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What exactly IS History?
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Message 1.听
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Monday, 21st November 2011
What always concerns me, either in conversation with people, stuff on TV, in the printed media or on internet forums of varying quality, is the idea in a great number of minds (which includes Politicians and other public figures) that History is something that;-
A) They can cherry-pick the 'best' and most 'convenient' bits from, and ignore/ deny/ bury anything they don't like, haven't heard of, don't agree with or can't/ won't tolerate?
Or is it ideally;-
B) The scholarly study of people, events, landscape, ecology, documentation, archaeology, artefacts and architecture etc from bygone eras?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as;-
"1 [mass noun] the study of past events, particularly in human affairs
2 the whole series of past events connected with a particular person or thing
3 a continuous, typically chronological, record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution"
Whether this is related to subject matter such as, for example, pre-Norman England, the World Wars, the history of black people in Britain or [in]famous assassinations, people go all Ostrich about certain parts of the subject matter and 'pick' what sections of history they WANT to have happened? With the advent of the WWWeb it's only exacerbated the 'issue', as most of us are only too aware.
Are most of such "armchair historians" who rant and abuse the facts of the subject matter, seemingly ignorant of any real historical study (save for 'factoids' and redtop 'newspaper' headlines) and blinded by wish-fulfilment, to be trusted with History? -
Message 2
Posted by Thomas (U14985443) on Monday, 21st November 2011
It麓s from all a bit, Hereword.
From my recent experiences on these boards, I麓m more inclined to stick on history books and read them instead to consider some posts on some threads in which historical subjects are treated the way you麓ve so well described.
You麓ve hit the head of the nail with your post and aside from some of the "armchair-historians" on here, there are also at least some people who have a great deal of knowledge in history and I appreciate them for being not patronising when they engage themselves into debate.
To me, history is what you麓ve listed in your quotation from the Oxford English Dictionary麓s definition. That means all of them. -
Message 3
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Hi Thomas, thanks for your post.
It's only upon reading your post that I realised that my post might be taken to criticise or denigrate people or posts on this 麻豆约拍 site, which is NOT the case! That never even entered my mind, but on various website 'forums' elsewhere.
This site is one of a few superlative discussion forums which do the subject of History justice as, you described it accurately, many folk here are highly knowledgeable and literate.
I feel saddened when surfing for knowledge on the internet usually, even more so when hearing and entering debates in society or when viewing TV etc? -
Message 4
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Monday, 21st November 2011
For me history is very simply the story of the past, whether pleasant or unpleasant it is encumbent on us to preserve that story for the future.
I think there is always going to be those who will abuse or falsify history to suit their own political or ethnic agendas and in a free speaking society it can't be expected to be otherwise. But as long as the true history/story remains intact and freely acessable to everyone all is well, it is when governments and/or people begin to burn the books that we need worry. -
Message 5
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Well Thomas was brave enough to read most of my "Towards Project" a couple of years ago-- working title "Towards a View of History for our Own Times".
I will only add here to what ID has written that History should be the study of the Past behind our Present. For Historians are not merely interested in the Past for its own sake like Antiquarians, or perhaps Chroniclers or just collectors of curiosities.
As a "logos" with its own muse History is one of those studies that is supposed to help us to live with some understanding of what kind of future we are creating.
The phrase that I used with all pupils as they started secondary school history was:
We study the Past so that we can live the Present with an eye on the Future.
Cass -
Message 6
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 21st November 2011
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as;-
"1 [mass noun] the study of past events, particularly in human affairs
2 the whole series of past events connected with a particular person or thing
3 a continuous, typically chronological, record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution"
Whether this is related to subject matter such as, for example, pre-Norman England, the World Wars, the history of black people in Britain or [in]famous assassinations, people go all Ostrich about certain parts of the subject matter and 'pick' what sections of history they WANT to have happened? With the advent of the WWWeb it's only exacerbated the 'issue', as most of us are only too aware.
Are most of such "armchair historians" who rant and abuse the facts of the subject matter, seemingly ignorant of any real historical study (save for 'factoids' and redtop 'newspaper' headlines) and blinded by wish-fulfilment, to be trusted with History?听
You are addressing two separate issues, first the definition of history, second the way some people rant on about what they want to have happened in history.
My definiton (and of course MY definition is the RIGHT one!) of "history" is simply what happened to humans in the past. (It does not cover what happened to galaxies, the Earth or dinosaurs in the past, those are separate areas of study (astronomy, geology and paleontology)). The same word "history" is also used to mean the STUDY OF what happened to humans in the past.
Now as to your second issue, you must provide examples of where people have been ostrich-like and then we can discuss further about that. -
Message 7
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Fascinating, I'd be here are damned year listing internet examples of what I described. Go on most history forums?
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Message 8
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Hereword, just give a couple of examples.
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Message 9
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Cass,
" I will only add here to what ID has written that History should be the study of the Past behind our Present. For Historians are not merely interested in the Past for its own sake like Antiquarians, or perhaps Chroniclers or just collectors of curiosities."
I am interested in the past for its own sake. And I am very thrilled to seek in the past like a detective how it "really" happened and what was the reason for the event...as an apprenti-historian...as rigorously following within the possibilities of my knowledge the scientific methods of the "real" (having done studies at university level in that field) historians...
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 10
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 21st November 2011
I think there is a problem in that we want to make a story; we also want to imitate science by discovering a chain of cause and event. But any explanation of any given outcome must cause us to distort the evidence by selection.
To put it another way, we cannot help but apply hindsight. But if we do that, then we are no longer really studying things as they were at the time, before the future was known.
I think that historians should be made to write essays explaining why the First World War was never going to happen or about why feudalism is the final phase of economic development or why Persia is currently the dominant world superpower. Because I think that if you make a serious effort you can present quite a respectable case for such things and thus better understand the times when such things were still possibilities.
