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Objectivity in history

Reading Adam Phillips' essay about the historian Christopher Hill I came across this, which concerns criticism of Hill's The English Revolution 1640 by Jonathan Clark:

'What could be more 'astonishing' [a key term in Clark's critique] in the context of this particular debate, than Clark's claim to superior knowledge? Fantasies of rigour can always be used to occlude value, or belittle specific political commitments.'  He goes on 'one of the things Hill has always been showing is that criteria of accuracy (or evidence) are always forms of vested interest: the question being accurate for who? Accurate to what end? (Promises, Promises p333)



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