If you’ve ever walked into a university history seminar, there is one name that acts like a lightning rod. E.H. Carr. Specifically, his 1961 book What is History? based on a series of lectures he gave at the University of Cambridge. It’s a slim volume. You can finish it in an afternoon. But the ideas inside have been causing academic fistfights for over sixty years because Carr dared to say the quiet part out loud: facts don't speak for themselves.
Think about that for a second. We’re taught in school that history is a collection of names, dates, and "what happened." But What is History? Carr argued that a fact is like a sack; it won't stand up until you put something in it. He basically blew up the idea of the "objective" historian. To Carr, the historian is just as much a part of the story as the person they are writing about.
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It’s a bit of a trip.
The Myth of the Objective Fact
Most people think of history as a giant jigsaw puzzle where the pieces are scattered across the floor of time. You find a piece (a census record), you find another (a diary entry), and eventually, the picture emerges. Carr thought this was total nonsense. He called it the "fetishism of facts." Honestly, he was kind of a snob about it, but he had a point. He argued that there are millions of facts out there, but they only become "historical facts" when a historian decides to use them.
Take a mundane event. A man is killed in a riot. Is that a "historical fact"? Maybe. Maybe not. If it leads to a revolution, historians will talk about it for centuries. If it’s just a random tragedy in a town no one remembers, it disappears. What is History? Carr explains that the historian is the one who chooses which facts get to live and which ones get to die in the archives. You’re never getting the "whole truth." You’re getting the truth according to a guy named Edward Hallett Carr, or whoever else is holding the pen.
He famously said that when you pick up a work of history, your first concern shouldn't be the facts it contains, but the historian who wrote it. If you’re reading a history of the Cold War written by a staunch anti-communist in 1955, that book is going to look a lot different than one written by a revisionist in the 1990s after the Soviet archives opened. It's not just about what happened; it's about the lens.
The Fisherman and the Fish
Carr used this great analogy about fishing. He said that facts are like fish swimming around in a vast, sometimes murky ocean. What the historian catches depends on two things: what part of the ocean they choose to fish in, and what kind of tackle they use. If you’re looking for economic trends, you’re going to find economic facts. If you’re looking for Great Men, you’re going to find kings and generals.
It sounds simple. But it's actually pretty radical. It means there is no such thing as a "neutral" history. Everything is biased, not necessarily because the writer is a liar, but because the writer is a human being living in a specific time and place.
Why Carr Hated the 19th Century View
Back in the 1800s, a German historian named Leopold von Ranke said the job of the historian was to show things wie es eigentlich gewesen—"as it actually was." Carr hated this. He thought it was naive. He believed that the 19th-century obsession with facts was just a way for people to avoid the hard work of interpretation.
He was writing in the middle of the Cold War. He saw how the same events were being spun in two completely different directions by Washington and Moscow. For him, the idea that you could just "state the facts" was a fantasy. You're always interpreting. You're always selecting. You're always judging.
This brings us to his most famous definition: "History is an unending dialogue between the past and the present."
It’s a conversation. The present asks the past questions, and the past answers back based on the records we have. But the questions change. In the 1960s, people started asking questions about civil rights and gender. Suddenly, the "facts" of history changed because we were looking for different things. What is History? Carr showed us that as our society changes, our history changes with it. It’s a living thing, not a dusty book on a shelf.
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The Controversy of Progress
Carr wasn't just a philosopher; he was a bit of a provocateur. He believed in the idea of "progress." This is where he loses a lot of modern readers. He thought that history was moving toward something, a sort of gradual improvement in human reason.
Many people today find that hard to swallow. After the horrors of the 20th century, the idea that we are "progressing" feels a bit optimistic, or even dangerous. His critics, like Sir Geoffrey Elton, hammered him for this. Elton believed history was just "one damn thing after another" and that searching for a "meaning" or "direction" was just the historian projecting their own politics onto the past.
Elton and Carr became the epic rivalry of the historical world. If you were a "Carr person," you were likely a bit more progressive, interested in social forces and the "why." If you were an "Elton person," you were probably a traditionalist who loved archives and the "how."
The Problem with Great Men
You've probably heard the phrase "history is written by the winners." Carr took that further. He wasn't interested in the "Great Man" theory of history—the idea that individual geniuses like Napoleon or Caesar move the world through sheer force of will.
To Carr, individuals are products of their society. Napoleon could only do what he did because of the social and economic conditions of post-revolutionary France. If Napoleon hadn't existed, someone else would have filled the void. This gets into some heavy sociological territory. It’s the "structure vs. agency" debate. Carr was firmly on the side of structure.
- Social Forces: These are the deep currents—economics, class struggles, shifts in technology.
- The Historian’s Bias: You can't escape your own skin. Your upbringing, your country, and your era dictate what you find interesting.
- The Future-Oriented Past: We study the past to understand the future. If history doesn't help us move forward, Carr thought it was basically a hobby, like stamp collecting.
Is Carr Still Relevant?
You might wonder why we’re still talking about a book from 1961. The truth is, in the age of "alternative facts" and social media echo chambers, What is History? Carr is more relevant than ever.
We live in a world where everyone is their own historian. We curate our feeds, we select our facts, and we build our own narratives. Carr predicted this. He understood that the struggle over history is really a struggle over the present. If you can control the story of the past, you can control the direction of the future.
However, we have to be careful. If we take Carr too literally, we end up in total relativism. If there are no "objective" facts, then anyone can say anything happened. Did the Holocaust happen? Of course. Are there facts that prove it? Yes. Carr wasn't saying facts don't exist; he was saying that facts alone don't make history. You still need evidence. You still need to be honest. But you also need to realize that your own perspective is part of the equation.
How to Read History Now
So, how do you actually apply this? Next time you see a viral thread about a "forgotten historical truth" or you read a biography of a famous leader, do what Carr suggested.
- Check the author first. Who are they? Where did they go to school? What are their politics? This isn't to dismiss them, but to understand their "tackle."
- Look for what's missing. If a book about the American Revolution doesn't mention the lives of enslaved people or women, that’s a choice. Why did the historian leave that out?
- Ask the "So What?" Why is this being written now? Does it reflect current anxieties about the economy, or war, or technology?
Actionable Insights for the Modern Reader
Understanding Carr’s work changes how you consume information. It turns you from a passive recipient of "truth" into an active investigator.
Stop looking for the "definitive" account of anything. It doesn't exist. Instead, read two books on the same subject written from different perspectives. See where they agree and where they diverge. That "gap" in the middle? That’s where the real history happens.
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If you want to dive deeper into this, don't just read the Wikipedia summary. Go get a copy of What is History? It’s surprisingly readable. It’s witty, grumpy, and deeply intelligent. You don’t have to agree with his views on progress or his leanings toward the Soviet Union (which he was often criticized for being too soft on) to appreciate his brilliance in deconstructing how we tell stories about ourselves.
History isn't a dead thing. It’s not a set of dates in a textbook. It’s a tool. And like any tool, it matters who is holding it and what they’re trying to build. Carr taught us that the hand holding the tool is just as important as the tool itself.
Primary takeaway: Start your historical exploration by researching the historian. Before you dive into the "what," understand the "who." Look for biographies that acknowledge their own methodological limitations. This is the only way to navigate the "ocean of facts" without getting lost in someone else's current.