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Historiography: An introduction
Historiography can be a daunting term for those not familiar with it. This book presents the key ideas behind the term, in a clear and accessible fashion. The opening chapters introduce the reader to the practices that characterise the subject, while the final chapters address the History of Nazism, Gender History and Cultural History, and seek to demonstrate that the historiographies of these sub-disciplines grow and develop in response to changes within society at large.
This book aims to show that History is not simply an academic subject, but an active and contested factor shaping the nature of the societies we live in. As politicians, in particular, seek to validate their actions by drawing parallels between the past and present, an ability to test these claims for logic and coherence, and to assess the evidence used to support them becomes not simply a valuable academic skill, but a vital requirement for active citizenship.
This book aims to show that History is not simply an academic subject, but an active and contested factor shaping the nature of the societies we live in. As politicians, in particular, seek to validate their actions by drawing parallels between the past and present, an ability to test these claims for logic and coherence, and to assess the evidence used to support them becomes not simply a valuable academic skill, but a vital requirement for active citizenship.
- GenresHistory
168 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2007
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June 29, 2016
It seems to me that students would be much better served by learning to identify various kinds of historiography (i.e., how to identify what the historiographic elements being used to construct a historical description are -- what the underlying assumptions are -- and how those shape the evidence considered and the evaluation of that evidence) than they are by learning particular pieces of history, carried along via an unacknowledged Trojan horse of historiography.
History is what happened; historiography is our descriptions of what happened -- and the analytical perspectives embodied in how we create those descriptions. Or, in other words, history: historiography::literature: critical theory.
In brief, there are schools of thought (Rankean, positivist), ideological analyses (Marxist, gender studies, post-colonial, racial theory). There are methods: analytical, narrative. And there are metanarratives: evolution/progress, manifest destiny, etc.
History is what happened; historiography is our descriptions of what happened -- and the analytical perspectives embodied in how we create those descriptions. Or, in other words, history: historiography::literature: critical theory.
In brief, there are schools of thought (Rankean, positivist), ideological analyses (Marxist, gender studies, post-colonial, racial theory). There are methods: analytical, narrative. And there are metanarratives: evolution/progress, manifest destiny, etc.
Displaying 1 of 1 review