History is the Pursuit of Truth: Why Accuracy Matters

Sitka in 1935, from the collection of the Sitka Historical Society.

The Alaska Historical Society recently endorsed the History Relevance Campaign’s seven-point statement of the Value of History, which can be found on line at HistoryRelevance.com.

The “seven ways it is essential” are to ourselves, as a source of personal identity, and for teaching critical skills; to our communities, for creating vital places to live and work and as a catalyst for economic growth; to our future, for engaging citizens, inspiring leaders, and for preserving the legacy of American democracy.

Recently I’ve read or listened to pieces purporting to be history that were not quite accurate. This is irritating because it does take time and effort to check facts, and here folks are getting away with being sloppy. Then I realized that that little matter of accuracy is what makes history so essential.

History is the pursuit of truth, a fundamental American value. We don’t study history just because it’s good stories, or just because we might discover a remarkable ancestor – but because we believe there is something to be gained in striving to understand our actual world.

Pursuing the truth, even when it is uncomfortable, even when we see our ancestors behaving badly, is the difference between history, and nostalgia. (Not that there’s anything wrong with nostalgia!)

As we pursue the truth about what happened in the past and what it means, we debate interpretations, and which facts are most significant, and the various, sometimes competing, narratives arising from one place and time: these debates define who we are, now. It would all be pointless without evaluating evidence and applying reason.

History also depends on insights from the humanities, and into human nature. In turn, history is essential for understanding society, politics, conflict, economics, even our physical impact on the planet.

And of course, the habit of looking at evidence and applying knowledge and reason is essential to democracy. So let’s not be shy about promoting the importance of history to our lives. History is cool. And a lot of fun.