The past is owned by two groups of people- contemporary chroniclers who record the past, and historians who interpret those chronicles. To record history is to claim ownership over it, and in interpreting those recordings one claims ownership over them in turn. When we strip away the excess details, the past can really only be said to exist within our collective memory and through what we’ve recorded throughout the preceding millennia. Those who record history are the only individuals who can be said to truly “own” history in any meaningful sense, as their names are attached to the chronicles that they leave behind. As Alessandro Portelli states in What makes oral history different, “But what is really important is that memory is not a passive depository of facts, but an active process of creation of meanings.” Recording the past may indeed allow us to learn about it, but written records are tainted by perspective and bias. The perspective of the writer often obscures the truth, and this allows those who record history to own it in a sense- as we are only privy to their narrow view of events. Additionally, those primary sources can be tainted by modern interpretations of those sources, allowing those who interpret those sources to claim ownership in a way. The only objective evidence of past events we can claim in any way to be unbiased are the artifacts and ruins left behind for previous eras. But those objects too can be owned by individuals who have agendas of their own, and as such even hard evidence of historical events is subject to ownership by an individual or group. In interpreting history, historians gain power over it, and therefore historians should strive to be as objective as possible when handling the past.