It's important to remember that nothing human beings do is ever totally objective. Even in science, applying the most rigorous scientific method, there is bias, the fact of where, who, why and how it is done involves subjectivity. But scientific objectivity and evidence based outcomes is applied as well as possible, at least in good science. In history, a social science, it is the same, the application of the historical method, rigorous research based on all sources, primary and secondary, and understanding context, veracity and validity.

In the modern age we do have the notion of separation of historical fact from mythology. People often forget that in ancient times this separation of myth from fact was often not understood. Early Christians, for example, had little or no notion of this, something Dr Richard Carrier, in his research on the historical Jesus has emphasised. It worries me that in this age of 'relative truths' and fake news, that we are beginning to lose this essential notion of separation of fact and fiction. History is always biased, because people are biased. But good history strives for accuracy, is open to reassessment and evaluation, but based on new evidence and thinking, not Orwellian political expediency. Modern history that looks back from the perspective of women or racial relations, with corrective thinking, is an example of this. In that sense good history is ultimately the final judge of human actions. Importantly, religious history, written by religious apologists, never conforms to what I would call good or 'objective history'; it conforms more to mythology. In other words, there is good and bad history, just like good and bad science, or anything else.

History is always told from the point of view of the victors.

To the victor go the spoils..and the history as well.

It is recorded form the authors point of view. Often glorified to sell print.

It’s pretty easy just to give up because there is so much nonsense out there as folks in the comments below have said. I enjoy history so I try to find authors without a belief system that would necessarily bias their work. If the book is about a historical figure who wrote himself it’s not hard to do a little research on Google and read some of the subject’s letters or work. The founding fathers, for instance, wrote a tremendous amount. Going back in time and things get more difficult. With religious books we just have to consider motive and think critically and we can pretty much dismiss them out of hand as myth. MHO.

This is simplistic, but it may be helpful.

Pretty much every event in history can be told from multiple viewpoints. This means there is no one true history. This is why you have to read more than one book in order to understand what happened. and then consider that some of those histories may be false. In law enforcement they say that if you ask 3 people what happened you will get 5 stories and some of those may be totally wrong.

Omg! You took the words straight from my mouth! I was literally just talking about this with a friend of mind. She is on an ultimate quest for historical truth and I pretty much just told her good luck because I feel like history is "His-Story." Meaning whoever is recording it at the time. It is filtered through their biased perception!

My son understood this at a very young age.

"History is written by the people who killed all the people with something else to say."

He was seven...maybe eight.

I don't consider the Bible, history in the literal, sense. To many unveriable voices. It is the story of "man's" search for meaning and a God. Just an account of a time period and stories handed down from one generation to the next thru oral stories. Even in modern history, you will get different accounting on the same historical event from different people. I would not say they lie, but they will have different perspectives. Even different people who write biographies on the same person, show different angles of that person. And now, in this new 'fake news,' era...I would be sceptical of a lot of modern historical writers, because I can't trust that they are reporting facts, or slanting the truth to promote some personal agenda or bias. I think it is fashionable now, to spout embellished narratives...I am more sceptical than ever and it has caused me to wonder about all the historical reportings in the past? Did those people slant events and issues around their personal biases and how does one sort that out?

As I write this, I'm watching a show about how state-of-the-art technology is uncovering more historical information from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculeneum.
Archeologists are refuting long-held beliefs about what life was actually like in Antiquity.
That, to me, is history.

I worked for a time with a historian whose focus was women. Partly this involved learning more about women in history. Her techniques also included seeking out accounts of historical events from women’s perspectives and applying feminist thought and frameworks to historical events. We can learn more about history by seeking new and different perspectives, specifically because any individual’s account is biased by their own perspective.
Another example is that history is written by “the winners.” So perspectives of Native American folks about what happened to them are rare. We can learn more by exploring the stories that have been lost and buried.

I don't think the actual truth is what matters in studying history, as it isn't 100% reliable. My opinion is that history is only worthwhile as a guide (perhaps a piece of advice from historians) to how we might expect events to follow from each other.

Studying the history of Roman battle tactics, for example, could help modern riot troops quell violent protests. Maybe the particular historical scholar wrote it down wrong, but it's better start than nothing for the riot tacticians. Maybe even the tactics themselves were in some way flawed, but starting at someone else's false conclusion may likewise be a better beginning than nothing.

Insofar as the historicity of Jesus, I don't care whether or not he existed, god or man. All that matters to me is the message and the effects of its application to the present.

Truthfully, no. History is a giant he said she said argument.

The victors write the history, perspctive certainly plays a role.
Grimm's Fairy Tales and any religious writing will score about the same using the scientific method, in my opinion.

You might want to read Richard Carriers books, Proving History and On the historicity Jesus

I don't agree about what has been said about the historians. They can't lie or embellish because thec come from one side or another of the ones who made the history because others are writin it too and they would lose credibility as a historian. Usually all history is true and verifiable. The only thing is in what is said and what is not said. Such as Japanese history didn't want to say the atrocities commited in China, but it came out by others who were also writing about that. No, most history you read is true because anything that is not is refuted by the unabised historians shortly afrewards. loosing credibility is the worst thing that can happen to a historian.

History is told by the victors? RUBBISH! Or should I say not always.

Ima ana ancient middle-eastern historian specialising in Sumerian Cuneiform, you could hardly call the Sumer's victors right?

I remember in a history lesson, being told that the bible was at first mainly verbal , people carried the verbal tradition forwards and as the Emperor Constantine was the head of a troublesome empire that had many different factions in it .He himself was a pagan but got scholars to write the bible which previously had been mostly word of mouth tradition in order to unite his kingdom.
(I don't really care if this is true or not my self) but it seems to have worked for him.

History is written by the winners. It's ALWAYS biased. And the further back it goes, the less we can figure out what really happened. But bible doesn't count. It's a fairy tale with an agenda.

History is so selective in favour of the people writing it. the news is also just telling us the parts we want to here too. I actually think there probably was a slightly outspoken man called jesus and his mum just told the biggest lie ever

Remember , "The , " winners ," write history ." And sometimes , if the losers were rich enough , they write history and suddenly become the winners , even though they lost .

Did anyone ever believed you when you told a lie? Did you ever told a lie about a future event and your lie became the truth? Are you feeling me? WELL HISTORY IS LIKE... YOUR OPINION, MAN

Did anyone ever believed you when you told a lie? Did you ever told a lie about a future event and your lie became the truth? Are you feeling me?