Making one’s model explicit is essential to intellectual honesty. Academic freedom entails the analysis of history from whichever theoretical perspective the writer may deem valuable. As Denson explains, “It is almost impossible for history to be written without the writer’s judgement or bias being expressed in the form of an interpretation. Therefore, history is always evolving and it is always subject to revision by better and more reliable evidence.” Problems only begin to arise where the writer’s theoretical standpoint is hidden, or—as is more often the case—where the author simply remains silent as to his ideological standpoint. By keeping his theoretical framework hidden or unstated, the writer is able to promote “history by theory” to the unwitting reader—or theory presented in the guise of objective historical facts.

History by theory involves presenting theories as if they were bare historical facts. A compilation of bare facts can certainly play an important role even without interpretation. This is the approach taken, for example, in compiling historic documents without commentary. Similarly, Paul C. Graham has compiled slave narratives in their own words in his book When the Yankees Come, which presents the opinions of slaves, without spinning them into any particular theoretical framework. The people who experienced General Sherman’s “march to the sea” are allowed to speak, in their own words, without the author attempting to interpret their meaning. His explicitly stated goal is to avoid history by theory, instead “seeing what the people who were there have to say about it.” The historical fact being presented, in that context, is the bare fact that people at the time held the stated opinions.

Unlike a presentation of bare historical facts, most history books include more than just the facts. The writer also offers his opinions and advances his own argument or analysis, making value judgments concerning the significance and implications of the facts discussed. If the writer is honest, it will be reasonably clear what the facts are and what is merely a statement of opinion, analysis, or evaluation. However, distinguishing between an opinion or value judgment and a “fact” is not always easy, as shown by legal debates on this point:

In attempting to solve problems in a variety of areas lawyers continuously make use of a distinction between statements of “fact” on the one hand and those of “opinion” on the other. So versatile is this distinction that it has been used to solve problems raised in such diverse areas of the law as evidence and defamation.