Question

why is it so difficult for historians to arrive at aninterpretation of past events that is universally accepted

Answer 1

History is a social science that studies past social and political events. As a discipline, it uses a methodology in order to study historical facts. Facts are objective for every Historian, but when Historians interpret the same facts often they arrive at different conclusions. That is because interpretation is highly subjective and the only way to interpret facts is through some specific perspective, a point of view or paradigm. When Historians interpret some period of History using a theoretical framework, they look at History like looking through glasses that enhance some factors in detriment of others. And that is inevitable when doing the historical interpretation.

Take, for example, Vladimir Lenin and the rise of the Soviet Union. According to Marxism, it was the forces of a social class, the workers, that rose against the imperial Russian state and the bourgeoisie that led to the creation of a Communist state. There are several historical documents that back this point of view. But according to Intentionalism, it was the powerful and attractive personality of Lenin and his talent for politics which led to the fall of the empire and the establishment of a new political system. Again, this is also very well-documented.

Of course, there can also be many other interpretations for this fact. For any historical event, there are many alternate interpretations, each of which looks at different -and many times contradicting- factors of History.

Answer 2

It is difficult to arrive to a universal interpretation of the past because of the nature of the sources. Mostly written documents, some of them are incomplete, and they contradict each other. For example, in a case of a war there are at least two sides, the losers and the winners. Each of them are going to have a different interpretation of what happened during that war, and historians rely on these documents to do their job. That's why is often said that history is made by the victors: their interpretation of events becomes the official, predominant one. This has a political factor, the winners need to justify their power to maintain it, and depend on historians to come up with a justifying narrative. But the losers don't disappear, they have as well their interpretation and use it as a weapon to show that the power of the dominant class is illegitimate and weaken them.