What is History and how is it produced? L/O – To define what history is and identify how it is produced Starter Question – What is ‘History’? What is the.

What is History and how is it produced?L/O – To define what history is and identify how it is produced

Starter Question – What is ‘History’? What is the ‘Past’?

Philosopher (loud and clear): Men cannot really know the past.Historian (stupidly): What did you say?Philosopher (irritably): I said, ‘Men cannot really know the past’, and you know damn well that’s what I said…J.H. Hexter, History Primer

Definitions

• Past – a term used to indicate all the events which occurred before a given point in time: everything that has ever happened to everyone, everywhere at any time before now. The past is neither the present nor the future.

• History – is a narrative text, written in the present, about the subject of the past, using evidence that the past has left behind. This is important because all history must be an interpretation of the past and never the ‘same thing’ as the past.

What is History?• History is to society what memory is to

the individual = a collective memory.

• History isn’t what happened in the past. It is not even surviving evidence from past. Rather, it is ‘what historians choose to interpret from the surviving evidence of the past’.

• Therefore it is important to consider (1) what the nature of surviving evidence is and (2) how historians choose, select and present it.

SOURCES

HISTORIANS

HISTORY!

But Remember…• Sources are not evidence by

themselves! Sources only become evidence when we ask questions of it for a particular enquiry.

• Historians therefore approach evidence with a Big Question. With a question, you can approach the historical record (sources) and assess what evidence it provides for your enquiry.

What questions could we ask to turn these sources

into evidence?

How is History Produced? - Sources• Before a source can be used as

evidence, a historian asks three things:

1. Source Comprehension – What is this source and does it provide relevant evidence?

2. Source Analysis – Is this source reliable?

3. Source Evaluation – Is this useful?

1. Source Comprehension

• This involves understanding what information the source is telling you in order to find relevant evidence.

• Sometimes the evidence it provides is clear, other times we have to infer evidence i.e. what does the source suggest?

• To comprehend what a source is telling you, you need to ask certain questions: What? When? Where? Who? Why?

What is this source & what is being said

or shown?

When was it produced?

Where was it produced?

Who produced/wrote or

created it?

Why might he/she/they have

produced it?

2. Source Analysis• Next you need to analyse the source and

decide whether the evidence you gathered is reliable. This involves doing two things:

1. How trustworthy is the source or witness? Use PACT – Purpose, Author (Origin), Context, Tone/Language

2. How typical is it? Does it represent the views of many people or few? It maybe reliable but sources are by their nature unrepresentative. Therefore, does the source represent a true picture of the past? How could we tell? We need to compare and cross-reference it with other sources!

How could a trustworthy

source still be unreliable?

ANDHow could an untrustworthy source still be

reliable?

3. Source Evaluation• Even if a source is trustworthy and

reliable, does that automatically make it useful to the historian?

• Does the source provide useful evidence for our enquiry? If not, does it provide evidence for different questions?

• Evaluation requires you to ask three questions: 1.) What value does the source have to the historian? 2.) What limitations does it have? 3.) What other questions might the source be useful for?

Using Sources - Conclusion• Comprehension - Sources only become evidence when we ask

questions of them. The 5 W’s can be used infer relevant evidence from a source.

• Analysis - To make justifiable assertions rather than unsubstantiated opinions, a historian needs to ensure he uses reliable evidence by testing the trustworthiness (PACT) and typicality of sources.

• Evaluation - A historian finally has to check whether a source is useful. What values and limitations does it have? Does it answer his enquiry question? A reliable source may turn out to be un-useful for an enquiry whereas an unreliable source may provide evidence but for a different question.

How is History Produced? - Historians• Sources are not always reliable and useful. The

historians job is therefore to: SELECT evidence to use, based on what questions need answering and INTERPRET and present evidence to the public.

• This process of selection and interpretation can lead to distortion.

• Historians have their own views and biases, formed by upbringing, social class, political views etc.

• This will determine the questions they choose to investigate, the evidence they choose to focus on, the interpretation they put on that evidence and even the words they use!

‘All history is contemporary history’

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952)

What does the above statement

mean?

How is History Produced? - Historians• Remember, Sources + Historians = History!

• The ‘history’ we are presented by is inevitably a very diluted form of the past - some evidence is lost and destroyed, the remainder is unrepresentative at best, unreliable at worst!

• Then historians are thrown into the mix, they use their imagination to fill gaps in the records, select the bits of evidence which they think are the most interesting or relevant, then interpret and present that evidence to the public.

• Therefore is history more fiction than fact?

‘[History is]…a damn

dim candle over a

damn dark abyss’

W. Stull Holt

Is Objective history possible or even desirable?• If history is more fiction then fact, should

we try and aim for objective history? – to limit ourselves to only those things which can be proven beyond doubt? To tell it as it really was?

• No! Even whilst some facts are beyond dispute, this does nothing to challenge the view that history is essentially a fiction.

• Firstly, facts are dead and meaningless, telling us nothing about the past unless historians interpret them:

It is a fact that Hitler was born in 1889; but this

only becomes of any

relevance when a historian uses this to make an argument e.g. that Nazism sprang from

late 19th century Austrian

nationalism.

Is Objective history possible or even desirable?• Secondly, such facts maybe the truth, but not the whole

truth! Example, Hitler refused to shake hands with black American athlete Jesse Owens, who won 8 gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

• However it is also true that Hitler refused to shake anyone’s hand after the first day (he got into trouble for only greeting German Athletes). Owens also said that he was treated more courteously in Nazi Germany than back home in the USA, where he couldn’t sit down in a bus because he was black! Historians ignore all this because it doesn’t fit into their narrative!

What does good history look like?• Factual (objective) history is impossible

but it is also completely undesirable.

• The point of history is not to collect facts, but to deal with interpretations, lessons, morals, values; to engage in a dialogue with the past with one eye on the present.

• So what does society consider to be good history? Factual accuracy is important but as already discussed, facts alone tell us nothing – the historian must weave or narrate facts into his ‘imagined interpretation’.

‘The events must be not only registered

within the chronological

framework of their original occurrence

but narrated as well, that is to say, revealed as

possessing a structure, an order of

meaning, that they do not possess as mere sequence.’

White, H.V, 1990, The Content of the Form, p.5

What does good history look like?• If you look on the back of any historical

bestseller and read its reviews, they do not praise the author for ‘getting the dates right’.

• Praise is more likely for the historians depth of research or ability to ‘bring the past alive’ through their interpretation.

• Bringing the past alive relies on the historian’s art; a creative, artistic ability that is rarely acknowledge.

Example of Good History• Read the extract from Orlando Figes (1996) as he describes

the events of Bloody Sunday, 1905.

• If you stripped away everything apart from the factual essentials, what are you left with? Is it history?

• Clearly, the essence of a what makes good historical writing comes from the imagination of the historian – selective emphasis, anecdote, poetic scene setting, dramatic structure of the story, figurative language, moral judgement and significance.

Tasks1. Why is history so important to society?2. Why is it simplistic to describe history as ‘what happened in the

past’?3. In what ways does historical evidence distort our view of the past?4. In what ways do historians themselves distort our view of the past?5. How could it be argued that this distortion is completely

unavoidable?6. How could it be argued that the impossibility of attaining ‘factual

history’ is actually a good thing?7. Produce a mind-map based on the information today. The three

main branches should be: A) Why is history so important to society? B) How is History produced? C) Is ‘Objective’ History possible or even desirable? Use colour and illustrations as appropriate.

Plenary

• DSDS