Geography and time also play key roles in personal judgment and bias. A man who grew up in Germany may perceive the events in World War II in a different way than a man who grew up in The United States from the same generation.
Historians are no exception to human nature. Historians are just as entitled to their own opinion as their readers are. What is problematic about a historian expressing his version of the truth is the power he possesses to reshape prevalent opinion about the past. Historians can literally rewrite history if they choose to do so. They are only bound to the truth within their own ethical code. If a credible historian documents his work, and manages to get it published, it will eternally be considered the truth. Their version of the truth will be the standard of the particular event in history as a secondary source until the facts are reevaluated and revised. In a perfect world, the truth in a work of non-fiction should be the whole story from all points of view. But in reality the truth is ambiguous. A reader must question what he reads and chooses to believe. All writers come from different backgrounds, race, nationalities, and religions. A reader must understand the writer to critically analyze his perspective on his topic. An issue closely related to historical accuracy is narrative voice. The content is not only shaped by the word choice but by the narrator's opinions and attitudes. Some critics believe that historical fiction tells us more about its author than the historical subject, or, as Henry Seidel Canby (a well-known critic and editor) has said, historical fiction is "more likely to register an exact truth about the writer's present than the exact truth of the past". .
In "The History of the Siege of Lisbon," Raimundo Silva, speaks not only about the power authors have to influences their readers perception on history, but also the power proofreaders have to revise the intentions of the author's message.
