What Is History? Book Review Of Edward Hallett Carr

History is something we live with everyday. It happens every second in every part of the world. It's been happening for centuries. Even before man embark on writing it down. History is and every changing chain of events and fact that have been spread over time. But how do historians write history. How do they know what really happened at that time. How do they find the correct facts and put them in a book or compare them to the time they are studying. In Edward Hallatt Carr's book, What is history? He attempts to answer this question, by explaining how historians come by their fact, how they see it as individuals, he compares it to science, the causes, as a process, and as a growing field. Which Carr's purpose is to expose the correct what to writing and understanding history for one who wants to become a historian.

Carr understands history because he is a historian himself. He is confident in his field of study. He reminds u that when answering the question what is history? We tend to interpret it from where we stand at the present time. Also how our society works effects that question, and to him because he understands this subject the question seems so vast and broad. Because there is no true history, it's all based on interpretation.

The main points of the book have been stretched out over six chapters. Some chapters more important then the other but none the less had some type of point made in each. In chapter one Carr points out what history is. That history is nothing but facts. First get the fact right then get to interpreting them. Just have to remember that Ð''facts are sacred, opinion free" (7). Another point make is that the facts aren't even in a pure form. They have been reflected in the mind of another person before they have come to you. He also pointed out that a historian's work cannot be written with out understanding the mind and time in which it came from. And that to understand the past we must also understand the future. By the end of chapter one he answers the question "What is history? is that it is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past" (35).

The second chapter dealt with the opening idea of what came first the chick or the egg. Which he uses to explain the effects that society has on the individual and how they interpret history. He sees it as a communication between today's society and yesterday's society other then the thoughts of the individual separating historical facts. Chapter three he explains that history is not a science and should not be look at as it. Science has set laws while history dose not. But a way to heal the gap is