The comments people have left so far are really interesting (this is one of those rare cases in which you absolutely MUST read the comments!). The way we are taught to think about the past is ALWAYS political, there is no such thing as an "objective" or "neutral" way of writing about the past.

That said, accounts of the past can be more or less **accurate** and more or less authentically grounded in **archival evidence,** and more or less conversant with the state of existing knowledge about the past. Those things matter and enable us to distinguish between better or worse histories.