ABSTRACT
The world in which people now practice their profession is a vastly different world from that in which their profession was first institutionalized. It might be well to remember that written and interpreted history is, of itself, a historical creation, which arose with the emergence of ruling elites. Recent American historiography has reflected the breakdown of commonly held values in the assertion by previously submerged and invisible groups of their right to be heard and to have their own past recorded and interpreted. Historical scholarship has never been more sophisticated, more innovative and more interesting. Specialization and a multiplicity of conceptual frameworks have not weakened historical studies. Photography as a mass art form, popular journalism, radio, film and television have profoundly affected the relationship of people to the past. Without relaxing people's standards of accuracy and their commitment to scholarship, they must accept that there are many roads to historical understanding.
