Analysing Historical Interpretations

Not a source that happens to be late

You meet sources first, and then interpretations, and almost everybody makes the same quiet assumption: that an interpretation is basically a source written later. ⚠️⚠️ IT IS NOT, AND THE WHOLE OF THIS OBJECTIVE TURNS ON THE DIFFERENCE. ⭐ A SOURCE WAS PRODUCED IN THE PERIOD YOU ARE STUDYING. A letter, a photograph, a set of minutes. It is evidence OF that time, and it was not made to explain anything to you. ⭐⭐ AN INTERPRETATION WAS CONSTRUCTED ABOUT THE PERIOD, AFTERWARDS, BY SOMEBODY WHO SAT DOWN AND DECIDED WHAT TO PUT IN. A historian's chapter. A museum display. A documentary. Each of them chose a shape, chose what mattered, chose what to leave out, and chose who they were talking to. ⚠️ SO AN INTERPRETATION IS A BUILT THING, AND THAT ONE WORD CHANGES EVERY QUESTION YOU ASK OF IT. Here is what it changes first, and it is the thing students most need to hear. ⚠️⚠️ THE QUESTION IS NEVER WHICH INTERPRETATION IS RIGHT. Two historians can sit in the same archive, read the same documents, and honestly come away with different accounts. Neither has lied. Neither has missed anything. They built different things from the same materials, because building requires decisions and they made different ones. ⭐ YOUR EXAM NEVER ASKS YOU TO CATCH SOMEBODY OUT. IT ASKS HOW AND WHY INTERPRETATIONS DIFFER, AND FOR A JUDGEMENT YOU CAN SUBSTANTIATE. And because they are built, the differences are traceable. Your specification names where they come from. ⭐ WHERE THE AUTHOR STOOD. WHAT THEY MADE IT FOR. WHAT THEY SELECTED FROM THE EVIDENCE. AND WHEN THEY WROTE IT. There is a fifth that is worth adding because it is not a decision at all, and students almost never think of it: what evidence had actually been released or discovered by the time somebody wrote. An account written before a set of records was opened is not careless. It could not have used what did not yet exist. ⭐⭐ CARRY ONE QUESTION THROUGH EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS: WHAT WAS THIS BUILT FROM, AND WHAT WAS IT BUILT FOR? One practical note. Every interpretation you will meet in this module is invented for practice. Real historians are not quoted here, and the skill is the same either way.

Four places a difference enters

Two accounts of the same events can differ for these reasons, and none of them requires anybody to be wrong.

Tap the two that are interpretations

Tap the TWO items that are interpretations rather than sources.

• A chapter written many years later arguing that the dispute had been inevitable
• A museum display built recently to explain the events to visiting families
• The minutes taken at a meeting held during the events themselves
• A letter written at the time by somebody who was present

Same evidence, different account

Two historians work from the same documents and produce accounts that disagree about what mattered most. A student concludes that one of them must have got it wrong. Why is that the wrong conclusion?

• Because an account has to be built, and building means selecting and emphasising, so two people can use the same evidence honestly and still produce different shapes
• Because historians are trained never to disagree with one another
• Because one of them must have had access to more documents
• Because history is all opinion, so accounts cannot be compared at all

Five terms for comparing accounts

Five terms, each defined by what it is. The first two are the distinction this whole objective rests on.

Match each difference to where it came from

Two that follow from honest disagreement

Select the TWO statements that follow from interpretations being built rather than found.

• A difference between two accounts can usually be traced to a specific decision, which is what makes a judgement substantiated rather than asserted
• An account that could not use evidence released after it was written is not careless, since it is not a decision anybody made
• With enough evidence, one interpretation will eventually be shown to be the correct one
• Since all interpretations are constructed, they are all equally good

Answering why two accounts differ

You may already have met the idea that a source's bias is evidence about the person who produced it, rather than a reason to throw it away. ⚠️ INTERPRETATIONS WORK THE SAME WAY AND ARE MARKED UNDER A DIFFERENT OBJECTIVE, SO KNOW WHICH ONE YOU ARE IN. A shape that works on any pair of interpretations. ⭐⭐ SAY WHAT EACH ONE ACTUALLY ARGUES, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, IN ONE SENTENCE EACH. Not what it mentions. What it claims. Most weak answers never do this, and everything afterwards depends on it. THEN NAME THE DIFFERENCE PRECISELY. ⭐ OFTEN IT IS NOT A DISAGREEMENT ABOUT FACTS AT ALL. IT IS A DIFFERENCE IN WHAT THE ACCOUNT SPENDS ITS LENGTH ON, AND SAYING SO IS WORTH MORE THAN HUNTING FOR A CONTRADICTION THAT IS NOT THERE. THEN TRACE IT. Where did the author stand, what was it made for, what did they select, when was it written, and what evidence existed then? One of those usually explains it, and sometimes two. ⭐ THEN JUDGE, AND MAKE THE JUDGEMENT SUBSTANTIATED. Not which you prefer, but which is better supported for the question being asked, and say what supports it. AND SAY WHAT WOULD CHANGE YOUR VIEW. ⭐ A JUDGEMENT WHOSE CONDITIONS YOU CAN STATE IS A REASONED ONE. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS HERE. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS HUNTING FOR THE LIE. Treating the question as a search for whichever author was dishonest produces an answer with nothing in it, because usually neither was. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS THE BIOGRAPHY. ⭐ NOTING THAT AN AUTHOR WAS A HISTORIAN, OR WROTE RECENTLY, AND STOPPING THERE. PROVENANCE ONLY EARNS MARKS WHEN IT IS CONNECTED TO SOMETHING ACTUALLY IN THE ACCOUNT. SAY WHAT IT EXPLAINS. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS TREATING LATER AS BETTER. A later account may have more evidence and a longer view. It may also be further from the people involved, and written for readers with different questions. Later is a fact about it, not a verdict on it. One reassurance. There is rarely a single correct judgement. Two students can prefer different accounts and both score full marks, provided each traces the difference and supports the choice.

