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‘Lord, let me be a poet. Let me not deceive people’. Yevgeny Yevtushenko. History. Three historians interpret an elephant!. Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards . (Kierkegaard) Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
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‘Lord, let me be a poet. Let me not deceive people’. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards. (Kierkegaard) • Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. • The only things we learn from history is that we don’t learn! • Every time history repeats itself the price goes up.
He who controls the past, controls the present. Orwell in 1984
History has been called an enormous jigsaw with a lot of missing parts. Carr
When we attempt to answer the question ‘What is history?’ our answer, consciously or unconsciously, reflects our own position in time, and forms part of our answer to the broader question what view we take of the society in which we live. Carr
The facts of history are nothing, interpretation is everything… interpretation is the life-blood of history! What is history? It is the continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past!
History consists of a corpus of ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish on the fish monger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him. Carr
‘This invention will change the course of man! I call it… Hammer and Chisel!’
The facts only speak when the historian calls them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context. Carr
‘And now, Randy, by use of song, the male sparrow will stake out his territory… an instinct common in the lower animals.’
Our picture has been preselected and predetermined for us, not so much by accident as by people who were consciously or unconsciously imbued with a particular view and thought the facts which supported that view worth preserving. Carr
The past can only be written with hindsight – a double-edged sword that brings order but also inevitability!! History is nothing more than commonly agreed upon lies!
A history lesson – truth bends with the teller!… …the past is written by winners!!
No document can tell us more than what the author of the document thought – what he thought had happened, what he thought ought to happen or would happen, or perhaps only what he wanted others to think he thought or even only what he himself thought he thought. None of this means anything until the historian has got to work on it and deciphered it. The facts, whether found in documents or not, have still to be processed by the historian before he can use them! Carr
History consists essentially of seeing the past through the eyes of the present and in the light of its problems, and the main work of the historian is not to record, but to evaluate; for, if he does not evaluate, how can he know what is worth recording. Carr
All history is the history of thought, and history is the re-enactment in the historian’s mind of the thought whose history he is studying!
Our first concern should not be with the facts… but with the historian who wrote it! Therefore, study the historian before you begin to study the facts!!!
Re-writing history is just like doing housework. No matter how much you do, you have to do it all again tomorrow!
The function of the historian is neither to love the past or to emancipate himself from the past, but to master and understand it as the key to the understanding of the present. Carr
Obviously, historiography cannot be a science. It can only be an industry, an art and a philosophy – an industry by ferreting out the facts, an art by establishing a meaningful order in the chaos of materials, and a philosophy by seeking perspective and enlightenment! We must operate with partial knowledge and be provisionally content with probabilities.
REVS HISTORYis designed to develop two broad skills: • For YOU to formulate YOUR OWN well-informed judgements on representations; • 2. For YOU to demonstrate an awareness of the obstacles in doing that!!
What is History, why do we study it and how should we go about it? • Who should write History? Who is best-equipped to do so? Should it only be the domain of academics or an intellectual elite? • Understanding the ‘content’ of History is one thing… to what extent should we understand the process of its creation? • What is truth in History? Can we reasonably expect to find it? How? What might stop us?
Thought starters … • “These historians are waging a war for your mind – which do you think should win?” • “History is not a single book. A single book is a history, but History itself is all the books ever written.” • “Accepting the first book or website you find as the pinnacle of truth is like ordering the first thing on a menu – sooner or later you’re going to end up eating tripe.”
So what is historiography? • The ‘science’ of researching and writing History There are many suggested definitions: • Different interpretations of facts to form conclusions about particular historical events • Problems and flaws in historical evidence • Analysing historians: their background, motives, values, key ideas and the conclusions they reach • Understanding there is not an absolute truth… that for every explanation, an alternative exists
A possible interpretation… Understanding historiography is all about understanding emphasis / perspective All historians unravel a complex and intertwined mixture of people, communities, ideas, incidents, accidents, problems, responses and perspectives. As they are reassembled, some are placed ahead of others in importance or significance. This emphasis – what is important – is the cornerstone of historiography.
So what is emphasised? • The greatest trend in History has been to emphasise the actions and character of leaders • Leaders, by consequence, become either heroes (Washington, Lenin, Mao) or incompetents (Marie-Antoinette, Nicholas II) • The Greek writer Plutarch was instrumental in forming this bibliographical approach • This method of forming historical conclusions from the ‘top-down’ has been widely challenged in the past 60 years
So what is emphasised? • Many historians from Herodotus onwards have emphasised the narrative or the story • History is formed as a chronological sequence with interesting digressions, but generally following a cogent stream • By maintaining a linear approach, the historian passes by opportunities for further analysis • Carlyle, Hibbert, Schama, Figes and others have popularised this style of historical writing
So what is emphasised? • Some historians, like Toynbee, prefer to emphasise forcesas the main agents of change • This presupposes that human society is constantly changing and in a state of flux • Every society must identify, examine and respond to challenges… how it does this will determine to what extent it changes
So what is emphasised? • Hegel’s theory was that mankind is engaged in a continual search for knowledge and truth, so he emphasised ideasand the dialectic • Every idea (thesis) is countered with another idea (antithesis) and from this emerges a compromise or composite idea (synthesis) • The study of History should be concerned with these new ideas, which are the revelations of human experience
So what is emphasised? • Marx extended this theory using economics rather than philosophy: the material dialectic • All history is the history of class struggle, one that owns the means of production and the others that don’t • The materialist struggle shapes historical change • ‘Bottom-up’ histories have consequently focussed on the needs, wants, ideas and actions of unions, workers, commoners and the poor
