Ludwig von Mises, in his book Human Action, highlights some of these difficulties, and the particular pitfalls that beset theorists who try to derive an understanding of human nature by studying history. Mises points out that understanding history is not just about ascertaining the relevant historical facts, nor even just about ensuring that historical events are accurately depicted. The facts are, of course, important, and facts must be comprehensive and accurate, but the reason why history is contested goes beyond debates about accurate documentation of historical facts. In most cases, the reason why people look to history for enlightenment is not simply because they want to understand history for its own sake, nor even that they want to ensure that their grasp of the facts is as comprehensive and accurate as possible, but more because they seek to derive lessons from studying what other people have previously done. They look to history for insight into contemporary problems, with a view to making informed and wise decisions and plans. In that context Mises describes history as follows:

History is the collection and systematic arrangement of all data of experience concerning human action. It deals with the concrete content of human action. It studies all human endeavors in their infinite multiplicity and variety and all individual actions with all their accidental, special, and particular implications. It scrutinizes the ideas guiding acting men and the outcome of the actions performed. It embraces every aspect of human activities. It is on the one hand general history and on the other hand the history of various narrower fields.

Hence Mises cautions that, without a sound theory that is “both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts,” we cannot ascertain any truth from studying history. Sound theories “are a necessary requirement of any grasp of historical events. Without them we should not be able to see in the course of events anything else than kaleidoscopic change and chaotic muddle.” Without sound theories we cannot answer the Neo-Marxists who claim that all history is one epic race war in which “white supremacists” seek to crush innocent and helpless black “victims.”

Wilson’s argument about the distinction between history and political ideology should be understood in that light. He points out that,

What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who come after. To limit so vast an event as that war to one cause is to show contempt for the complexities of history as a quest for the understanding of human action.

Wilson also echoes Mises in observing that, “History is not a mathematical calculation or scientific experiment but a vast drama of which there is always more to be learned.”