What Does the Historian Do?

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What Does the Historian Do?

• The historian tries to identify facts about the
  past and then to come to conclusions about the
  past.
• She/he objectively and systematically
• finds,
• interprets,
• evaluates,
• and synthesizes evidence.

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History is a Representation of the Past

• But representations may be hindered by
• lack of ability of historian
• lack of evidence
• historians biases
• historians interpretation
• sheer desire to present a false picture

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Types of History

• History in terms of nations very common
• But many other kinds of history too!

4
Sometimes Regional History is Studied

• e.g.
• Latin America
• Eastern Europe
• Middle East
• South East Asia

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Its more Fundamental Sometimes

• e.g. a Civilization
• Romans,
• Greeks,
• Europeans during the Middle Ages,
• Moslem Civilization of North Africa,
• Native American Civilization of South America.

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Sometimes its Periods

• Renaissance
• Reformation
• 30 Years War
• The Enlightenment
• The Dark Ages

7
More Specific Topics

• Columbus discovering or rediscovering America
• The Vietnam Conflict
• Watergate
• Salem Witch Trials
• Battle of Leningrad
• Battle of Agincourt

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Topics are often Categorized

• Intellectual history
• Cultural history
• Social history
• Economic history
• Religious history
• Educational history
• or, indeed, the history of any discipline

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Many of these can be Subdivided

• The HISTORY OF WOMEN as a category of cultural or
  social history
• Historical analysis may be directed toward an
  individual, an idea, a movement, or an
  institution.

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• However, none of these can be studied IN
  ISOLATION.
• Ignatius of Loyola cannot be studied apart from
  the Counter-Reformation and the whole area of
  Religious Teaching Orders.

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Sometimes Questions can be very Broad

• What caused societal revolutions in China,
  France, Russia?
• How have major social institutions, like
  medicine, developed and changed over two
  centuries?
• How have basic social relationships, like
  feelings about the value of children, changed
  over the centuries?
• Is race declining in significance compared to
  social class as a major division in the U.S.?
• Why did South Africa develop a system of greater
  racial separation as the U.S. moved toward
  greater racial integration?

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How Sure Can we Be of "Facts?"

• Historians who challenge generally accepted
  historical facts are often termed
• revisionist
• or radical
• or leftist
• or new historians.

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Example of Revisionist Historian

• Michael Katz contended that one of the primary
  rationales for education in mid-19th century MA
  was to serve the economic interests of the
  controlling classes and to frustrate democratic
  aspirations.

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Facts

• Battle of Waterloo was a fact
• Made up of many smaller facts, i.e. facts as
• Events
• charges and retreats
• heads smashed by cannon balls
• orders shouted by officers
• Objects
• field guns
• Food depots
• Corpses

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• Also by IDEAS and VALUES held by each of the
  combatants.
• And each of these facts as event, object, idea
  can be further subdivided.

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NAPOLEON

• We may be reasonably sure of
• his place of birth
• his date of birth
• the physical scene at Waterloo

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• But what of
• the morale at the battle?
• the frustration leading to death of ex-emperor?
• the depth of his love for Josephine?
• why he wanted to be emperor?

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Interpretation

• Historians rely on records of events that were
  made by others, e.g.
• journalist
• court reporter
• diarist
• photographer

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• These recordings involve interpretive acts.
• They involve certain biases, values, and
  interests of those who recorded them, i.e. they
  attended to some details and omitted others.
• Thus, interpretation exists even before historian
  enters the picture.

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Historian adds still another layer of
interpretation

• She stresses or ignores certain data.
• She organizes data into categories/patterns.

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Historians Often interested in Causation

• What caused fall of Roman Empire?
• What caused American Civil War?
• What caused emancipation of slaves?
• These are not easy questions to answer!!

