. They exclude the unrecordable from recognition and cut the past in two: one documented, known, and dead; the other undocumented, unknown, and undead. History then concerns itself only with the past abroad and scorns the past at home-the home from where historians take off, leaving behind what they need the most for history to flourish: knowledge of self.” To me this quote is very powerful. It tells the other side of the story of which few historians do when they write about or study history. History is not just the dead and gone, it is also the here and now that can be studied. I believe most of us, including most of my colleagues, have been brought up to understand history and study it the wrong and biased way. In reference back to Loewen, he wrote about how biased the school textbooks are and how it is so narrow minded. Historians have also been narrow minded in the sense that they refer back to the past by physical evidence. There’s a passage from Fasolt that I really liked because I can apply it to history as well as my life. On page 32, “It never occurs to us that no one can possibly know where they came from, much less where they are going, unless they know already where they are. Whoever is familiar with the experience of getting lost in a strange place knows that a map is useless unless you know where on the map you are. Yet where it comes to history, we think that all we need is better maps.” This is how I think history should be viewed from. The lens of a person or evidence of the present now. Start where we are now and go back step by step to the past of history.