After all, my idea of history is not the same as my grandfather's, because the world it needs to explain is not the same.
Cass says:
"We study the Past so that we can live the Present with an eye on the Future."
But I wonder if reality of history might not be more like:
"past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance" -
Message 11
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 21st November 2011
fascinating,
"My definiton (and of course MY definition is the RIGHT one!) of "history" is simply what happened to humans in the past. (It does not cover what happened to galaxies, the Earth or dinosaurs in the past, those are separate areas of study (astronomy, geology and paleontology)). ."
Quite right.
"The same word "history" is also used to mean the STUDY OF what happened to humans in the past"
In Dutch and German (Thomas will subcribe it) they have a word for the act of that "study": in Dutch "geschiedschrijving", in German "Geschichtsschreibung". Therefore I many times write on these boards: "history writing" instead of "history" and "historian". Did already a study for these boards about the "concept" of the word in the four languages. And in English as especially in French there seems to be another "concept" of the word, which one would expect as the right translation of "Geschichtsschreibung", namely "historiography" and "historiographie".
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 12
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Well said, hothousemat.
One reason I believe we will never fully understand the past is because things never turned out the way it was imagined they would, the law of unintended consequences rules, so as you said, knowing the actual results of actions and decisions blinds us to the reality. What was it MacMillan said, "Events, dear boy,
events".This is one way in which the so called 'evolutionary' theory of history falls down, there was no premeditated incremental change or 'progress', just a series of events some of which had entirely unexpected outcomes. I suppose this was an evolutionary process in the sense of random changes, some of which had an advantage so stuck, but with the same lack of directedness as evolution itself.
In the 60s, if asked about the most profoundly influential factors in the next 50 years, we would almost certainly have mentioned the bomb or space travel but never a little electronic device that would go in our pockets and connect us instantly with almost anyone anywhere.
I don't believe that the past will guide us in the future beyond confirming that whatever the future is, it's not going to be what we think! -
Message 13
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Paul
But when you say that you are interested in the Past for its own sake- does that extend to all aspects of the Past or in particular what Humanity has done..
I did not want to go on. too much in my previous post... But I had anticipated that reading of what I had written.
A favourite and formative book from my teens was R.G. Collingwood's "The Idea of History" in whom I found a "soulmate". We both agree :
(a) that sciences like sociology and pysychology do not give us the answer to the question "What does it mean to be a human being?" - in the Present and the Future. People may no longer believe that God gave humankind free will, but historians usually try to resist determinism in favour of the idea that people can make rational and unprecedented choices. History provides precedents for the unprecedented.
And it is an axiom for historians that human nature has a universality across time and space, and that by an effort of imagination given enough input we can transport ourselves into lives lived by our species under other circumstances. So race, creed, colour, nationality, and period are no unsurmountable barriers to the historian- only ignorance.
and
(b) that history is the very best way to answer to question "What does it mean to be the unique person that I am?" ..
I saw a TV advert yesterday featuring a major US Film Actor explaining that an actor needs to be able to observe carefully everybody he sees and learn how to be all manner of different people. He ends up filling a passenger airoplane in various guises. Most of us just need to understand how to make a success out of being ourselves.
There are historical characters with whom we can feel a great sense of empathy and others who seem to be totally alien and reveal to us our limitations, or the limits that we would like to believe that we would impose upon ourselves.
But the more people that we feel that we could be without losing our identity, the more we grow.. To cross gender who sang "I'm every woman. It's all in me".. and goes on to list her full complement of womanly competences?
Cass -
Message 14
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 21st November 2011
In English, "historiography" is the study of the (study of) history. So while what happened to humans in the past is called history, the human activity of studying what happened to humans in the past is also called history, but the study of how this studying has been done is called historiography.
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Message 15
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 21st November 2011
To put it another way, we cannot help but apply hindsight. But if we do that, then we are no longer really studying things as they were at the time, before the future was known.
听
No, hhm, I think that is wrong. All we need concern ourselves with, at least to begin with, are the facts. We can at least agree that there was a war which we now call the first world war (though of course we must realise that most of the world was not affected by it) that there was feudalism (while recognising that there were still many freeholders even at the height of feudalism) and that there was a country called Persia (though the name the 'Persians' gave it might have been different, the boundaries and peoples in Persia changed over the years etc etc.). We can 'fill in' more details with further facts, eg, have an idea of how many fought and died in the first world war (extensive records enable us to determine how many), know how extensive the feudal system was by looking at records eg the Domesday Book. All these records need to be considered critically, and in concentrating on what is recorded we can tend to forget what was NOT recorded, but facts form the basis of the serious study of history. -
Message 16
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 21st November 2011
fascinating,
it is already some years that I did the study for these boards and had again a quick tour d'horizon in the several languages and I have to admit that even that is changed
"Histories, usually of the lineage of the king, transmitted orally. Although we are used to thinking of history as written, pre-literate societies have a long tradition of oral history also; thus, in their view historiography is supposed to be transmitted orally. Usually with an oral historiography specialized people are assigned the task of memorizing the history. Often they are taught starting at a very young age. Griots among African kingships and empires such as the Mandinka and Hausa, performing this function at ceremonial occasions. In the Western tradition, it is believed that people who were blind, called "麻豆约拍rs", performed the same task of memorization, to orally transmit history; thus creating what is now known as epic poetry, such as 麻豆约拍r's Iliad and Odyssey."
This first item in the English wikipedia was what I found in my former research for the French concept of the word "historiographie"
For me it is the second item:
The writing of history based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and selection of authentic source materials and composition of these materials into a narrative subject to scholarly methods of criticism
For me it is the third item:
the narrative presentation of history based on a critical examination, evaluation, and selection of material from primary and secondary sources and subject to scholarly criteria.
