British Politics in Uncertain Times
Alexander123
Video2IntroductiontohistoriographyLectureonhistoriography.pptx
Introduction to historiography
Introduction to historiography
Acknowledges that how we have studied history has changed over time.
That there are fashions in the study history
Looks to account for these different ways
Looks to make explicit how a contemporary historian might study history
Looks to problemetise, as a result, bold truth claims – at the same time there is not widespread acceptance of the rejection of valid arguments.
Historiography did not become popular until the 1980s – and still, metatheoretical questions are much more common in political science and IR than in history.
Historians prioritise method, sources, and judgment – over philosophical points, but the philosophical points are still there.
Introduction to historiography
Bentley M 2006 ‘General Introduction’, in Bentley M (ed) Companion to historiography. Routledge. London. p xiii
Luckily for us, we have a prior interest in epistemology!
History does not just reveal itself to us – it is not merely out there to be recorded. We must first make metatheoretical decisions.
Just as how the political scientist makes decisions about how to study contemporary reality.
What we will see is that different historiographical approaches have different epistemological positions (what are the facts), different views of structure and agency (what are the causes of change), and different views of what should be studied (what is the level and focus of analysis).
For a long time the writing of history was full of myth making and polemic.
Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), a German historian, tried to “professionalise” the discipline of history.
The historian should be dispassionate, a recorder of history guided by the sources: “only to say, how it really was”.
That it is a scientific discipline. Documents are key. This is an understanding of science that emphasises proof and facts, rather than experiment and hypothesis.
The facts are out there to be found.
In the 20th century there was a growing understanding that facts are selected and historical narrative is produced from this selection – it is not merely pre-given in the facts.
We see this attitude questioned by British historians such as EH Carr: “study the historian before you begin to study the facts…The facts… are like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home and cooks and serves them.” in What is History?
But this does not make any story of history possible. Rather the historian is an identifier of facts, and an interpreter of facts – a person familiar with the sources who can discern their relevance. An historian presents a “case” and an “argument” – much like a lawyer in court. (Though postmodernists object to this.)
Arnold JH 2000 History a very short introduction. OUP. Oxford. p 115.
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