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The facts do not speak for themselves; historians use the facts in a particular way and therefore they, and not the facts, are doing the speaking.
事实不会自己说话；历史学家们在用一己特定的方式来利用事实，因此是他们而不是事实在说话。
Historians not only often disagree with others. They often disagree with themselves. Indeed they are often revising their ideas. They have to do so because they are constantly discovering new information, gaining new insights from other social scientists and mastering and using new techniques. Historians also learn from each other and benefit from international comparisons of similar events and institutions.
历史学家不仅经常和其他人意见有分歧，他们也时常不能与自己保持一致。的确，他们经常在修改自己的观点。他们之所以这样做是因为他们在不断地发现新的信息，从其他社会科学家那里获得新的见解，掌握和使用新的技术。历史学家们也彼此互相学习，并且通过比较研究国际上类似的事件和机构而受益。
Can we eliminate all disagreement? If the state of our knowledge were such that it provided us with a model of unquestioned validity that completely explained human behavior, we can. But since we do not have such a complete and foolproof explanation, disagreements are destined to remain. When students realize that there is no one easy answer to the problems historians raise and that "truth" is but an elusive yet intriguing goal in a never-ending quest, they will find the study of history to be a significant, exhilarating, and useful part of their education.
我们能消除所有的分歧吗？如果我们的知识水平已达到了这样的程度——它能为我们提供一个别无疑义、能全面解释人类行为的模式，我们就能做到这点。但由于我们无法作出这样一个完整而且可靠的解释，分歧便注定存在。当学生识到，对于历史学家们提出的问题不会有一个简单的答案，并且“真相”只是一种在永无止境的探索中的一个难以达到却又充满诱惑的目标时，他们会发现学习研究历史是自己所受教育中的一个重要、令人振奋并且使人受益匪浅的组成部分。