I suppose we have "opened a can of worms" (as I think they say in the US
)
If you read the UK wikipedia, the German one and the French one...
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 17
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Cass,
what you want now that I say? I can only repeat what I said in my message 9.
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 18
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 21st November 2011
Paul
You wrote:
"I am interested in the past for its own sake"..
Collingwood would argue that natural events in the past- like the climate, weather, natural disasters and diseases are not really material for the historian in themselves.. They teach us nothing about the human mind and character, which is what we most need to understand, though the way that people reacted to such challenges may be most informative.
Volcanic eruptions in deserted places where they have no impact on human life (no ash-cloud grounding aircraft etc) have interest for volcanologists but not for historians.
A typical example would be the great flu epidemic that some people estimate killed almost as many people after the First World War as had died in that conflict. But, unlike the Great War, it was not created and driven along by conscious and deliberate human actions and so is generally seen as revealing rather less about humankind.
Cass -
Message 19
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
The problem with factual based history is the interpretation of those facts. Most historical writings are interpretative to some degree and even verbal histories vary according to who is speaking or seeing the events. Short of counting each head at an event the number of people anywhere 鈥 at a battle, say 鈥 is subject to how someone has seen it, or perhaps wants to see it. The other night we had a leaders鈥 debate leading up to our elections on Saturday; the debate is there to see, but when people try to analyse who 鈥榳on鈥 it, that is quite a different matter. Even what they mean when they say something is up for argument.
Today I was reading a novel set in Sarajevo in 1993. One of the characters thinks, 鈥淭here is no way to tell which version of a lie is the truth. Is the real Sarajevo the one where people were happy, treated each other well,. lived without conflict? Or is the real Sarajevo the one he sees today, where people are trying to kill each other, where bullets and bombs fly down from the hills and the buildings crumble to the ground...He knows which lie he will tell himself. The city he lives in it full of people who will someday go back to treating each other like humans. The war will end and when it鈥檚 looked back upon it will be with regret, not with fond memories of faded glory.鈥
I was talking to a friend today whose mother was good friends with a famous NZer. A documentary or drama a while ago on the person mentioned this friendship and decided (wrongly) it was a lesbian one. The friend took out all the correspondence she had between them and burnt it rather than have it subject later to odd interpretations like that. My own mother鈥檚 innocent but strong friendship with another girl was apparently subject to the odd sideways glance. Partly this sort of interpretation comes from a modern desire to sex things up literally and metaphorically, partly because of a lack of understanding of past behaviour and what it meant. Close friendships around the end of the 19th century weren鈥檛 considered odd or sexual; somehow they are now.
It鈥檚 easy to get the facts from long ago interpreted in a way that fits modern thought, but that doesn鈥檛 mean that is how they would have been seen at the time. I think the comments about hindsight were very astute, but even without that aspect, past attitudes are not the same as present ones. We underestimate the importance of religion in past times and put a cynicism on it that wasn鈥檛 there. We romanticise battles according to who lost or how we see the people now.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 20
Posted by Thomas (U14985443) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
Hi Hereword,
I didn麓t take your opening post as being some sort of critics or denigrate people or posts on these boards here. It was just my own expression of my opinion regarding the way history is treated on here.
One can take up some pain staking efforts to seek for "evidences and proof" for some historical subjects. The problem is, that in some debates this goes beyond some rational dealing with history because even professional historians have to trust historians before them on their accounts to work at least on a basis for their own researches. I often wonder about such attitudes to doubt all what is historically proved by records and researches and still demanding evidences for subjects which are cristal clear. Just to keep a debate going on such a way of dealing doesn麓t makes much sense to me. It麓s seems rather to me that it麓s for the purpose of having a thread going. Well that麓s left to the preference of the people concerned, not what I麓d prefer anymore.
This site is one of a few superlative discussion forums which do the subject of History justice as, you described it accurately, many folk here are highly knowledgeable and literate.听
These are wise words from you and they point out to two main subjects, as they are "knowledgeable" and "literate". They both doesn麓t go comfirm any times, they are sometimes the bastions of debates like those I麓ve mentioned above. I think that most people on here have their "knowledge" taken from "literate" basics and how many on here have their "knowledge" from "evidences" taken by their own research. I said "research" and that means to take up the same painstaking work that other historians do and go to archives or other facilities and deal with old records, files and so on.
If I麓d go to quote some historian in a debate to deliver "evidence" for my opinion, does this proof it? It could be doubted as well and in particular, in doing so as I said, I麓d have formed my opinion on the basis of someone eleses researches and opinion. So what麓s the trouble with all these "evidence" and "doubt seeking" on here at all?
Imagin just this for instance: You麓d go to an archive to take up your own studdies on a historical subject. Would you go there without or with some knowledge about the subject or would you prefer to rely on the staff of the archive to give you advise and lead you through the huge documents they have in stock?
I did that on a few occasions in my life and I can tell you, that such an undertaking demands much time and a very good skilled archivist. The point in all this is, that even when you麓d get all the documents you request for your research it is left to you to "pick out" those parts which you "regard as important" yourself. It麓s the skill to deal with the "art" of selecting important and less important informations from historical documents and supply them to your own work in order to keep it on record and summarised in way that the whole thing makes sense.
When I麓ve finished some book, I usually take the short time to read the referrences of the author and there is no single book, except an political pamphlet, that has not some pages on which plenty of other authors are listed. That麓s the way most historians are working, writing and publishing their own books.
I麓m still reading the book "Ireland in the 20th Century" by Tim Pat Coogan. An very interesting one, imo, for besides the story he麓s telling about that part of Irish history, he also mentiones between the lines how he got to this and that by telling the names of his interviewees, most of them witnesses of that period. So should I doubt his words as well just for the "doubts sake" he might had inflicted some "made up story"? I麓m just taking note of what he wrote and sometimes in another sources on the same subject, I find the confirmation of his writing, without seeking for "evidence".
