What is history?

[appleapple]

What is history?

If there are good sources for this, then I would be glad to read expert opinions.

I wish to learn what is called history nowadays. 

I expect that I will learn it by asking those who intend to specialize in this very thing.

[misternovember]

E.H. Carr’s What is History? Is a good overview of the discipline; essential reading (imo) for those of us interested in academic history 

[misternovember]

For a more controversial (but really interesting) take on the discipline, Hayden White’s Metahistory is quite good 

[MARTINt]

Check out Cannadine's What is History Now? And Bloch's classic The Historian's Craft.

[appleapple]

46 minutes ago, misternovember said:

E.H. Carr’s What is History? Is a good overview of the discipline; essential reading (imo) for those of us interested in academic history 

Does Carr distinguish academic history from history simply?

 

44 minutes ago, misternovember said:

For a more controversial (but really interesting) take on the discipline, Hayden White’s Metahistory is quite good 

Does White hold that there is such a thing as history apart from the discipline of history?

[appleapple]

37 minutes ago, MARTINt said:

Check out Cannadine's What is History Now? And Bloch's classic The Historian's Craft.

Thanks for the references, MARTINt.

[AfricanusCrowther]

I recommend Sarah Maza's Thinking about History as an impressively sweeping introduction to the academic discipline. She also has a section on distinguishing academic history from popular history.

Edited February 10, 2019 by AfricanusCrowther

[misternovember]

1 hour ago, appleapple said:

Does Carr distinguish academic history from history simply?

 

Does White hold that there is such a thing as history apart from the discipline of history?

Both deal with “historical thinking,” though both also address the institutionalization of history (in the academy). So they simultaneously address what it means to think about and “do” history in general (not as a discipline of study) while also examining history as an academic field. 

[Kantattheairport]

In addition to the Carr, here's a recent retrospective roundtable on the question that might be of interest: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642529.2018.1528046?journalCode=rrhi20

[dr. t]

I don't have much time for grand narratives and theory here - I don't find them particularly productive.

For me, I follow Kathleen Davis' argument from Periodization and Sovereignty which understands "history" as a polemical claim which intends the creation of radical temporal disjuncture for discrete, local, and political ends. Hence, the most difficult periodization to break, conceptually, remains that which exists between what is "modernity" and what is not. She herself is interested in the origins of the "medieval" in 17th-c English jurisprudence, but the seeds of Davis' argument are particularly well-laid in the bed of postcolonial theory as was in colonial encounter that the modern/premodern divide was truly weaponized.

In one of my favorite passages ever, Timothy Mitchell maintains that "Before the development of twentieth-century economics and jurisprudence, which offered ways to be silent about the genealogy of what claims to be universal, [historicization] was the only way, outside theology, to explain the general character of law. Law could claim to be universal, and thus nonarbitrary, only be appearing as the expression of civilization. The growth of civilization represented the spread of the principle of human reason, which overcame the limits of habit, prejudice, caprice, and ignorance. The faculty of reason gave men the power to step outside these local constraints, it was thought, and thus acquire a universal vision and understanding. European colonialism, understood as the contemporary expression of the spread of civilization and reason, established the abstract forms of law, in relation to which particular histories of the right of property could be written. Such histories occurred as the local expression or realization of this universal abstraction" (Rule of Experts, 53).

It is an arresting thought to consider the fact that the very choice to study something as history is to perpetuate colonial power structures. And it is similarly troubling to realize that what is "history" is locally contingent to any claim to be doing it.

[appleapple]

21 hours ago, AfricanusCrowther said:

I recommend Sarah Maza's Thinking about History as an impressively sweeping introduction to the academic discipline. She also has a section on distinguishing academic history from popular history.

Thanks, AfricanusCrowther.

I will follow this reference.

[appleapple]

20 hours ago, misternovember said:

Both deal with “historical thinking,” though both also address the institutionalization of history (in the academy). So they simultaneously address what it means to think about and “do” history in general (not as a discipline of study) while also examining history as an academic field. 

Thanks for this.

Why can't I get the meaning of the quotation marks? Is it because I am not a learned historian?

I guess that "historical thinking" and to "do" history are vague everyday concepts but that they are nevertheless thoroughly familiar concepts to the academic historian.

Still, for me at least, they are concepts without any content.

When one "thinks about history," about what is it that one thinks? Is it the same thing that one does when one "does history"?

