LETTER OF THE MONTH
I enjoyed the focus on theoretical approaches to history in the Conversation pages of the June issue. I found the suggestion made by David Motadel in his piece – that historians now agree that their work is shaped, consciously or otherwise, by their environment – highly convincing. History and the past are not the same: the past encompasses the ‘before now’, and ‘history’ is the accepted methods of analysis needed to understand it.
As the philosopher Richard Rorty argued, humans are unable to detach themselves from their beliefs and existing viewpoints. This is why Motadel’s argument is so convincing. We need to abandon notions of empirical truth: although history as a discipline is governed by a set of rules and conventions, this does not mean that our narratives of the past are objective.
This is why I disagreed with one of the points in the interview with Zareer Masani [a member of History Reclaimed, an online project that aims to tackle what it sees as distortions of the past]. He suggests historians should aim to record things as they were – but in my view, that is not the job of the historian. Every source is a positioned account, as are our narratives of them. Historians focus on aiming to prove a thesis, employing certain narrative devices to achieve this – often a beginning, middle and end – meaning that certain facts are discarded or attributed lesser significance.
I am not suggesting that ‘facts’ do not exist. We know Henry VIII became king in 1509, for instance – but the way in which his reign is described and formed into a narrative by historians will depend on their research aims and objectives.
Jasper Hawkes, West Sussex
We reward the Letter of the Month writer with a copy of a new history book. This issue, that is The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire by David Veevers. You can read our review on page 70
Other views of empire
I read the interview with Zareer Masani with both interest and surprise. It made for fascinating reading. But why the surprise? Primarily because the views expressed are so very much the opposite of those that are frequently expressed in your pages. To give an example: “The British Raj… maintained the aims of clemency, kindness and equal treatment for all subjects.”
I am astonished you dared to print such a non-woke opinion – but in my experience, Masani is not alone. When I was in India some 20 years ago, I fell into conversation with an