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History often very Specialized

• Historians who study the Depression of the 1930s
  need to have quite a sophisticated knowledge of
  economics.
• Historians who study social mobility in the U.S.
  should be trained in aspects of social science.
• Historians who study farming in Central America
  must have a strong knowledge of agricultural
  techniques.

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Also Very Important

• Statistical Techniques
• Languages

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SOURCES

• Usually limited and indirect.
• Historian is limited to what sources survive --
  usually most evidence has been destroyed.
• A surviving building looks different in 1997 than
  it did in 1790.
• For example, today it's in the "old style" back
  then it may have been very new.

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Primary Sources

• EXAMPLES
• George Washington's uniform.
• Book-keeping records of a 1920s tobacconist.
• Anasazi rock drawings.
• Handwritten letter of a 18th century engraver.
• Log book of the Exxon Valdez.

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Primary Sources Often Original Documents

• e.g. Manuscripts
• Charters
• Laws
• Archives of official minutes or records
• Letters
• Memoirs
• Official publications
• Wills
• Newspapers and magazines
• Maps
• Catalogues
• Inscriptions
• Graduation records
• Bills, lists, deeds, contracts

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Often Objects

• Relics
• Coins
• Stamps
• Skeleton
• Fossils
• Weapons
• Tools
• Utensils
• Pictures
• Furniture
• Clothing
• Coins
• Food
• Books
• Scrolls

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Also Art Objects

• e.g.
• Sculptures
• Paintings
• Pottery
• Also
• Films
• Photographs
• Buildings

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Primary Sources often Oral Testimony

• for example
• Jimmy Carter on Iran hostages
• Residents of South Boston on the busing period
• Your grandfather on his boyhood on a Utah farm

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Secondary Sources

• Not ORIGINAL sources
• No direct physical connection to event studied
• Examples include
• history books
• articles in encyclopedias
• prints of paintings or replicas of art objects
• reviews of research

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Secondary Sources Sometimes Categorized As

• Intentional Documents
• e.g. biographies, memoirs and yearbooks composed
  deliberately to present record of past.
• Unpremeditated Documents
• e.g. novels, paintings, everyday objects, letters
  not intentionally created to be utilized for
  historical evidence at a later date.

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Preliminary Sources

• e.g. an index to secondary and primary sources.
• Such sources include Bibliographies, Databases,
  Encyclopedias etc.

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External Criticism

• Check if the evidence is authentic/genuine.
• Researcher must discover frauds, forgeries,
  hoaxes, inventions.
• Chemical analysis of paint, ink, paper,
  parchment, cloth.
• Carbon dating of artifacts.

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Ask Such Questions As

• Was the knowledge the source aims to transmit
  available at the time?
• Is it consistent with what is already known about
  author/period?
• What about beautiful Greek coin just discovered
  and bearing the stamp of the date 499 B.C.?

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Internal Criticism

• Evidence is genuine, but can we trust what it
  tells us?
• Does document present a faithful/true report?
• Historian must search out BIAS (both
  "unconscious" as well as "conscious")

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• Was document's author a competent observer?
• Was she too sympathetic or too adversely
  critical?
• Was she pressured to twist or exclude facts?
• Was documentary record made long after events
  described?
• Does her story agree with that of other witnesses?

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Presentism

• The interpretation of past events using concepts
  and perspectives that originated in more recent
  times.

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Very Different Treatments

• Teaching of History in
• Palestinian Schools
• Israeli Jewish Schools
• Zulu Schools
• Afrikaner Boer Schools

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Often a Western Cultural Bias

• Most research is conducted by westerners.
• Danger of western cultural bias and ethnocentrism.

40
Feminist History

• Feminist Historians frequently question
  male-dominated assumptions and data on women in
  other cultures.

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Recent Developments in Historical Writing

• Change from political to social history
• Many studies of
• lives of women and children
• slaves
• ethnic groups
• factory workers
• the family, etc.

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Quantitative History

• e.g.
• Statistical methods
• Voting records
• Population analyses
• Literacy counts, etc.