What causes contradictory sources of history to create different conclusions?

Answer 1

History sources sometimes contradict each other for a number of reasons.

Listed in random order are the most common reasons for this occurrence. It needs also to be noted that identical sources do not create identical histories .

As an aside this makes it difficult for a "new historian" write about an historical event and/or can confuse both students of history and their professors about what really happened and why it happened:

A. Published histories may later prove to be inaccurate based on the discovery of new evidence. A researcher cannot know that a text book written in 2009, is outdated by a text with new evidence written in 2009. As an example, The New York City Public Library carries over 2,000 books on the ancient Roman empire, with new additions added as frequently as their budget allows;

B. The opinions of historians may affect what they write. As an example, there are two contrasting interpretations with the identical sources regarding the early years of the Soviet Union. Historians with no anti - Soviet biases see the relationship of Leninist doctrine and Soviet behavior differently based on the "facts" of the situation.

Some historians write that following Lenin's death, Stalin, not, welded to total Marxism and the revisions made to it by Lenin, was forced to throw it under the bus (so to speak ) and ran the Soviet Union in a "practical manner" in order to keep it viable.

The contrasting view of, again, unbiased historians, write that the fundamental goals and actions of Soviet policy remained essentially the same as formulated by Lenin.

B1. The exiled and later assassinated Marxist, Leon Trotsky, once head of the Red Army has a third view, based on the factual events he saw.

C. In case B above, the sources of information can said to be the same. But historians do not simply list opinions about Soviet policies. If they did then that list becomes very long. The historian measures the validity of the sources and can, with a clear conscience say that Stalin twisted Leninism to suit his personal goals and here's why... And be able to defend his position;

D. Historians write history based on the same sources but explain why these sources point to a particular point of view. Karl Marx studied the same historical sources that many other historians had in the same time period. Marx writes that history is determined by economics. He presents the facts that led him to this opinion and writes "history". Much of ancient Roman history certainly involves economics, however, most historians do not write that Julius Caesar was assassinated based on economics;

E. Sources are contrasting at some times because one historian receives information from a defeated general's view of the facts that caused the defeat. In contrast to that is the source of the victorious general that has a contrasting view regarding his victory vs the latter general. Case in point:

E1. In the US Civil War, Union General George B. McClellan, Lincoln's top military commander. McClellan graduated near the top of his class at West Point. He was a successful Railroad Company executive before the war. All his plans look great to Lincoln. There is no doubt that McClellan is intelligent and knows about warfare.

McClellan's Peninsula Campaign to capture Richmond looks perfect to him, but it results in a defeat combined with a sloppy retreat. The sources of this event are clear. No major contrasting sources are evident. Yet historians and will write what caused the defeat in contrasting ways.

Lincoln blames McClellan for the defeat and McClellan blames Lincoln among others for it. Democrat newspapers support McClellan, and Republican newspapers blame Lincoln.

History makes little sense unless it explains why things happened. Here an historian has facts to deal with, however, again, listing them will not let the facts speak for themselves. The key question is not "did the Peninsula campaign fail"

It did fail, but what purpose does that make unless the "why it failed" is attempted to be answered, by the historian.

F. At one point historians had the view that they must gather the facts in a thorough and unbiased way and let the facts speak for themselves. Two problems emerged. One was the facts contrasted each other because the sources contrasted each other. This was due to the fact that some sources, such as archeologist findings contrasted ancient written historical documents, and neither of the former two matched verbal histories based on accepted myths;

G. Historians can only use the facts they have and believe to be reliable. Example:

G1. One historian of ancient Rome claims the Caligula left a depleted Roman treasury. Nothing was left. The historian always has "notes" that precede the index of the text. Another historian claims that Caligula's successor, his uncle Claudius, was able to mount an expensive campaign against Britain because of the well managed treasury of Rome that Caligula left. Two contrasting views all based on facts. And, as an aside, the two modern historians mentioned had no "bias" toward either emperor;

G2. Historians must use the reliable sources that are available. If no "hard facts" are available, then soft ones such as myths might be used. Unless this is pointed out by the historian, the writings are of little value. Or use less reliable ones that may have been written by historians over 300 years after the event took place. The contrast here is that whatever the reality was, it is contrasted by using "outdated" historical writings;

H. Sources for historians and their written conclusions should be viewed by testing the facts. This is only logical, however, it presents monumental problems. Unlike scientists, historians cannot perform experiments to verify sources. An historian cannot place the Roman Empire into a test tube, add a specimen of Christianity, and watch whether the empire rises or falls. Historians who tackle "Why did Rome fall" use sources of information, even if these sources are contrasting, some sense of them all will point one way to one historian and another to another historian.

The point here is that there is no way to find out why Rome fell by listing some negative facts that seem to surround the results. If so, then what are the contrasting facts to the question about Rome?

In summary, it's self evident that sources contrast each other. They do because of bias, that's true enough. But the historian already knows that before hand. The job of the historian is to make sense of all of the facts and present an explanation or explanations. If too many are presented, then, we are lost as before the task was undertaken.