Download Introduction How is Historical Knowledge Constructed? Why Study

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MODULE 1-2: THE NATURE OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
Introduction
What is history? Why do we study history? Can we truly know the past? Is historical knowledge an actual reflection of the
past as it was, or is it the historian's interpretation of what the past may have been like? These are questions that have
plagued students of history throughout time. Module 1-2 will address these questions by examining how historical
knowledge is constructed. You will also put theory into practice by reconstructing the past using a variety of primary
sources. After completing this module you should be able to do the following:
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Explain how historians reconstruct the past using primary sources and secondary sources.
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Compare and contrast the Empiricist, Marxist, and Annales approach to reconstructing the past.
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Relate periodization to the study of history.
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Explain what historians can learn about the past by analyzing written text, images, and music.
How is Historical Knowledge Constructed?
Primary Sources
Historical Record
Secondary Sources
Historians gain historical knowledge by analyzing and evaluating evidence that has survived to the
present. This evidence, termed primary sources, can take the form of architecture, books, paintings,
legal documents, maps, photographs, diaries, oral accounts,
coins, and so forth.
The historical record for a given period of time studied is
composed of all the identified primary sources. Immediately
to the right you can see some an example of a primary source
that forms part of ancient Egypt’s historical record. It is a
page taken from The Book of the Dead.
In researching the past, historians also use "accounts of the
past created by people writing about events sometime after
they happened." These accounts are referred to as secondary sources. Most students of history have
acquired their knowledge about the past by reading secondary sources. The lecture notes for this
course are an example of a secondary source. Another example of a secondary source would be a
history textbook.
Why Study the Past?
Why study history? Some reasons for why students should study of history can be found in the
writings of Charles Keith Maisels and Michael Stanford. Maisels, in his work entitled Early
Civilizations of the Old World (1999), explains that by studying the past we can satisfy “our need to
know how things came to be the way they are.” Stanford, in his work entitled The Nature of
Historical Knowledge (1986), asserts “that the discipline of history is part of the great preoccupation
of the twentieth century-mind: the effort to understand itself.” What other reasons can you think of as
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to why we should study the past?
The Past as it Was?
Can we know the past is it was? Good question! Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, in The Houses of
History (1999), argue that, “Every piece of historical writing has a theoretical basis on which
evidence is selected, filtered and understood.” If what Green and Troup write is true, does their
statement instill in you the confidence that we can truly know the past as it was? Or do we know the
past as historians want us to know it?
Interpretation
Revision
Taking into account what Green and Troup write, secondary sources should be viewed as
interpretations of the past. Many theories about the past proposed by secondary sources are regularly
revised by new generations of historians. This is why your local bookstore houses so many secondary
sources (books/interpretations) about any one historical topic.
History and Theory: Empiricists, Marxists, and Annales
Historians subscribe to particular theories when they write about the past. These theories influence
how historians both analyze and interpret the past. Empiricists, Marxists, and Annales are examples
of different approaches to interpreting the past. Let us take a moment to examine these theories in
more detail.
Empiricist
Historical
Materialism
Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886: right), a German historian, founded the
Empiricist approach to history in the 19th century. Von Ranke lived during
a time when science was the leading source of authority. Consequently, this
setting influenced how Von Ranke approached history. In general, the
empiricists approach history through, " . . . the rigorous examination and
knowledge of historical evidence verified by references; impartial research,
devoid of priori beliefs and prejudices; an inductive method of reasoning,
from the particular to the general." It sounds like these individuals were
trying to make the study of history a science! Write about just the facts.
Marxist historians are influenced by the writings of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883: below) and
Frederick Engels (1820-1895). Marx and Engels interpreted the past through the application of
historical materialism. Historical materialism proposes that changes in history are created by
humankind's attempt to fulfill its material needs. What does that mean? Perhaps we can gain a better
understanding of this theory from a work composed by Marx and Engels entitled The German
Ideology (1846).
Reading the Past
The German Ideology (1846):
German Ideology
(1846)
“. . . life involves before anything else eating, drinking, habitation,
clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the
production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material
life itself. . . . the multitude of productive forces accessible to men
determines the nature of society, hence, that the history of humanity
must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry
and exchange.”
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Annales historians focus on total history. In other words, they look at every
facet of human life (and the environment) when they reconstruct the past. I
suppose this is why their books are thick! Look at everything? Wow! This
French school of thought was co-founded by Marc Bloc (1886-1944: left) and
Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) in 1929. The influence of the Annales approach to
the study of history has been described in the following way: " . . . it was the
Annales itself that over the years undermined the positivist definition of
historical fact, destroyed the taboo on unwritten evidence, imposed dialogue
with the sister disciplines, discredited the history of events, rejected the primacy
of political history by insisting on its interaction with economic and cultural
history, repudiating traditional biography which isolated the individual . . . ."
Annales
Periodization
Periodization
Chronological
Thematic
Historians do not only struggle with how to interpret the past. They also struggle with how to
organize it. This is where periodization comes into play. William A. Green defines periodization as,
"The organizing principles upon which we write history, the priorities we assign to various aspects of
human endeavor, and the theories of change we adopt to explain the historical process: all are
represented in periodization."
Like historical knowledge, periodization has an "interpretive" quality to it. In other words, not
everyone periodizes in the same way. Chronological periodization seems to be the easiest way to
organize the past. However, sometimes historians will approach the past thematically, or will
combine a thematic approach with a chronological approach. Below is an example of how a historian
may periodize/organize the early history of Mesopotamia using both methods.
Mesopotamia: Chronological 2900-1595 BCE
Mesopotamia: Thematic 2900-1595 BCE
Sumerian Period (c. 2900-1334 BCE)
The Rise of Urbanism
Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BCE)
From City-States to Empires
Babylonian Empire (c. 1894-1595 BCE)
Economy and Society
Assignments
Practicing History: Analyzing Plows, Poems and Music
Self-assessment: Terms and Questions for Analysis
Self-assessment: True/False Statements
Internet Supplemental Resources
American Historical Association: Why Study History?
Calendars Through the Ages: How does one count years? | What do BCE/CE mean?
Center for New History and Media: Analyzing Documents