Just remeber, many, if not most historians like to claim that history, as a field of study, is objective. But history tells us that history tends to be subjective. Oral history is good because it gives the events a human feel although it may not be entirely accurate. Likewise, official histories are good as well to present unbaised (not always though) facts, but tends to be just that: facts; which, depending on whose reading it may find just the facts dry or exciting.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Seneca
There are actually a variety of schools of thought regarding history's "objectivity" or "subjectivity." I don't have my theory books in front of me, but the "objective" or scientific school of thought is mostly German in origin, while the majority of what were called "post-modern" historians (read from about 1992 or so on) consider history to be subjective in the extreme. Oddly, many of these same people also claim to have the "one true" story in their clutches.
I subscribe to a more balanced theory in that parts of history can be objective, while other parts are certainly subjective and can be examined from a number of perspectives. This calls for a blending of techniques and theories, such as merging oral history with a review of existing records to serve as a basic accuracy check. This means taking the "official history" and combining it with 120mm's recollections and those of others to come up with a more complete picture. Note that I do not say "true" picture, because I don't think that is possible for anyone to accomplish.
All of this has a great deal to do with small wars in that most of them involve a variety of perceptions and often have a great deal of historical background. You need to understand the basics of history so that you can evaluate the information you're given as background. But I may now be straying into Marc's magical relativism plane....
Historical Objectivity
History on my accounting is an understanding of "deeds done." In order to gain this understanding we need to do a whole lot more than look at written records and/or listen to verbal commentary. We can and should also include physical evidence which we gain by visiting (actually, or virtually) the site where the deed was done to collect data as well. (I hope this last brings to mind such endeavors as archeology and forensics.)
This should sound familiar to those of us who have done good ops planning. Not only did we get our intel types to give us a terrain analysis briefing and a corresponding overlay (the written and oral record). We also did our own terrain walks or looked at as much imagery as we could get our hads on (the physical faccts), right?
I recommend R.G. Collingwood's The Idea of History to all as a proposal for how to view history as an objective study. It is somewhat difficult to accept this as Collingwood's objective view since it was a pastiche of stuff dragged together after his death by his literary executor. Still, he talks about the problem of "cut and paste" history--just looking at the documentary record to determine what happened in the past. He propposes, instead, a theory of history based on reenactment. While it is very hard to explain exactly what this entails, he suggest that "good" history actually reenacts the events as they occurred in the mind of the original historical actor. To understand Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon is to reenact it.. Collingwood seems to think that we can each do this objectively.
(As an aside, Collingwood was a chairford professor in philosophy, did archeology field work on Roman British sites, and did intel work for the Brits during WWI.)
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