What is History?

History allows us to interpret history in various ways. Without the study of past events, we only judge past events in a subjective manner. For example, we might believe that the Second World War was all Germany, Japan and Italy’s fault because they were defeated and therefore we blame them for the loss of lives and destruction of architecture in a city. However, history makes us view these types of historical events in a more subjective way .We look at the cause of the World War II, and analyze why it occurred before making judgments.  

History is something that is often judged subjectively. Even though history usually consists of only facts, different countries and different people look and interpret historical events and findings in different ways. The reason why historians keep on editing and modifying history texts is because history is sometimes influenced by historians’ biases. Thus, subjective elements may change some of the minor events that occurred during an event, and as a result changing people’s view and interpretations towards some historical events. For example, the Chinese and the Japanese have different views towards the rape of Nanjing, partly due to the fact that history books in Japan are modified to such an extent that this part of history was so called “deleted”. Even Japanese officials nowadays still do not admit the occurrence of this part of history and argued that the death tolls are due to military actions only. However, Chinese study the rape of Nanjing as a huge part of their history and argue that it is the Holocaust in the East.

Therefore, I believe history is a study of past events that allows us to look at it in different ways and interpret these past events differently.