The authors of After the Fact The Art of Historical Detection, make the assertion that history is not an account of what happened in the past because what happened in the past is only the raw material: "History is not some inert body of knowledge `out there' in the past, but a continual act of construction whose end product is being reshaped and made anew every time someone ventures into the archives" (Davidson and Lytle IX). Davidson and Lytle mean that the interpretation of history changes based on the methods of investigation used by the historian. Interpretations also change based on how long "after the fact" we choose to go back and investigate. Current beliefs, social trends, and a person's racial background can't help but play an influential role in how we perceive a past event.

In chapter 8, the authors demonstrate how recorded observations of a slave's life...