I then read around the subject and often go back to the sources the author used and eventually form my own opinion. These days I will share it online and have it shot down or applauded – or both. In due course I read more and adjust my original perspective which is fluid. The origins of the First World War, Haig and Passchendaele are points of interest – also all factual and fictional interpretations on TV … and RFC/RAF flight training (because that was part of my grandfather’s story).
I feel the same. When I do research I find so many different perspectives on historical events that my own conclusions, or what I interpret from the information, can also be very fluid. I try to keep in mind who has recorded the particular account I’m looking at, and what their motive is for giving it. It can be very difficult to see all sides and stay impartial. Can you imagine trying to research the events we are living through today, a hundred years from now? I wonder what kind of manipulation of recorded history will be taking place then.
Evwrything is interpretstion, and not just history … think how at the extreme end politicians, journalists, barristers and even witnesses ‘interpret’ their experience.
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