Originally posted by Jim B.
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I wouldn't say "heavily." You're right in that history is an interpretive discipline, but it doesn't follow that history is like creative writing. Historical interpretations are constrained by actual arguments and arguments are constrained by documentary evidence. So there are clearly better historical interpretations and worse interpretations. There is no omniscient historical point of view, just as there can't be in any of the humanities, but we can be pretty confident that Washington was a 'better' President than Buchanan, Hitler was a bad guy, etc. It's amusing how conservatives can become relativists when it suits their purposes.
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