Thoughts on something obvious

[shamebear]

Generally, we're more knowledagble about the recent past than the distant past. There's more and better information on the 19th century than the 16th which is in turn better than what we've got on the 9th

Comments

[top_geezer]

"get better at documenting the present, we also get better at documenting the past"?

Are you sure?

Take Iraq, Why exactly was it invaded? At the time it was accussed of being behind terrorist activity in the west. Later on it was to free the Iraq people and restore democracy to them. A host of explanations have been offered by western politicians since and promoted by the media as if the previous exscuses never occoured.

Ask some people who have lived through history wether the media fully represents the truth as it happened back then and has the media changed it's tune over time.

[shamebear]

No I'm not sure, but as zenicurean says, the science of history does not progress in the same way as other sciences. some aspects of WWII for instance, were not properly addressed in norway up until the last ten years, when those involved were dead or too old to hold power anymore. Perhaps our understanding of a past event increases over time and peaks, until it fades away again. Our understanding of WWII could well be at its height now, when a new generation of historians analyze the more uncomfortable aspects of it while living eyewitnesses are also still around.

[top_geezer]

I think the topic you've posted here is a good post and I enjoy discussing it. But the idea that history could be recorded or redited with accuracy as times past just doesn't hold water

[shamebear]

I follow your argument and the slavery debate makes an interesting example. If I recall correctly, Denmark-Norway banned the business of shipping and keeping slaves, not because of ethical reasons, but because the government saw that slave trade was coming to an end in the UK and wanted to prepare its merchants and industry for this shift. There is no mention whatever of slave trade in norwegian school books, though the topic has been covered in the media now and then.

Only thing I don't follow is what you say about the book 'The Black & Tans', which according to Amazon UK, can be shipped from the UK by several vendors.

A new dude

[catalyst123]

This one piqued my interest, as I believe that by looking into the past we may gain insights into the future.

Why must it be alternatively? Yes, a lack of literacy has hampered our attempts to recreate older civilizations, and the farther back we go, the less literacy and the less sophistication in Human communication, so there is less sources for information. At the same time, some of those sources of information are lost to us forever (Book burning springs to mind as one of the worst ways this happens). The sands of time, the ravages of time. We will likely never be able to halt our loss of information sources as we move farther from that time coordinate, but as technology allows us to make inferences from scarcer and scarcer knowledge, then we shall be able to peer back into the past with greater precision and clarity.