I'd just like to try and clarify a couple of points that seem to have
been overlooked by an unfortunate choice of phrasing on my part and some
misinterpretation and misrepresentation of my position by others.
 
I did *not* claim that historians are "artists."  I did say that most
historians consider their profession to be a liberal art, rather than a
social science.  I understand how one could take this statement and
conclude that I think of historians as artists, but I was speaking of the
discipline, not the practitioner.  (I might just as easily have said that
history is a humanity, but I've never been able to arrive at a
comfortable definition of that term.  Just what *is* a humanity?)
 
I also *never* said that that historians are "simply telling stories with
no basis in objective reaility."  What I *did* say is that most
historians have rejected the notion that history can present the
"objective truth" about the past.  The vagaries of our evidence, the
emphasis we chose to place on certain pieces of that evidence, the
interpretation we bring to fragmentary records, our choices about when to
start and stop our "story," and our own cultural baggage all influence
the way the history is written (or the story told).  That does *not* mean
that historians do not strive to present as thorough, complete, and
unbiased a picture of the past as we possibly can.  And it does not
mean that there is no truth in our work.  It simply means that
despite our best and most rigorous intentions the past is ultimately
unknowable and foreign to us in the present.  It has always surprised me
that archaeologists, who are forced by the limitations of *their*
data to try and interpret the past through a fragmentary surviving record,
seem to have such a difficult time accepting this position as, at least,
intellectually valid.
 
Thanks for the kind comments, valid insights, and suggested readings.  I
believe I'm through with this topic and will get back to work now.
 
Patrick O'Bannon
Director, Cultural Resources Group
Kise Franks & Straw
Philadelphia, PA
 
[log in to unmask]