MENU: 5.1. History: which facts?
ALL VIEWS ARE SUBJECTIVE BECAUSE ONE IS OBLIGED TO CHOOSE SOME FACTS AND LEAVE OUT OTHERS
Choices are based on a point of view, such as identity (Washington crossing the Delaware, Bonaparte at the bridge of Arcole) and kinds of society (Lenin mobilizing the Proletariat, Washington at Mount Vernon). The listing of political facts, often brightened up by drama, is also an opinion, though narrators may not be aware of it.
These pages stress the determining role of economic forces, which transforms the meaning of events and gives readers a handle to understanding change. Is that why it is usually omitted?
Take the French Revolution of 1789-94 and its conclusion in 1830, an upheaval that most foreigners have never heard of and that many French people have forgotten.
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La Liberté guide le peuple by Eugène Delacroix, 1831 / zoom |
France's great iconic painting is about the 1830 Revolution.
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