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From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods |
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From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods
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by Martha C. Howell and Walter Prevenier
Sales Rank: 53760
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List Price: $16.95
$14.41
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 207 pages
Published by: Cornell University Press April 2001
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0801485606
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0801485602
Book Dimensions:
8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
Weighs: 10.4 ounces
Reader Reviews
History used to be a subject that one could view as somewhat ancillary, as an interesting subject but one that was not really needed to function in the modern world. One could dispense with studying history and still maintain a proper perspective of world events. Any inaccuracies in the reporting of world events were the responsibility of reporters, and historians were viewed in general as occupiers of an ivory tower. They were held to be trustworthy because not much weight was assigned to their scholarly activities. In general, this attitude about history and historians is now considered to be a mistake. Because of some very volatile and dangerous events in the early twenty-first century, the study of history should be viewed now as one of the most important, if not the most important scholarly activity. One can easily observe the enormous weight that is placed on events of the past, due in part to the ideological agendas that are deeply embedded in contemporary politics. And some historians have chosen to use historical analysis to justify a political agenda, or have acted as sycophants for the institutions that host them. It would be fair to say that some historians are now viewed with extreme skepticism, and many are therefore looking into the historical record and seeking answers on their own. These historical auto-didactics are hungry for tools of analysis in which to study and interpret past events. This short book gives an introduction to these tools, and any reader, whether of the afore-mentioned type or not, will gain a lot from its perusal. It gives much insight into how historians view and find sources, and is primarily written for non-experts (such as this reviewer) in historical analysis. Philosophers and economists will also discover how the study of history also intersects to a large degree with their own fields. There is a wealth of information in the book, and many questions are answered as well as raised. Some of these include: 1. What is the nature of historical interpretation? Can historians put themselves in a position where an historical source can be read without giving attention to the historical context that give it meaning? 2. How can an historical source be characterized? 3. Are historians ethically responsible for the content of their works, and if so, to what degree? 4. Is there any value in oral records for historical analysis? In interviewing? 5. What impact has information technology had on historical analysis? 6. How are archives useful for the historian, and does a given archive, taken to be reliable, expand or shrink with time? 7. Will the advent of software to analyze historical texts eventually result in the automation of historical analysis? 8. How do historians assess the accuracy or authenticity of sources? 9. Does the interpretation of an historical document always involve the determination of its intended meaning? 10. Should "firsthand" reports of events always be taken as true? 11. How do historians compare different sources relating to the same historical event? 12. The authors refer to `reasoning by interpolation' or `by analogy'. What exactly is the nature of this kind of reasoning? 13. When can a historian claim that his analysis is correct? Is there a way of quantifying the point at which enough evidence has been collected? 14. Can participants in events claim any special insight into these events over and above what can be obtained by an observer (an historian) who is not, or has not, participated in these events? 15. Can historians view events and documents from an apodictic point of view, i.e. free from bias and any implicit assumptions? 16. Should historians focus on what people did in the past rather than what they thought or felt? 17. Should historians concentrate on deducing the motives of the people in history from their visible actions? 18. The authors point to the use of fields such as psychology to study the "feelings in history." Could the relatively new field of cognitive neuroscience be used to do the same, or even more generally to study the motives, decisions, and mental limitations of people in history? One could view this use as a kind of "historical neurocriticism" and its use could possibly shed considerable light on how people, through their cultures, construct meanings of their experiences and make history. 19. The authors refer to human life as being "too complex" to be analyzed with historical models. What notion of complexity is being used here, and given current methods for dealing with complexity in model-building, would these be of any assistance in the study of history, especially those that attempt to understand to what extent events are caused by human actions? 20. Should historians focus more on studies of "popular culture" and not on "learned culture", i.e. should they analyze historical events in terms of what has recently been called "people's history?" 21. What is the difference between a `linear' theory of history and a `cyclical theory', and is the former always more optimistic than the latter? 22. Can technological innovations and development be used as a reference of time for historical change, i.e. as a kind of clock or calendar in which historians are to delineate events? Such a calendar would not necessarily be a linear ordering of events like the ones that are currently used. In periods of rapid technological development, time will be more compressed than in periods of slow technological development. History could thus be viewed as moving more quickly in the former than in the latter.
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From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods
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Price: $14.41
Updated on 6-21-2008.
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