"History is an argument"

In my History class we have already begun to talk about “history” and what it means to certain people. Without using any sort of media or dictionary, I would define history as the retelling of past events that changed the world, (for good or bad) as seen through one person’s eyes. What I mean by this is that history is always being told to us in the way that people from the past said it happened. Therefore, when I was faced with the question “what do you think about the statement ‘history is an argument’?” I had to fully agree that history is indeed an argument. First of all, no one alive today was alive during 1492 when Christopher Columbus sailed to America, yet everyone knows this story and tells it in virtually the same way. The reason this is, is simply because historians wrote down their view of what happened and there was no one there to deny this, therefore, that was the end of that. If the Native American people had been able to contribute their view of the story things may have been recorded differently than they had been. In our textbook it talks about all of the wars won by the United States, which in some cases could be argued were actually losses, however, it was written the way it was because the author was able to write their own opinion of how they saw things. Even in our textbook history is being written from the viewpoints of people who were never actually at the site where the historic moment took place, yet they can argue their side and still be correct because their opinion reflects that of the masses. Although I have said history is an argument that does not mean that there is necessarily a right or wrong opinion on the matter. Instead what it means is simply that the opinion you read on paper may not be exactly what happened, but it is usually close to the main premise and it was recorded because more people agreed than disagreed that this was the way it happened. Certainly history is an argument, but it is also an argument with no right or wrong answer. Instead, history is simply recorded opinions and views on what happened, where it happened, and why it happened.