Two accounts of one week

Here are two accounts of the same events. Both are invented for practice, and the events are deliberately ordinary: a dispute at a mill that stopped work for about a week and was then settled. ⭐ ACCOUNT A ARGUES THAT THE DISPUTE WAS SETTLED BECAUSE THE OWNER AND THE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN EVENTUALLY MET AND FOUND A COMPROMISE. It describes the negotiations in detail, names the people in the room, and explains how the final terms were reached. ⭐ ACCOUNT B ARGUES THAT THE DISPUTE WAS SETTLED BECAUSE THE WORKERS HELD TOGETHER LONGER THAN ANYBODY EXPECTED. It spends most of its length on how families managed without wages, who helped whom, and why nobody broke ranks. ⚠️⚠️ NOW READ THAT AGAIN AND NOTICE SOMETHING. NEITHER ACCOUNT SAYS ANYTHING THE OTHER DENIES. A does not claim the workers gave in. B does not claim there was no meeting. There is no contradiction anywhere, and a student hunting for one will search the whole passage and find nothing to write. ⭐⭐ THE DIFFERENCE IS ENTIRELY IN WHAT EACH ONE SPENT ITS LENGTH ON, AND THAT IS A DECISION RATHER THAN A DISAGREEMENT. Now trace it, which is where the marks live. ⭐ A WAS WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, DRAWING ON THE COMMITTEE'S OWN RECORDS, WHICH WERE THE MATERIAL AVAILABLE AT THE TIME. Those records are minutes of meetings, so an account built from them will naturally be an account of meetings. ⭐ B WAS WRITTEN MUCH LATER, AFTER A COLLECTION OF FAMILY LETTERS AND DIARIES CAME TO LIGHT. You cannot write about how households coped until you have something that tells you, and for a long time nobody did. ⚠️ SO ONE OF THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THESE TWO ACCOUNTS WAS NOBODY'S CHOICE AT ALL. IT IS ABOUT WHAT EXISTED TO BE READ. And there is a second layer. A was written for readers who wanted to know how such disputes get settled. B was written for readers who had become interested in ordinary lives. Different questions produce different books from overlapping evidence. ⭐⭐ NOW THE JUDGEMENT, AND NOTICE HOW IT IS PHRASED. NOT WHICH ACCOUNT IS TRUE. FOR A QUESTION ABOUT HOW THE SETTLEMENT WAS REACHED, A IS BETTER SUPPORTED, BECAUSE IT IS BUILT FROM THE RECORD OF THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED. FOR A QUESTION ABOUT WHY THE STOPPAGE LASTED AS LONG AS IT DID, B IS BETTER SUPPORTED, FOR EXACTLY THE SAME KIND OF REASON. ⚠️ THE ACCOUNTS DID NOT CHANGE BETWEEN THOSE TWO SENTENCES. THE QUESTION DID.

Order how to take an interpretation apart

Put these six moves into the order that turns two accounts into a substantiated judgement.

• Say what each account actually argues, in your own words, in one sentence each
• Name the difference precisely, including when it is about emphasis rather than fact
• Trace the difference to viewpoint, purpose, selection, time of writing or available evidence
• Connect what you know about each author to something actually in their account
• Judge which is better supported for the particular question being asked
• Say what would have to be different for your judgement to change

Build the sentence that traces a difference

This is the sentence that turns an observation into a substantiated point. Assemble it.

The interpretations run

Five questions on why accounts differ and how to judge them. Three lives.

Complete the interpretation facts

An account of the past constructed afterwards by somebody deciding what to include is an _____. Material produced during the period being studied is a _____. Who produced something, when, and for what purpose is its _____. A conclusion supported by reasons drawn from the material rather than simply asserted is a _____.

Which question is being asked

A student has learned to ask what a piece of writing reveals about the person who produced it. Faced with two modern accounts of the same events, they use that question and score poorly. What should they have asked instead?

• What each account was built from and built for, since an interpretation is a construction about the period rather than evidence produced during it
• Nothing: the same question works equally well on both
• Which of the two accounts is factually true
• Nothing about the authors at all, since only the content matters

Three judgements to substantiate

Three students answer on a pair of invented accounts. Each has noticed something real, and each stops before the marks.

• A student searches both accounts for a contradiction, finds none, and concludes that the two accounts basically agree. What have they missed?
• A student writes that one account is more reliable because its author is a professional historian writing recently, and moves on. How would you improve it?
• A student concludes that the older account is simply out of date because a later one used evidence released after it was written. Is that fair?

Explain why two historians differ

Explain how an interpretation differs from a source, and set out how you would answer a question asking why two accounts of the same events disagree. Use invented examples if it helps; you are explaining the method rather than any particular pair.

• Open by explaining what makes an interpretation different in kind from a source, not merely later
• Explain why two people with the same evidence can honestly produce different accounts
• Name the places a difference can enter: viewpoint, purpose, selection, time of writing, and what evidence existed
• Explain why the last of those is different from the others, since nobody decided it
• Describe how you would state what each account argues, and why doing that first matters
• Explain what makes a judgement substantiated rather than asserted, and give an example of the phrasing
• Finish by explaining why hunting for whichever author was wrong is the wrong approach to this question