AP Photo

Is there, can there ever be, such a thing as accurate, objective history? If history is a true record of the past, how do we know we can trust the record-keepers? And years later, as historians sift through the past, can they be depended on not to let their own biases creep in?

As a student of history, I have long been fascinated with the problem of ascertaining which set of facts about the past to accept, and which to discard. Indeed, how can we even tell what has been handed to us over the years has not been deliberately or accidentally distorted?

This is not just idle speculation. Just as the present shapes the future, so too does the past determine the present. In a sense, we are all prisoners of history, and time has us by the jugular. This is not to say we have no...