Let’s go back to the 1600’s. Stuff happened. How do we know this stuff happened – the way people dressed, ate, acted? Is it a collective of surviving evidence gathered from the time? How do we know that written statements from the time period weren’t bullshit? Do we just agree that we can form a general picture of what happened in the past from the surviving evidence?
(1600s used as an example, this applies to general history. I assume things get more questionable the further you go back)
Thank you for indulging a historically-challenged idiot who’s had a few whiskeys.
In: Other
You don‘t. There is a „best approximation“ but historically accurate is never 100%, not even close.
Humans are not good historians. We tend to storify history and to interpret intent according to our own mindset.
Example: the outbreak of WW1 is well documented. But even there, historians still have major differences.
Latest Answers