評論
打印
History, which seemed to be a cut-and-dried matter of memorizing "facts," now becomes a matter of choosing one good interpretation from among many. Historical truth becomes a matter of personal preference.
歷史在過去似乎被認(rèn)為只是普通地記憶“事實”，而現(xiàn)在卻成為要從許多解釋中挑選出一個理想解釋的過程。歷史真相變成了一樁由個人喜好所決定的事情。
This position is hardly satisfying. They cannot help but feel that two diametrically opposed points of view about an event cannot both be right; yet they lack the ability to decide between them.
這種看法幾乎無法令人滿意。學(xué)生們禁不住會覺得，就同一個歷史事件的兩種截然不同的觀點(diǎn)不可能都正確；然而，他們?nèi)狈闹凶鞒鋈∩岬哪芰Α?/div>
To understand why historians disagree, students must consider a problem they have more or less taken for granted. They must ask themselves what history really is.
要理解歷史學(xué)家們?yōu)槭裁匆庖婂漠悾瑢W(xué)生們必須考慮一個他們或多或少視為理所當(dāng)然的問題。他們必須問自己歷史究竟是什么。
In its broadest sense, history denotes the whole of the human past. More restricted is the notion that history is the recorded past, that is, that part of human life which has left some sort of record such as folk tales, artifacts, or written documents. Finally, history may be defined as that which historians write about the past. Of course the three meanings are related. Historians must base their accounts on the remains of the past, left by people. Obviously they cannot know everything for the simple reason that not every event, every happening, was fully and completely recorded. Therefore the historian can only approximate history at best. No one can ever claim to have concluded the quest.
從廣義來說，歷史是指人類過去的全部。比較狹義的概念是，歷史是被記錄下來的過去，即留下了某種記錄的人類生活的一部分，如民間故事、手工制品或有文字記載的文獻(xiàn)等。最后，歷史也可以被定義為歷史學(xué)家們所撰寫的有關(guān)過去的資料。當(dāng)然，三種意思是相互關(guān)聯(lián)的。歷史學(xué)家們必須將他們對歷史的敘述建立在前人的遺留物上。很顯然，他們不可能對過去一切都了解得非常清楚，原因很簡單，即并非過去的每一件大小事情都有詳細(xì)全面的記錄。因此，歷史學(xué)家們至多只能接近歷史。還沒有哪個人敢說自己已完成了這項探索。
But this does not say enough. If historians cannot know everything because not everything was recorded, neither do they use all the records that are available to them.
但這種說法還不全面。如果說歷史學(xué)家是因為記載不全面而不能對歷史做全面了解的話，他們也沒能有效地利用他們所能得到的所有記錄。
