Differences in Perception
There is a saying that states, “If thirty people are gathered to describe one object or thing, you will then have thirty different descriptions”; this is never more evident then within history. Depending on who is interpreting an event in history, there can be many angles and approaches taken to a single event or person. This notion of biases in interpretation depending on the storyteller is evident in the different elucidations of Abraham Lincoln’s life by authors Joshua Shenk and Doris Goodwin. Primary sources are only used as a guidance tool in helping decipher events or people in time. Authors or historians such as Shenk and Goodwin utilize the same primary source documents of letters, journals, photos etc. or read similar secondary source biographies by fellow historians and yet both are able to come out with differing views. In Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy there are several different focuses and interpretations on......
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