Can history be an objective science?
Short answerSome facts can be objective, but interpretation depends on incomplete sources and perspectives, so history requires comparison and caution.
NotesHistory is an imperfect and subjective science: people at different parts of the same ship may each give a truthful but incomplete account of an action. Checkable facts and dates remain distinct from interpretations shaped by surviving evidence and its recorders. A historian therefore has to compare reliability, perspective, and bias before treating any account as the whole event. Larger datasets do not remove the problem: surviving diaries select for writers whose records endured, while newspaper stories add the filters of speaker, writer, editor, and publisher. The practical rule is to draw lessons from history without mistaking one reconstruction for absolute truth.