Practice question · Select all that apply
Why does the archive tilt toward the wealthy, literate, and metropolitan?
Hints
- Three filters all tilt in the same direction.
- No deliberate campaign was required to produce the tilt.
Show the answer
- A. Institutional and powerful actors generate documents; the poor often generate none
- B. Durable materials — parchment, stone — outlast the materials of ordinary life
- C. Archives preserved what served the institutions that ran them
Why
Three filters, one direction. No destruction campaign was needed, the tilt is structural, which makes it far harder to see and far more consequential.
Practise The Epistemology of History
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More questions on The Epistemology of History
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- Complete the account of historical evidence.
- Put the three filters in the order they act on the past.