Who said no document no history?
Robert Guerrero
Updated on May 12, 2026
In this regard, do you believe in the mantra of the historians no documents no history?
Traditional historians lived with the mantra “no document no history.” It means that a written document can prove a certain historical event, and then it cannot be considered as a historical fact.
One may also ask, how do historians construct history? Historians look for causes and effects that help to explain how and why events happened. They try to see the past through the eyes of the people who lived it. When they study the past, historians ask themselves questions. The answers to the questions help historians draw conclusions about the past.
Likewise, what is no document no history?
“No documents, no history,” one said. In this century the notion of a document has been enormously expanded so that any artifact surviving from the past can serve as the answer to some historian's question. Aerial photography, for example, can reveal settlement patterns long since buried.
Who says no document no history?
“NO DOCUMENT, NO HISTORY!” THE LATE TEOdoro Agoncillo roared. Historians base their work largely on written sources.
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