Historiography

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Historiography
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Why are you here?

• History is more or less bunk
• -- Henry Ford, 1916.

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Why Study American History

• To know nothing of before you were born is to
  remain a Child. -- Cicero.
• People who forget the past are condemned to
  repeat it. -- George Santayana

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Terminology

• History
• Branch of knowledge that records and analyzes the
  past of literate human events (change) with
  sufficient distance in time to remain objective.
• No change no history

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That Noble Dream Question of Objectivity

• Each new generation writes their own history
• History always written from a particular vantage
  point
• New information comes to light
• New questions emerge priorities change
• Examples Cold War and Today
• To be critical readers students must have strong
  grasp of historiography and ideology driving
  forces of bias!

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• Historiography
• (-- graphy) Writing of history based on the
  critical examination of sources
• (-- ology) The principles, theory, and history of
  historical writing

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Worldview

• Theories often based on ones Worldview
  Weltanschauung
• Comprehensive conception of the world or reality
  from a specific standpoint
• Humans vis-à-vis
• God/Sacred
• Other humans
• Environment
• Worldview influences or dictates theory and
  conceptual frameworks

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Conceptual Frameworks

• Rational Human
• Historicism
• Linear, evolutionary, progressing
• Stages or Cycles
• Great Man Theory

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Rational Human

• Assumes most people set rational goals for
  themselves and seek to achieve them through the
  exercise of reason and logic.
• Attacked by historicist theories, such as Marxism.

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Historicism

• A theory that history is determined by immutable
  laws and not by human agency

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Linear, evolutionary, progressing

• Linear moving in a straight line
• Evolutionary evolving changing
• Progressing -- moving forward getting better
  and better

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Great Man Theory

• Assumes that every so often, a great man will
  arise and alter the course of history.
• Great meaning significant or influential and not
  necessarily good

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Ideology

• Systematic set of ideas on how reality is or
  should operate and the tools/devices to put them
  in place.
• A form of social or political philosophy in which
  practical elements are as prominent as
  theoretical one.

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Ideologies

• Left Wing/Leftist -gt Liberal
• Marxism
• Subaltern
• Social
• Right Wing/ Rightest -gtConservative
• Nationalist

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Marxism

• Dialectical materialism
• Class conflict
• Stages of History

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Nationalism

• Loyalty and devotion to a nation-state
  especially a sense of national consciousness
  exalting one nation above all others and placing
  primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and
  interests as opposed to other groups.

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Rise of Nationalism

• Loyalty to nation-state is not a natural state of
  being

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Rise of Nationalism

• Loyalty to nation-state is not a natural state of
  being
• 18th century people or nation become linked with
  the state

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Rise of Nationalism

• Loyalty to nation-state is not a natural state of
  being
• 18th century people or nation become linked with
  the state
• Sense of Common cultural heritage
• Use of vernacular
• Public sphere
• Symbols
• History nation-state object of historical study

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History in Service of Nationalism

• Glorification of nation-state
• Hero building
• Xenophobia

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The Historians

• Herbert Baxter Adams
• b. 1850 d. 1901
• PhD from Heidelberg Germany
• Professor at Johns Hopkins University
• Trained many of the next generation of historians
• Scientific method
• Germ theory of Politics

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The Historians

• Herbert Baxter Adams
• Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932)
• The Significance of the Frontier in American
  History

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The Historians

• Carl Becker (1873-1945)
• Known for work on American Revolution
• Challenged Scientific Methodology
• Argued for individual relativism
• The facts of history do not exist for any
  historian until he creates them, and into every
  fact he creates some part of his individual
  experience must enter.

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The Historians

• Howard Zinn (1922 - )
• Peoples of History of the United States
• Left wing/marxist