THE SELECTIVITY OF HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION

The practical issues encountered in writing a book and the guidance of recent postmodernist scholarship in History prompt this analysis of h istorical representation. The analysis reveals that selectivity and su bjectivity permeate the writing of historical narratives from the sele ction of facts to the combining of those facts into a story. Assessing historical narratives is also a subjective exercise. Recognition of t his selectivity and subjectivity does not lead to the despair of relat ivism but rather to the emancipation of scholarship from prevailing co nformities. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.