What Does the Historian Do?

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.

History is a Representation of the Past • But representations may be hindered by • lack of ability of historian • lack of evidence • historian’s biases • historian’s interpretation • sheer desire to present a false picture

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

Sometimes Regional History is Studied • e.g. • Latin America • Eastern Europe • Middle East • South East Asia

It’s 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.

Sometimes it’s Periods • Renaissance • Reformation • 30 Years War • The Enlightenment • The Dark Ages

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

Topics are often Categorized • Intellectual history • Cultural history • Social history • Economic history • Religious history • Educational history • or, indeed, the history of any discipline

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

Historian adds still another layer of interpretation • She stresses or ignores certain data. • She organizes data into categories/patterns.

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!!

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.

Also Very Important • Statistical Techniques • Languages

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.?

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")

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?

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

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

Often a Western Cultural Bias • Most research is conducted by westerners. • Danger of western cultural bias and ethnocentrism.

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

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.

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

What Does the Historian Do?