If one can麓t trust an historian, and Mr Coogan is one of the most famous Irish historians, one could as well forget about dealing with history because in history there are more "grey zones" than some people would like to admit. It麓s sometimes like you麓d wander through an misty area without a guide and you麓d had to pay more attention to the signposts on these ways. This is my answer to your last paragraph in your post:
I feel saddened when surfing for knowledge on the internet usually, even more so when hearing and entering debates in society or when viewing TV etc?听
I don麓t feel saddened on that, I麓m just a bit too realistic about the fact that history is for many people either a very "dry" or even "boring" matter. To bring it to the wider public it has become necessary to combine it with some sort of "entertainment".
You might have attended some "re-enactment" events in your local area or somewhere else in the UK. Those people you are taking part in such "re-enactment" events, are (supposedly) keen on performing this as historical accurate as possible. I麓ve seen such an event in my childhood when I was with my Grandmother in Alexandra Park in Oldham. I was very impressed by this event and I麓ll never forget it, although I still don麓t know what they were re-enacting, but from the uniforms these soldiers were wearing it was something from the early 19th Century. That was also "entertaining" the public, but no one was bothering about that like certain people on here.
Excuse the lenght of my post. -
Message 21
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
Caro
Your post fits in with a modern tendency to try to use History in order to pass judgement on the past.
And this tendency is consistent with what I call "post-mortem" thinking. Twenty years ago it was suggested that we were living through "the end of History"- there was nothing really new and challenging progressive and constructive to do and really it was a kind of "Judgement Day"- a time for the handing out of rewards and punishments- and with no really clear Future prospect punishment and recrimination seems to fit the public taste.
But English wisdom insists that in the judicial system people should actually only be judged by their peers- that is people who live in their time and circumstances, something that not even the best historians can do.
Having done jury service twice I might compare studying history with the experience of following the evidence put forward in the trial and endeavouring to get a clear grasp of the various aspects. But juries are always advised not to pre-judge the case, not least by not discussing possible verdicts before the time to do so finally arrives.
Eventually that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the group and I have personally been impressed with the way that the juries that I sat on accepted and took very seriously that responsibility of dealing justly: for our decisions would have repercussions for the future lives of those involved. People were less inclined to condemn than in "idle" conversation.
As a journalist you may be aware that we have just recently had the opening of the enquiry into journalistic practice in the UK, and yesterday Hugh Grant 's evidence was televised live. You may also be aware of the saying about journalism that was quoted to me by the Chair of the England Rugby selectors in a letter in the late Seventies "Power without responsibility".
To go back to Collingwood , writing in the Thirties he saw the task of the Historian as the same quest to find key answers as all the other "logos" :and he borrowed a little Belgian detective and his "little grey cells".
Most of the time the question that Poirot was tackling was "Who dun it?".. Moreover at least in the dramatised versions "Poirot sees everything" and Agatha Christie is very fond of throwing the reader off the scent with all kinds of "red herrings". For not all facts are equal. Some are of "key" importance because they reveal why what happened was not just "commonplace", "uneventful" and "insignificant". Some clues point to a conscious and deliberate effort to "make history" in this case by doing evil. And though one could say that this was also "post mortem" thinking another theme of the Poirot stories is that a true killer or thief will kill or rob again. Sometimes the circumstances are so exceptional that Poirot decides that it is not his job to do the work of the police.
Another one of my court experiences was as a character witness for one of my 15 year old pupils who was accused of having kicked a policewoman in Brixton. He was aquitted.
Outside the court house I saw one of the police witnesses driving away, obviously upset at losing the case. I told him that obviously I was not a witness to the alleged event, but that my pupil was fundamentally a decent and helpful lad whom I had never heard expressing any animosity towards "Babylon" (The Brixton Police) and that it would be an unhappy day for our Future had such a boy been criminalised.
[I think that the policewoman changed carreer and turned up in our school as a teacher]
An earlier post took one of mine as implying that I said that we should use the Past to shape the Future. Like Collingwood I believe that the Past gives us examples of the way that people in previous ages have tried to shape the Future and, as the best learning is life experience, our empathy, insight and imagination give us the chance to benefit from a collective human experience- putting "old heads" on less old shoulders in the hope that we may benefit from being "wise after the event".
Cass -
Message 22
Posted by Thomas (U14985443) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
Hi Paul,
The following quotation can apply for "Geschichtsschreibung" as well:
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 21st November 2011 (14 Hours Ago)
In English, "historiography" is the study of the (study of) history. So while what happened to humans in the past is called history, the human activity of studying what happened to humans in the past is also called history, but the study of how this studying has been done is called historiography.听
The art of writing history as well as telling history has the equal meaning in the German word "Geschichtsschreibung". It depends on what one is referring to. Historical revisionism refers also to "Geschichtsschreibung", to "correct" history in accordance to the personal or more political aim of the "Revisionist".
Kind Regards,
Thomas -
Message 23
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
Having done jury service twice I might compare studying history with the experience of following the evidence put forward in the trial and endeavouring to get a clear grasp of the various aspects. 听
But the baffling thing about history is that although you know the crime occurred you can never quite pin the blame on anyone; everyone turns out to be either a unwitting accomplice or acting under duress.
What I mean is that although history appears to be about the actions of individuals, the forces than move societies do not seem to be the same as those that move the individuals within them. In other words, the more you learn about a 'man of destiny' like Napoleon, the less he seems to direct and the more he seems to be directed by his circumstances and by broad forces that we can only identify in retrospect.
