PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

This is a very astute observation.  In the spring of 1980, as my senior undergrad year was drawing to its end. I took an independent study course in my major, History, with an emphasis on my interest in ancient Rome.  Ten different histories of Rome of the first century A.D. were assigned to me, and I was required to read one each week and report on it on Friday mornings.  Each book had been deliberately, not randomly, selected by my instructor.  One of the aspects to which he wanted me to pay close attention was the attitude of each historian, or writer, toward the subject matter.  None of the historians were actually contemporary; spanning from late 18th century Europe to 1920's America.  I was amazed at how the same subject matter could be presented, so differently, by those historians.  The one I found most fascinating was a Russian historian, descended from aristocracy, whose family had been mostly wiped out by the Bolshevik Party during the Revolution.  His vision of ancient Rome was far different than that of an American historian who wrote in the early 19th century, with the American Revolution well in mind.  Same ancient Rome---same early Christians, same emperors, same Republic being raped into an Empire---and yet, very different interpretations.

   So what you have stated, in this poem, is not some imaginary assertion:  it is a very real---sometimes subtle, sometimes glaring---aspect of at least the academic and scholarly study of History.