If "The facts and documents" aren't history, then what is?

History is nothing more than the study of cause and effect - facts and documents, depending upon which ones you accept and reject, will substantiate or eliminate your thesis.

I am not sure how to define "facts" other than documents in the wider sense which includes pictures, video and even eyewitness testimony.

With that definition, documents are the only thing that we have to define History.

It is true that a single document cannot be trusted to provide the truth. Even if the facts presented are true, some important aspects may be omitted and others may be magnified to please the preconceived ideas of the writer.

It is by interpreting multiple documents written by a variety of people that we can define what history was really like - and there is always a level of doubt that remains. That is what makes history so interesting.

They are mostly what those who wrote t want you to know, the way they want you to know. Basically it is written to glorify themselves & & make themselves appear the best & the largest by diminishing, demonizing, & sometimes even making the others disappear, meaning those who can make the historians look paler by comparison. The history is also written, rewritten, & even edited using witeout, to gloss over the evils & crimes of the historians.