This is why I have a soft spot for Marx. You may not agree with his analysis, but the attempt to comprehend history as something other than a bundle of biographies seems a noble cause. -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
hothousemat
Well-- My domestic circumstances as a child - as well as what I could see of the wider world that I was born into- showed me that guilt, blame and recrimination are really a waste of time and energy, and a dead end.
The key question is not "Who is to blame?" but "Who is capable of solving the problem and actually producing a solution?" The people who tend to "carry the can" were/are often just doing their inadequate best, and to ask them to then produce the real solution is just to compound the error.
If you want to get something done ask a busy person not someone who has been idle.
I suppose it at least in part accounts from my instinctive reaction to being pressurised to act in one way to resist that tide and look for alternatives. This also relates to what I have just posted on the "Right Kind of History" thread, for I realised when reading Collingwood all those years ago that I had never really accepted the state that he described as being "in statu pupillari"- just taking things on trust from teachers or other adults.
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
We underestimate the importance of religion in past times and put a cynicism on it that wasn鈥檛 there.听
I think we overestimate the the importance of religion in the past since the Reformation, and in particular since that Victorian middle class straight-laced prudishness came into being. It still colours our perception of the habits of people in the Middle Ages and before, for example. -
Message 26
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
I suppose because what history is is such a wide subject there is a lot of writing that pertains to it. In the last two days with this thread in mind I have noticed constant references to how historical events or past motives are viewed.
A book I am reading on the black death by Cambridge history professor John Hatcher begins with some discussion of this since he wants to write a more personalised account of the experiences of a particular village. His preface begins by talking of the restrictions placed on this by a variety of problems. While there are plenty of documentary records for the times, they focus on religious, political, economic and legal affairs of the time, and often with the richer people in mind. The illiteracy of the general population and the lack of recording of the ordinary concerns of life means there isn鈥檛 documented evidence of these. [This has doubtless changed in the last few years, but I have been reading a book on people travelling on a particular ship to New Zealand in 1842 and even in the 19th century people鈥檚 lives could be reduced to their names on a shipping list, the names of their children and their death record. The author could find nothing else about her great-grandmother, beyond her getting to old age and being brought food from a young relative.]
John Hatcher said a more rounded view of life cannot be gained by searching the records. 鈥淭here are huge holes in the local records [and his village Walsham is one of the best recorded in Britain] and the least unacceptable way for the historian to fill them is to draw heavily on what is known. The best way of writing history is to proceed from the known to the unknown, and the deep knowledge that historian have of many areas of the mid-fourteenth century can be applied to create a fuller picture of life...our narrative will have to be extended beyond the fragmentary and often prosaic facts contained in surviving documents...This book will have to contain speculation as well as specifics, fiction as well as fact...Being a historian...I decided that the balance of the book must be tilted decisively towards history rather than fiction. ..But I have had to invent situations and dialogue and employ techniques reminiscent of docudrama.鈥 He ends by saying, 鈥淚 hope the unusual perspectives may help readers to acquire a better understanding of the Black Death...But it will also have served its purpose if it encourages some to dig deeper into real history books.鈥
The latest New Zealand Listener also talks of how to interpret motives and attitudes from the past, discussing two well-known and dead writers. 鈥淲hat makes the letters valuable is they鈥檙e not only in his own words but also contemporary with the events he is experiencing rather than recollected in tranquillity or subject to the kind of filtration that goes on when you write a memoir or autobiography later in life. A liberal socialist John Mulgan had no illusions about the fascism and communism stalking Europe and the accommodations being made towards them.鈥 But his ideas on what will happen in the war are usually wrong.
And an article about Janet Frame ends with her words, 鈥淲riters tell lies, of course. The answers I would have given you yesterday or tomorrow are different from the ones I give today.鈥
Which always seems to me a big danger that biographers face (and often don鈥檛 know much count of at all in my experience) 鈥 they take one speech or one event or one idea and make assumptions based on that on a person鈥檚 whole life and whole personality and whole ideas. And people and events are much more complex and contradictory generally than that.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 27
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
Caro
Your post made me think of the programme that I watched yesterday about John Steinbeck..
It was presented by Melvyn Bragg a novelist ( I believe) who has become something of a 麻豆约拍 face and voice of History.. It was very interesting and perhaps quite naturally focussed largely on his novels.
But, though I have read and enjoyed most of those novels,for me Steinbeck is especially the man that I have read in large book of his correspondence- both personal and his pieces as a war correspondent.
As an historian I found these participations and involvements in "real life" more useful than the pieces of art that he invented and created.. But perhaps that is only because I read history above all and have tried to build a factually based rather than a fictionalised view of reality.
Of course- as T.B. Macaulay wrote the artist can just produce a sketch which we can recognise as being "true to life"-- But art often captures just a moment. It may be a moment of eternity. But we can not stay and live in eternity while we are time bound. But then back in my Virginia Woolf days- when I was helping my wife do her MA thesis on "Time and Structure in the works of Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust", I was faced with the different role of time in art.
Cass -
Message 28
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
According to Bernard Crick in the Independent, those pesky postmodernists would have us believe that history is "a tale told by idiots signifying nothing but an academic job." Clever, unkind and surely untrue.
But I have to admit I'm confused and distressed at the moment - mainly about facts. Please will someone explain this to me? It's from E.H. Carr's famous book "What is History?"
What then do we mean when we praise a historian for being objective, or say that one historian is more objective than another? Not, it is clear, simply that he gets his facts right, but rather that he chooses the right facts, or, in other words, that he applies the right standard of significance." 听
The implication is then that there are "right" facts - as opposed presumably to "wrong" facts? - and that these "right" facts can be chosen by a historian through the application of some generally accepted "right" standard?
Surely historians no longer believe that?
