The importance of the interpretation. An interpretation is the how an historian makes sense of some part of the past. Like a good story, well done history reveals not only the past, but something about the present as well. Great historians help us to see aspects of the past and about the human condition which we would not be able to find on our own. C. Historians often disagree on interpretations.
Some facts are ambiguous.
Historians ask different questions about the past. Historians have different values and come to the material with different beliefs about the world. For these and other reasons, historians often arrive at different interpretations of the same event. It is, therefore, important to be able to critically evaluate an historian's interpretation. Evaluating an interpretation.