Essential Question: Why is historiography important and how can it be used?

1. Essential Question: Why is historiography important and how can it be used?

2. In a nutshell, historiography is the history of history. • Rather than subjecting actual events - say, Hitler's annexation of Austria - to historical analysis, the subject of historiography is the history of the history of the event: the way it has been written, the sometimes conflicting objectives pursued by those writing on it over time, and the way in which such factors shape our understanding of the actual event at stake, and of the nature of history itself.

3. The Uses of History • Sense of our own identity • Better understand the present • “present-mindedness” • Corrective for misleading analogies and “lessons” of the past • Tendencies of humankind, of social institutions, and other aspects of human condition • Develop tolerance and open-mindedness • The basic background for many other disciplines • Entertainment • Critical thinking skills

4. Questions of historiography include the following: • who writes history, with what agenda in mind, and towards what ends? • how accurate can a historian ever hope to be, analyzing past events from the vantage point of the historian's present? • does the historian's own perspective, impacted as it undoubtedly is by gender, age, national and ideological affiliation, etc., contribute to an "agenda" that the historian's work is playing into, unwittingly or consciously? • what about the types of sources, both primary and secondary, an historian chooses to base his or her work upon? Do they too contribute to the above-mentioned "agenda"? • does the very selection of sources (and, by extension, the decision to exclude certain other sources) prejudice the outcome of the historian's work in certain ways? et cetera..

5. As you can tell, the underlying sentiment of historiography is one of skepticism. • This is due to the recognition that historians do have agendas and do select sources with the intent of "proving" certain preconceived notions. • History is therefore never truly "objective," but always a construct that presents the historian's view of things. • At its most objective - and even this is debatable - history presents basic "facts" (dates, events, etc.); the task of the historian, then, is to interpret those facts, the outcome of which (a book, a journal article, a lecture -- even a student paper) can never be truly objective, as interpretation is by definition a subjective mental process.

6. Continuity and Change: The Stages of Historical Consciousness • History as Fact • History as Casual Sequence • History as Complexity • History as Interpretation • Moral certain and ambiguity • Absolute truth and relativism

7. Historiography- the study of how history is written & its various perspectives / biases

8. Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology • Ontology: is the study of being or existence or to study conceptions of reality • Epistemology: is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature and scope of knowledge • Methodology: a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline, a particular procedure or set of procedures, or the analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry in a particular field

9. Central idea: Facts are integral to the study of history, but equally important is the meaning we give to historical information

10. Dominant Schools of Historiography Consensus or traditional- Argues that change results from consensus among various groups in society. Division & class interest, etc. exist but are not central to the process of change.

11. Conflict or revisionist- Opposite view It views conflict among groups, classes, race, and gender, etc. as central to the process of change.

12. The Writing of History • The Beginning” • Old Testament • Herodotus: The Histories, personal observations, surviving records, interviews of witnesses • Thucydides: The History of Peloponnesian Wars, verifiable, relevant facts only, explain events in a way that can be substantiated by evidence • Roman Empire • Renaissance • Machiavelli: The Prince • Guicciardini: History of Italy

13. The Writing of History • Leopold Von Ranke and the rise of Modern History • Establishing history as a respected discipline in the universities • Firmly established the notion that all sound history must be based on primary courses and a rigorous methodology: footnotes and bibliography, scientific historical-mindedness

14. The Writing of History • The nineteenth-century history • Political, legal, or diplomatic • Ethnocentric, nationalistic • Karl Marx • Progressive Theory • Economics interpretation of history, economic determinism • Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalysis • The twentieth-century history • Social history: average men and women, marginalized groups • Women history • Psychohistory • The Impact of IT, computers, statistical packages

15. Types of History Constitutional Marxist / Conflict Gender Eurocentric Afrocentric Environmental Determinism Social Political Economic Diplomatic Military