What is History by E. H. Carr. London: Penguin Group, Second Edition 1987.

Pp 188,
$5.99.
ISBN: 0-14-013584-7. ( Ialic letter)

Edward Hallett Carr was born in 1892. He joined the Foreign Office in 1916 and
worked there in many roles until 1936 when he became Woodrow Wilson Professor of
International Politics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. After the
war he became a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford and then of Trinity College,
Cambridge. His major work was the 14-volume A History of Soviet Russia (published
1950-78). What Is History? is based on his Trevelyan Lectures, delivered in 1961.
He died in 19

Not only our most distinguished historian but also one of the most valuable
contributors to historical theory' Spectator In answering the question, 'what is
history?', E. H. Carr's acclaimed and influential bestseller shows that the facts
of history are simply those which the historian selects for scrutiny. His fluent
and hugely wide-ranging account of the nature of history and the role of the
historian argues that all history is to some degree subjective, written by
individuals who are above all people of their own time. 'Lively and controversial,
full of wit and humour, E. H. Carr's What Is History? played a central role in the
historiographical revolution in the 1960s' Richard J. Evans With an introduction by
Richard J. Evans, author of the Third Reich trilogy.

Chapter 1 – The Historian and His Facts In the first chapter, Carr examines whether
a neutra, o!"ecti#e account of history is possi!e. He first tes us that
the$uestion %what is history?& has !een answered in different ways o#er the years.
In the nineteenth century, the emphasiswas on
collecting facts
and then
drawing conclusions
from them. This was 'nown as the (
empiricist tradition.’
%Facts, i'e sense)impressions, impin*e on the o!ser#er from outside and are
independent of his consciousness. The process of reception is passi#e+ ha#in*
recei#ed the data, he then acts on them.&Carr ar*ues that this way of oo'in* at
history is faacious. What exacty is a historica fact? ccordin* to
theempiricist tradition, there are %certain !asic facts which are the same for
a historians and form the !ac'!one of history.&
However, Carr says it is that which the historian, from his point of view,
considers important, and this is whatseparates it from ordinary facts of the past.
That Caesar crossed the -u!icon is treated as a historica fact, !ut thathundreds
of thousands of peope crossed it !efore him and ha#e !een crossin* it since is
not.
Therefore, an element ofinterpretation enters into every fact of history.

The historian is necessarily selective

. %The !eief in a hard core ofhistorica facts existin* o!"ecti#ey and
independenty of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous faacy, !
utone which it is #ery hard to eradicate.& What is the criterion which
distin*uishes the facts if history from other facts a!out the past? That it
infuenced thei#es of so many peope/. 0a'er)mo! exampe. Carr then *i#es the
exampe of ancient reece. %2ur picture of reece in the fifth century 0C is
defecti#e not primariy !ecause so many of the !its ha#e !een accidentay ost,
!ut !ecause it is, !y and ar*e, the picture formed !y atiny *roup of peope in
the city of thens. We 'now a ot a!out what fifth century reece oo'ed i'e to an
thenianciti3en4 !ut hardy anythin* a!out what it oo'ed i'e to a 5partan, a
Corinthian, or a The!an – not to mention a 6ersian,or a sa#e, or other
non)citi3en residents in thens.
Our picture has been preselected and predetermined for us, notso much by accident
as by people who were consciously or unconsciously imbued with a particular view
andthought the facts which supported that view worth preserving.”
In the words of 6rofessor 0arracou*h+
“The history we read, though based on facts, is strictly speaing, notfactual at
all, but a series of accepted !udgments.”

Carr is e$uay critica of %the fetishism of documents&, which went hand)in)hand

with the %fetishism of facts.& Hesays+
“the facts, whether found in documents or not, have still to be processed by the
historian before he can maeuse of them" the use he maes of them is, if # may
put it that way, the processing process.”
nd e#en the documents,as he expains in a tein* exampe, re#ea ony one
perspecti#e, one point of #iew. 5tresseman exampe – the documentsdo not te us
what happened !ut
what the author
thought
had happened, or what he wanted others to thin. #t is hehimself who starts the
process of selection.
This #iew of history can !e summed up in the words of -an'e+ %simpy to show how
it reay was.& The nineteenth century conception of history was chaen*ed !y
the Itaian historian Croce, accordin* to whom+ %history is contemporary
history&,
meaning that history consists essentially in seeing the past through the eyes of
thepresent and in the light of its problems, and that the main wor of the
historian is not to record, but to evaluate$for, if he does not evaluate, how can
he now what is worth recording%
In this he was supported !y Car 0ec'er, whosaid+
“the facts of history do not e&ist for any historian until he creates them.”
Carr *oes on to descri!e the #iews of Coin*wood, another proponent of this
schoo of thou*ht. Coin*wood ar*uesthat the phiosophy of history is concerned
neither with
'the past by itself’, nor with the historian’s thought about itby itself’, but with
'the two things in their mutual relations.’
This dictum refects the two current meanin*s of theword (history7 –
the in(uiry conducted by the historian and the series of past events into which he
in(uires
. The past which a historian studies is not a dead past, !ut a past which in some
sense is sti i#in* in the present. 0ut a past actis dead, i.e. meanin*ess to
the historian uness he can understand the thou*ht that ay !ehind it.
Hence, all history is thehistory of thought, and 'history is the re)enactment in
the historian’s mind of the thought whose history he isstudying.’
The reconstitution of the past in the historian7s mind is dependent on empirica
e#idence.
*ut it is not initself an empirical process, and cannot consist in a mere recital
of facts.
 2n the contrary, the process of reconstitution*o#erns the seection and
interpretation of the facts+ this indeed ma'es them historica facts.& ccordin*
to 2a'eshott+%History is the historian7s experience. It is %made& !y no!ody sa#e
the historian to write history is the ony way ofma'in* it.&5ome important
concusions eadin* from this are