E.H.

Carr - Notes
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E.H. Carr - Notes

E.H. Carr – What is History? 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 emphasis was 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 the empiricist 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 what
separates it from ordinary facts of the past.

That Caesar crossed the -u!icon is treated as a historica

fact, !ut that hundreds of thousands of peope crossed it
!efore him and ha#e !een crossin* it since is not.

Therefore, an element of interpretation enters into every

fact of history.

The historian is necessarily selective

. %The !eief in a hard core of historica facts existin*

o!"ecti#ey and independenty of the interpretation of the
historian is a preposterous faacy, !ut one 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 a tiny *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 thenian citi3en4 !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, not so much by accident as by people who were
consciously or unconsciously imbued with a particular
view and thought 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, not factual 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.& He says+

“the facts, whether found in documents or not, have still

to be processed by the historian before he can mae use
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 documents do not te us what
happened !ut

what the author

thought
 had happened, or what he wanted others to thin. #t is he
himself 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 the present 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*ues that the phiosophy of history is
concerned neither with

'the past by itself’, nor with the historian’s thought about

it by itself’, but with 'the two things in their mutual
relations.’
This dictum refects the two current meanin*s of the
word (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 is studying.’

The reconstitution of the past in the historian7s mind is

dependent on empirica e#idence.

*ut it is not in itself 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
of ma'in* it.& 5ome important concusions eadin* from
this are+
+The facts of history never come to us 'pure’ since they
do not and cannot e&ist in a pure form. They are always
refracted through the mind of the recorder. The first
concern therefore should not be with the facts but the
historian who writes them

. Tre#eyan4 i!!on/

-The historian needs to have an imaginative

understanding for the minds of the people with whom he
is dealing, for the thought behind their acts. He must
achieve some ind of contact with the mind of those
about whom he is writing

/e can view the past and achieve our understanding of

the past only through the eyes of the present. The
historian is of his own age, and is bound to it by the
conditions of human e&istence. The very words he uses
0 words lie democracy, empire, war, revolution 0 have
current connotations from which he cannot divorce them.
The function of the historian is neither to love the past or
to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and
understand it as the ey to the understanding of the
present.

2n the other hand, some of the dan*ers are+

+
This is tota scepticism, at the other end of the spectrum
from those who !eie#e in the pure o!"ecti#e truth.

#t doesnot follow that, because interpretation plays a

necessary part in establishing the facts of history, and
because no e&isting interpretation is wholly ob!ective,
one interpretation is as good as another, and the facts of
history are in principle not amenable to ob!ective
interpretation

– history not spun out of the human !rain. 8ery

important – criti$ue of 9en'ins/.

-

If the historian necessariy oo's at his period of history

throu*h the eyes of his own time, and studies the pro!
emsof the past as a 'ey to those of the present

, will he not fall into a purely pragmatic view of the

facts, and maintain that the criterion of a right
interpretation is its suitability to some present purpose%

The soution Carr proposes is a midde *round !etween

facts and interpretation+

The historian must see to bring into the picture all

nown or nowable facts relevant, in one sense or
another, to the theme on which he is engagedand to the
interpretation proposed.
 The historian starts with a pro#isiona seection of facts,
and a pro#isiona interpretation in the i*ht of which that
seection has !een made – !y others as we as himsef. s
he wor's, !oth the interpretation and the seection and
orderin* of facts under*o su!te and perhaps party
unconscious chan*es throu*h the reciproca action of one
or the other. nd this reciproca action aso in#o#es
reciprocity !etween present and past, since the historian
is part of the present and the facts !eon* to the past. The
historian and the facts of history are necessary to one
another. The historian without his facts is rootess, the
facts without their historian are dead and
meanin*ess. Carr ends !y proposin* a new definition of
history+

“History is a continuous process of interaction between

the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between
the present and the past.”