A couple of weeks ago I thought Macaulay was a bit of a pompous old Victorian. But then I read this:
A history in which every particular incident may be true, may on the whole be false. 听
Now that actually seems a bit clearer. I suppose Macaulay is saying that because history is essentially concerned with *people* (isn't it?) "historical understanding requires something more than the application of mere reason". Or is that tripe?
Any road up, I've just started Richard Evans's "In Defense of History" and so far so good. Evans seems to be a witty, sane and shrewd historian. Hurrah! Cambridge man of course. Perhaps *he* will explain to me what history is. But gosh, like many historians, he can't half be b*tchy. In his Afterword (I thought I'd start with the Afterword in case Professor Evans said in it that the whole of his proceeding book was now out-of-date and wrong) he has a go at some of the critics of his "Defense", including the unfortunate Joyce Appleby. Evans demolishes her thus: "The American historian Joyce Appleby also charged that 'what is lacking in A Defense of History ' (it is symptomatic of her scholarly standards that she even manage to misquote the book's title) 'is a serious discussion of the way that postmodernists have examined the tools and strategies involved in the production of knowledge.' "
Poor Ms AppIeby - I gave a little yelp for her.
All this *theory* - sigh - it does rather take all the joy and fun out of history. The stuff the likes of Paul Murray Kendall and Peter Ackroyd and Richard Marius write/wrote is far more interesting - but then they are not historians. -
Message 29
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
All this *theory* - sigh - it does rather take all the joy and fun out of history.听
Sorry Temp but I have to disagree with you there. The theory stuff is what can help make transparent the strategies that the historian has employed. It may not tell you what are the 'right ones' but it does allow you some insight into why he has chosen to stress some facts as significant while downplaying or outright rejecting others. Macauley, I think, may have been alluding to this.
As you have said, a mere recital of all the known facts would be stultifyingly boring as well as pretty pointless, just historical trainspotting, but beyond that everything is a process of interpretation. As long as the theoretical construction of the narrative that the historian has produced is made explicit and that narrative fits with his chosen set of facts - and how factual are facts is a whole other discussion - then the various accounts can weighed and compared.
Let's be honest,all expositions of what happened in the past are guesswork, with luck informed guesswork, but anything that sheds any light on the mindset and standpoint of the writer can only help us make a judgement as to how much to believe it.
Have a read of the first chapter of this book, nicely entitled 'Common sense is not enough', it's about archaeology but applies equally to history.
-
Message 30
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Oh, I'm just being petulant because I'm a bit confused at the moment, ferval. I must be enjoying it all really or I would have given up ages ago.
Thank you for the link - I've just got to pop over to Liz Woodville, then I shall read that chapter.
Have you put the Scottish Maiden up in the bar yet? Such an original alternative to a Christmas Tree. I was getting the *Scottish* Maiden confused with an *Iron* Maiden before - the Iron Maiden was a bit similar to the Scavenger's Daughter (I think?), but was a much later invention. Aren't we an imaginative species? -
Message 31
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Humph, men are very inventive Temp, but why do they usually give these ghastly contraptions female names?
-
Message 32
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
It betrays a certain insecurity, don't you think ID? Clearly they think that any equipment for chopping off bits of the body is a threat to their own and so must be feminised. It's a good job Freud wasn't around with his 'envy' theory to confirm their worst fears.
It's nice with the fairy lights though and handy for cutting the sticky tape. -
Message 33
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
I often think they must have had really horrid mothers!
-
Message 34
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Temperance
From what I recall of my E.H.Carr- his idea of objectivity was rather the same as the scientific one [hardly surprising perhaps because he was a Marxist historian who believed in history as science)..
I seem to remember this image of the Historian poised on a high-point safely removed from the bustle and noise of his own age, able to trace with the advantage of his Panoramic view the path that was leading to the Present and less clearly what the Future that he could "scout" would hold in store.
Looking back over the route that had been traversed it would be apparent that some passages had been more important and crucial to get through than others, and some of the exploits had been more significant. For example, some of the crowd had just taken dead end routes. Thus not all facts have equal significance- just as they do not when a doctor is trying to work out a diagnosis.
A practical experience of this "key facts" phenomenon for me was what happened one day when I was showing a class of 15 year olds a TV programme that involved crossing the Sahara Desert. One of my pupils was a refugee from Eritrea with the scar of a bullet wound on his upper lip and a hole in his jaw bone where the bullet had exited. He was still pretty-well in culture shock. But suddenly I saw his face when the TV showed a camel. To me and perhaps you a camel is just one of God's creatures, but I saw how in a split second how this boy expertly picked on the key-features of this camel that would tell him all he needed to know. He saw me looking at him and grinned feeling the pleasure of reconnecting with something that he really knew and understood.
I said "You used to work with camels?"
He nodded with a huge grin.
As for the Macaulay quote- it is possible to create a history based on all those facts that are accurate enough- but which are-were the "exceptions that prove the rule"..
Cass -
Message 35
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Thanks, Cass - I struggle on. Trouble is you have to be a logical thinker to be a historian and I'm not logical. Still far too emotional, I'm afraid.
-
Message 36
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Temperance
I remember telling a very formidable Headmistress- herself a chemist- who in one fairly terse interview in her Office had said to me "I am an historian".
"Miss ***." I replied firmly " It has taken me abour fifty years of more or less full-time focus to get to the position in which I can begin to think of myself as"an historian".. You are not an historian.. though I know that you have a deep interest in history and a great deal of hisorical knowledge".
I still hesitate to call myself a guitarist after almost 40 years, but that is another matter.. though not entirely different.. Life offers us all kinds of opportunities and we have the right to use them in anyway that we find valuable and/or useful. But we do not need to be limited by categories imposed by other people.
As to whether or not historians need to be "logical thinkers" I am not sure.. I think that they need to be able to express themselves logically- because otherwise other people could just not "follow the thread".. Something which I believe many people find rather challenging in my own "thought adventure".
