The Historian and his Evidence. An Essay (PDF)

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject History - Miscellaneous, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Department of History and Political Studies), course: Ba. Hisotry, language: English, abstract: The reconstruction of the past has always been dependent on evidence from events of the past. This means that history cannot be written without evidence. Evidence used in history can be defined as "materials" that gives signs or proofs of the existence of historical events. However, the accumulation of evidence alone doesn't make history as they must be supported with interpretation by the historian.

The relationship between the historian and the evidence used in historical deconstruction is one of the major themes in history today. Historical reconstructing can be explained as "studying history at its most basic level" and "value" as used in the question means the significance of the evidence in historical explanation of past events. This essay seeks to explain why the evidence used in historical deconstruction owes its value to the interpreter of sources with three main points namely; it is the historian who pick the evidence, the historian interprets the evidence and it is the historian who organizes and present the evidence to his readers.