Chapter : – 5ociety and the Indi#idua Carr aims to find

out how far are historians sin*e indi#iduas and how far
products of their society and their period, and how fare
are the facts of history facts a!out sin*e indi#iduas and
how far socia facts. This is !ecause

every humanbeing at every stage of history or pre)history

is born into a society and from his earliest years is
moulded by that society.

The an*ua*e which he spea's is not an indi#idua

inheritance !ut a socia ac$uisition from the *roup in
which he *rows up. 0oth an*ua*e and en#ironment hep
to determine the character of his thou*ht4 his eariest
ideas come to him from others.

The historian is an individual human being. 1ie other

individuals, he is also a social phenomenon, both the
product and the conscious or unconscious spoesman of
the society to which he belongs$ it is in this capacity that
he approaches the facts of the historical past.

reat history is written precisey when the historian7s

#ision of the past is iuminated !y insi*hts into the pro!
ems of the present. 6rocession/ ccordin* to Carr, you
cannot fuy understand or appreciate the wor' of the
historian uness

you have first grasped the standpoint from which he

himself approached

it4 that standpoint is itsef rooted in a socia and

historica !ac'*round.

The historian, before he begins to write history, is a

product of history. 2
rote7s History of reece, ;ommsen7s History of -
ome/ For exampe, in the nineteenth century, 0ritish
historians with scarcey an exception

regarded the course of history as a demonstration of the

principle of progress

+ they expressed the ideoo*y of a society in a condition

of remar'a!e rapid pro*ress. History was fu of
meanin* for the 0ritish historians, so on* as it seemed to
!e *oin* our way4 now that it has ta'en a wron* turnin*,
!eief in the meanin* of history has !ecome a heresy. fter
the First Word War,

Toynbee made a desperate attempt to replace a linear

view of history by a cyclical theory

– the characteristic ideoo*y of a society in decine.

5ince Toyn!ee7s faiure, 0ritish historians ha#e for the
most part !een content to throw in their hands and
decare that

there is no general pattern at all

. Therefore, the thou*h of historians, as of other human

!ein*s, is mouded !y the en#ironment of the time and
pace.

Carr goes on to add that it is the historian who is most

conscious of his own situation is also more capable of
transcending it, and more capable of appreciating the
essential nature of the differences between his own
society and the outloo and those of other periods and
other countries, than the historian who loudly protests
that he is an individual and not a social phenomenon. 2

8ery important – method of achie#in* o!"ecti#ity/.

Furthermore, re*ardin* history itsef, the facts of history
are facts a!out indi#iduas, !ut not a!out actions of
indi#iduas performed in isoation, and not a!out the
moti#es, rea or ima*inary, from which indi#iduas
suppose themse#es to ha#e acted.

They are facts about the relations of individuals to one

another in society and about the social forces which
produce from the actions of individuals results often at
variance with, and sometimes opposite to, the results
which they themselves intended.

-e*ardin* the %*reat men&, or the outstandin*

indi#iduas of each historica period, Carr says that they
too are products of their society,

and it is a mistae to see them outside history, and

imposing themselves on history in virtue of their
greatness

. He $uotes He*e+ %The *reat man of the a*e is the one

who can put into words the wi of his a*e, te his a*e
what its wi is, and accompish it. What he does is the
heart and essence of his a*e. He actuaises his a*e.& Carr
ends !y sayin*+ %History then, in !oth senses of the
word – meanin* !oth the in$uiry conducted !y the
historian and the facts of the past into which he in$uires
–

is a social process, in which individuals are engaged as

social beings$ and the imaginary antithesis between
society and the individual is no more than a red herring
drawn across our path to confuse our thining. The
reciprocal process of interaction between the historian
and his facts, the dialogue between the present and past,
is a dialogue not between abstract and isolated
individuals, but between the society of today and the
society of yesterday. To enable man to understand the
society of the past, andto increase his mastery over the
society of the present, is the dual function of history.”

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Notes