The Vietnamese war of independence (1945-1954) and the problem historical objectivity

Abstract

The problem of historical objectivity is as old as history itself. It is the most difficult one any historian has to face. Manifesting itself in all stages of historical work - fact-finding, research, interpretation -, it is posing questions which no historian will be able to get round, no serious historian at least. He has to weigh his facts and to check the reliability of his sources, in general as well as for each information separately. He has to ponder long and hard over interpretations presented to him and even longer and harder over the one he considers acceptable. In a sense a historian must have the mind and follow the methods of a criminal investigator: he has to be critical and alert, he has to calculate probabilities and to trace motives while verifying motivations. When xamining causes and effects he has to find out which person or party involved in the events stood to benefit from them. As the title of his study may give him away he has to consider its wording carefully before deciding upon one. He has to be aware that his interpretations are not necessarily the correct ones and that he may have been guided, though unconsciously, by factors like national, racial or class consciousness or by his religious beliefs or ideological notions. He must realize finally that a perfectly objective picture of the past is, in fact, unattainable and that, for all his work, he will accomplish no more than just adding one interpretation to those already existing. Apart from the usual difficulties confronting him in this respect, the serious historian aiming at the highest possible grade of objectivity will encounter a few additional ones as soon as the period he surveys comes closer to his own times.