But to my mind as the raw material of history is potentially every single specific thing that humankind has ever done, the initial challenge is that of being able to vicariously live all aspects of the human experience- and most of the time people are not logical. I can still recall just how hard I struggled for several years to come to terms with Eighteenth Century and its bewigged politics played out still in courtly circles in that mood of the Enlightenment in which Voltaire could boast that he had "never said ha ha".
Cass -
Message 37
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Hereward鈥檚 opening post, though, didn鈥檛 ask what made a historian or necessarily straitjacket history into one form; he was objecting to people cherry-picking the bits they fancy. Of course it is hard to know everything there is to know about even one quite small event and sometimes what you think is your knowledge turns out to be only a half-truth or a mistaken interpretation of a word used differently now, or just seen from one point of view.
However I do think history encompasses quite a lot of variation: it can be the factual study using documented records only, but it can incorporate an emotional response to something, it can be a timeline of dates and events, it can be analysis of how an event has affected other events or people at a certain time or place, it can be a study of the development of an idea (how constitutional politics evolved, instance, or what brought communism to the fore when it did), it can be trying to understand how people thought in the past especially if that seems different from now, it can be understanding the present or future from what happened in the past, it can be a study of a single person and their life, it can be the study of a single material or thing (books have been written on salt or zero or penicillin for instance and their main focus seems to be historical).
(Speaking of sentiment and emotional responses, someone asked me the other day, knowing I liked the Cavaliers and support and am descended from Scots, if I had to choose between the Cavaliers in the English Civil War/War of Three Kingdoms and a Parliamentary force with Scots in it, which would it be, and I didn鈥檛 really hesitate. My sentiments go with the Cavaliers for no other reasons than they are very pretty with their long hair and they lost. This is very silly, since though I support the monarchy for Britain and New Zealand, I wouldn鈥檛 at all care for anything other than a constitutional monarchy or at the very least a most benign dictatorship; I shouldn鈥檛 like at all the sort of monarch the Stuarts tended to be 鈥 might as well in Syria. But I still support a team wanting that, just for sentimental reasons. What did Hereward say 鈥 picking the bits you fancy. I fancy flowing long curly hair on men.)
The past is what binds all these sorts of history, though the academic study of them may involve particular ways of looking at them. A memoir is historical but is not usually a historical study.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 38
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Friday, 25th November 2011
And, of course, history varies according to who is telling the story. An English version of any event will differ from the Welsh, Irish or Scots version say, the facts could very well be identical but the interpretation of those facts would be and usually are entirely different.
On a wider note, I suppose the French version of the Neopolonic Wars, the Danish, Swedish or Norwegian view of the Vikings, the Greek view on the Byzantine Empire or even just WWII would all vary from the English account. But that doesn't necessarily make any particular version wrong. -
Message 39
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Taking up ID's point-
Different people should have different views of the Past because they are on personal and collective trajectories or paths that are different from those of other people. But it does mean that studying history with a view to understanding what you can do yourself, is much more valuable than studying it with a view to working out what you think other people should have done in the Past, or should do in the Future.
What History can tell us is that- though there are often tremendous similarities between various events Past and Present, the recurrence of any pattern of events that was totally identical would be such an exceptional occurrence that it would be "an exception that proves the rule"..
One thinks of those Buddhist monks who spend years just trying to produce a perfect painted circle..
So my pupils learned to recognise my preamble- "This is rather like.." that usually pressaged some comments about a certain amount of common ground between the piece of history that we were studying and current events, drawing out how the similarities and differences might shape events over the next hours and days.
Caro's post made me think of reflections prompted by recent ones by Temperance and Tas..
Tas asked recently how the common people reacted to Henry VIII's executions. And perhaps I could bring in the Levison Enquiry and the evidence given by Steve Coogan and J.K. Rowling. Mr Coogan said that he had made no Faustian Compact with the Devil sacrificing all of his rights as a human being for fame and fortune: and J.K. Rowling remarked that just because her writing made her one of the richest women in the world she and her family were regarded as "fair game". But that is exactly the popular feeling that the mass media exploits. J.K. Rowling by her own account was of no news interest until her first publishing success.
And surely this is what happened in the early Modern Age when the Yorkist Kings and even more the Tudors broke through the old baronial system and made it possible for commoners to aspire to high office, fame, and fortune, while the situation within the monarchy and the aristocracy was more volatile and "unsystematic" ( though the idea of a Feudal System was largely a Nineteenth Century invention).
"This is rather like" - the reality TV programmes that people love to watch (we am told by the Media).. In a recent discussion about X Factor- bemoaning the current series- there were comments about the way that people obviously enjoyed watching the vicious humiliation heaped upon candidates, many of whom have grasped the fact that really "it pays to be outrageous and larger than life".
Much the same applies to Big Brother, and we had a case in this borough of a local Big Brother housemat who gambled everything on being "Bad" and making her fortune through infamy- only to find when she returned to her council flat, that she had offended all of her neighbours and found that her life was made Hell.
That discussion about X-Factor concluded that in amidst all of the "cloned" and "manufactured" performers of no personal talent, there were a few of genuine talent who "made it", in an industry in which "who you know" has traditionally been more important than "what you know" or "what you can do." The Mass Media is extensively staffed by extended family networks, for, in truth, "knowing the ropes" is often a good substitute for having particular ability.
