In a message dated 01-02-23 15:34:04 EST, Vincent wrote:

<< The historian's job is to "make up something that sounds reasonable," since
 we can never be in the mind of the person whose history we interpret.
 However, the irresponsible historian says this is the way it was.
 The responsible historian says this is a possible or likely way it could
 have been. >>

This made me wince.  Sometimes a responsible historian has to say "we don't
know" or "we have no idea" what happened or how or why something happened
that we're 99% sure did happen.  Making up something that "sounds reasonable"
is asking for trouble.  While history requires interpretation and theories,
the notion of making something up grossly overstates and misrepresents what
historians do.  Nor is it necessarily irresponsible to say "this is the way
it was" because sometimes we have pretty incontrovertible evidence about what
happened.  One of the favorite devices of Holocaust-denial is to say that it
didn't "happen" because it doesn't "sound reasonable".

Much of history, it is true, is speculative, but certainly not all of it.
There is such a thing as historical evidence.  Historical evidence can be
studied and interpreted, and one of the most important functions of museums
(their raison d'etre, in my opinion, but I don't want to start another
argument about that) is to preserve such evidence.

David Haberstich

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