For most historians the fundamental question to be answered in the study of history is, "What really happened?" In studying American history we know a great deal about "what happened," and relatively few serious questions exist about the basic facts of American history. We have fought wars, elected presidents, built factories, cultivated millions of acres, produced enormous wealth, seen immigrants flock to our shores, driven the Indians off the plains and onto reservations, ended slavery, and so on. If our concern with history stopped there, we would mere chronology. The study of history goes beyond chronology and into the how and why things happened in the past. History, in other words, soon becomes complicated.
We know, for example, that the American Revolutionary War began when shots were fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775. We are still undecided, however, about the exact nature of that experience—was it really a revolution, or merely a transfer of power across the Atlantic Ocean? We know that the Japanese empire bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but controversies have raged over the causes of that aggression, and about how much was known of the impending attack on that fateful morning. The real causes of the Civil War continue to be debated, and hundreds of books have been written about the events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As soon as we begin to ask how and why things happened, consensus disappears.
Sometimes explanations for historical events breed conspiracy theories. Did President Roosevelt really know about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor? Was the CIA involved in President Kennedy's assassination? Did we really land on the moon? Was the plot to destroy the World Trade Center really hatched in Washington by our government? Is the earth really round? Conspiracy theories spread rapidly and die hard even when overwhelming evidence to the contrary exists. (There really is a Flat Earth Society.)
World History
