How selective is History?
Some of you have heard these quotes:
“History tells the truth, but not the whole truth.”
“History is written by the winners.”
There’s something to each of those statements. So why even try? Why study history?
That’s a question I’ve been pondering, and I’m not really sure I have an answer.
But this I do know: Some topics are so vast that it would be impossible to completely cover them in one book. Take the project I’ve just spent the last five years immersed in, the faith of America’s Presidents. My book is only about 500 pages long. My draft was originally about twice as long, but I spent a year editing it down.
Even with the original draft, given that I am covering every single President, I had to be highly selective.
How much did my bias impact which facts I selected?
I tried to not let it impact me any. I tried to present the evidence indicating that certain Presidents were not Christians as fairly as the evidence that certain other Presidents were Christians.
This will and has gotten me criticism from some who feel that I should have only selected evidence that would seem to indicate that Presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt and John Adams were Christians.
No book can present all the facts. It is the job of a good reviewer–and to an extent, the reader–to carefully judge an author’s book for themselves to determine whether he is presenting the historical evidence accurately.
I can say this much: I did the best with the facts I had to fairly present the facts.