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Originally Posted by roachboy
modern history--you know, history in the modern period, capitalist-style rationalized history, professionalized as a "science"--relies almost entirely on documents--all the more the further back in time you go. this is not open to dispute: it's simply how the form operates.
so this distinction between "what happened" and "what people write" is a kind of throwback. like a serious one.
anyone who is not an idiot (and many are idiots, trust me) who does history knows that something written down is more often than not problematic, and much of (to my mind) the fun of doing history lay in tinkering with the status and meaning of documents--and playing around with the status of this idea of "the document"--and playing with the conceptual frameworks that let you talk about history at all--but i digress---so anyone who writes a history is going to be entirely aware that written=written not that written=definitive or "true" because it is written.
this is linked to the importance of argument and procedures for building them in a piece of historical writing--the argument and procedures generate a distance from particular pieces of writing (necessary for critical appraisal, however that runs) and the integration of an interpretation of these pieces of writing back into an image of the world or what happened in the world or in that particular region of social being at that particular time.
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Perhaps I have not been clear.
Written information is important. Here is how I would prioritize it.
Written factual information is most important, i.e. dates, times, people in attendance at meetings, recorded minutes of meetings, etc.
Legal documents, rulings, findings of fact, judicial opinions are next or first depending on the issue.
"Spontaneous" writings are next of importance in my opinion.
Written opinions, interpretations of facts by decision makers is next.
Written opinion, interpretations of facts, etc by support staff and others is next.
(Understand that the above was written off of the top of my head, I am not an expert and I am sure if I gave the issue more thought the list would be more detailed and more thorough. If you want to overlook the point and focus on that aspect - I am not interested)
However, for example I don't think President Clinton should be forced to disclose the donor list for his Presidential Library. I think the donors should have a right to privacy as does the former President. If we suspect illegal activity we should take legal action to obtain the information. Otherwise, in my opinion, the historic relevance is the library, not the written list of donors. In fact I think people want to see the list for purely political reasons and are not concerned with history. I would argue the same point regarding much of the interest in Presidential documents.
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Originally Posted by host
ace, congress determined how it should be done....all president since the law was passed in 1978....followed it's provisions, until Bush came along and politicized the process. The purpose of the 1978 law was to depoliticize it:
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You don't think this was a political issue from the beginning??? I think the only reason the bill was passed and signed was because of Nixon and a weak President Ford - at a time when the public was most distrustful of executive power.