[As the story of "My Ten days with Marilyn Monroe" suggested in a radio version this morning, MM did manage to preserve at least the ability to portray naive innocence, and has lasted so much longer than so many aspiring "Dumb blondes" who never got much further than the casting couch]
So it seems to be that the enduring fascination with the Tudor period - and in particular with those who lived on and around " the stage" of the Royal Court- is in part due to this kind of Big Brother/X-Factor culture.. Perhaps more than any other time in previous English History there were "glittering prizes" and fame and fortune if you were lucky and managed to survive the "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" process. Those who got involved like that famous New York Rapper (?) - had to accept that it was a question of getting rich quickly or dying young. Especially with the Break with Rome, and Europe too (once Calais was lost), the Royal Court in England had to focus as national life and the kind of situation that was acknowledged in France with its "Sun King" made the travelling Royal Court the main "soap opera" of the day.
Cass -
Message 40
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Well I wish you wouldn't take up my points Cass, you usually end up somewhere that I don't agree with, not to mention the times you have missed my points entirely.
I know you are big on looking past the future toward life on mars or whatever, lord knows you've told us often enough, but some people simply enjoy history for history's sake and not as some self serving exercise.
For some, just to understand how those in the past thought and managed their daily existence, in often turbulent and very difficult circumstances, is enough. For some, the artifacts left to us and how they were created are an endless source of beauty and fascination in themselves. And without all the grand, meaningless window dressing. -
Message 41
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 25th November 2011
ID
That seems to totally agree with what I have written.. You are interested in the History that suits you and your intentions..
And it seems that I am almost always bound to end up somewhere that you don't agree with . It is often the fate of the "maverick" as I have been called.
It is unfortunate that you just seem to believe that I should not do so- or at least should not do so on the MB...
Cass -
Message 42
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Sigh. No Cass I don't think that you should not be on the MB and I have never said that. I think you know me well enough by now to know that if I had thought that I would have said so by now.
What I (and others) have said is that you bang on too much, too often and never stay on topic. There is no need to reply to every post on every thread you know, give others a chance to contribute too, mmm.
It is a bit like being at a party where there is one really loud person who dominates the conversation, talks over everyone else and consistently about himself. But is he a maverick? Only in his dreams. -
Message 43
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 25th November 2011
ID
To say that I should be a different person in order to be a "proper" member of the MB- is to say that I should not be as I am.
Which is probably correct?
I promised to leave soon , and only hung on just in case anyone might be interested in my "Modern Lessons".
No-one is, it seems, and it is obvious that- while I can not regret all the work that I put into such things- they are obviously more cost than benefit for the Present. And meanwhile there is much to do that I neglect.
I have set myself the marker of when my latest Discussion drops right off of my front page, and meanwhile have discussed with h2g2 editors whether it is suitable for a Guide Entry there, or a piece for the H2g2 university.. To that end I am currently editing the chapters.
But - in the light of your comment about changing the thrust of ideas- perhaps I have referred already to my formidable old Headmistress who, having retired the year before me, sent me a card on my retirement saying that I could be a "pain" but...
But before retirement in a social event she had introduced me to someone from Head Office as the member of staff who made her heart sink when she saw my hand up. She knew that I was almost inevitably going to take the discussion in another direction from the one that she had planned- and most of the staff were usually happy to let her have her way.
Perhaps she had in mind the day when she kicked off a training day session on what makes a good or bad lesson. She then proceded to recount her guilty past. How as a young chemistry teacher she had set the Lab on fire, and made the girls swear silence on pain of....
My hand went up.
"How many of those 13 year olds went on to take A Level Chemistry?"
The thought evidently hit her for the first time. And she replied with a sense of revelation that it was at least two thirds or even three-quarters.
It was with such things in mind perhaps she added later in that conversation with the 'bod" from Head Office "And on reflection afterwards he was usually right"..
Cass -
Message 44
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Save it Cass, you've said it all before (ad nauseum) and it still fails to impress.
I, I, I, I, I, I, as usual.................Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh -
Message 45
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 25th November 2011
ID
Well that really rather counters your previous post and reinforces mine..
Telling someone that they make you sick is a pretty clear message.
Cass -
Message 46
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Thomas,
excuses for the delay and thanks for the information. Did the day before yesterday again some research about the question in the German wikipedia, while it is in those questions many times more substantial I guess than in English and French. (haven't had the courage to do the same in these wikipedia)
As I said we have opened a can of worms, as it is not so evident to entangle all the concepts and connotations of the words describing the act of the writing of history.
Yes you have a difference between:
1) the study of history and
2) the study of how this study has been done
But as I see in English, French and German they mix many times the connotations of history and historiography.
My approach in this discussion is about the "study of history" and as I said along the scientific method.
I was happy to find in the German wikipedia an article about the "Geschichtswissenschaft"( the history-science? scientifical history?)
And of course as you have the history of historiographie, you have also the history of Geschichtswissenschaft
At the end the head dazzles?, bangs? is hurt from all this different concepts and I haven't started yet in English and in French...
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 47
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 25th November 2011
hotmousemat,
"What I mean is that although history appears to be about the actions of individuals, the forces than move societies do not seem to be the same as those that move the individuals within them. In other words, the more you learn about a 'man of destiny' like Napoleon, the less he seems to direct and the more he seems to be directed by his circumstances and by broad forces that we can only identify in retrospect."
That's a bit the approach of teh French school of the "Annales"
"By circumstances and by broad forces" yes I agree in the past this aspect was perhaps underestimated but in my opinion also men of destiny, as some exalted ones call them, can have an important impact on history and it is the task of the "honest" historian to disentangle all this and to put it, as much as possible by his historical research, in the "right" perspective without any personal bias.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 48
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 25th November 2011
ferval,
fully agree with that and thanks for the URL.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 49
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Caro,
wanted to reply to you or was it to Temperance, but quarter to midnight overhere. It will be for tomorrow.
Kind regards and with esteem to both,
Paul. -
Message 50
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 25th November 2011
Paul
Too simplistic I know- But in the Nineteenth Century historians developed the theme that people make History, but after the Age of Catastrophe it was easier (and perhaps more comfortable) to believe that History makes people.
Cass
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