[appleapple]

19 hours ago, Kantattheairport said:

In addition to the Carr, here's a recent retrospective roundtable on the question that might be of interest: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642529.2018.1528046?journalCode=rrhi20

Thanks, Kantattheairport. This looks like it will be useful for putting Carr in perspective.

[misternovember]

28 minutes ago, appleapple said:

Thanks for this.

Why can't I get the meaning of the quotation marks? Is it because I am not a learned historian?

I guess that "historical thinking" and to "do" history are vague everyday concepts but that they are nevertheless thoroughly familiar concepts to the academic historian.

Still, for me at least, they are concepts without any content.

When one "thinks about history," about what is it that one thinks? Is it the same thing that one does when one "does history"?

Oh no, my apologies! The quotation marks are just a quirk of my writing/explaining things; I genuinely meant no offense, I just like to block out certain phrases/words in quotes for emphasis. My apologies

Historical thinking and doing history can broadly be defined as how we think of the past. Crudely divided (and albeit stereotypical, I know popular history has much more nuance than this but its not my expertise by any means), popular history understands the past as an unproblematic sequence of events, with particular moments immortalized due to their later-understood significance (think in terms of how history textbooks present them: the signing of the Magna Carta, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, etc framed as singular moments which irrevocably changed the course of human history, leading to the modern day). That thinking isn't necessarily wrong, but it is problematic: often it manifests in thinking of history as simply the decisions of a few great men (and, indeed, it often framed as male: for this mode of thinking, see the work of Thomas Carlyle).

Academic history is of course not immune to this impulse, but it tries to distinguish itself in adopting historical research methods (namely, critically reading, evaluating, and comparing primary sources to explain the past). For some historians, this is seen as a better alternative to popular history, as it (ostensibly) adopts an objective view of the past through a rigorous method. White's Metahistory criticizes this view in particular, leading him to argue that history writing is not a mere analysis and ordering of the past, but instead akin to a literary genre. For White, historians infuse narrative into their work, creating histories that describe the past as essentially stories but with a veneer of objectivity. This argument is controversial among some historians, but I think its an essential one to be familiar with.

Apologies for my reductionist approaches above, I can only elaborate so much in a forum post (and, admittedly, I'm hardly a historical expert).

 

[appleapple]

17 hours ago, telkanuru said:

I don't have much time for grand narratives and theory here - I don't find them particularly productive.

For me, I follow Kathleen Davis' argument from Periodization and Sovereignty which understands "history" as a polemical claim which intends the creation of radical temporal disjuncture for discrete, local, and political ends. Hence, the most difficult periodization to break, conceptually, remains that which exists between what is "modernity" and what is not. She herself is interested in the origins of the "medieval" in 17th-c English jurisprudence, but the seeds of Davis' argument are particularly well-laid in the bed of postcolonial theory as was in colonial encounter that the modern/premodern divide was truly weaponized.

In one of my favorite passages ever, Timothy Mitchell maintains that "Before the development of twentieth-century economics and jurisprudence, which offered ways to be silent about the genealogy of what claims to be universal, [historicization] was the only way, outside theology, to explain the general character of law. Law could claim to be universal, and thus nonarbitrary, only be appearing as the expression of civilization. The growth of civilization represented the spread of the principle of human reason, which overcame the limits of habit, prejudice, caprice, and ignorance. The faculty of reason gave men the power to step outside these local constraints, it was thought, and thus acquire a universal vision and understanding. European colonialism, understood as the contemporary expression of the spread of civilization and reason, established the abstract forms of law, in relation to which particular histories of the right of property could be written. Such histories occurred as the local expression or realization of this universal abstraction" (Rule of Experts, 53).

It is an arresting thought to consider the fact that the very choice to study something as history is to perpetuate colonial power structures. And it is similarly troubling to realize that what is "history" is locally contingent to any claim to be doing it.

Wow, thanks for this and especially for the cautionary word, telkanuru!

I hope that you don’t mind that your great response provokes so many questions!

So that I don’t spend my time on something that isn’t productive, what is a grand narrative?

Why can’t I discern the connection from “history as a polemical claim which intends the creation of radical temporal disjuncture for discrete, local, and political ends” to the “Hence” that follows it?

With history being understood in this way according to Davis, what is the conceptual difficulty of breaking the periodization of that which exists between what is modernity and what is not?

What is this “that which is between” and what is “modernity”?

Do you find post-colonial theory productive? If so, do you have a good reference for that?

Why does the choice to study history perpetuate colonial power structures?

Does Mitchell mean that studying any history at all, rather than writing European colonial history about European colonial rights of property, perpetuates colonial power structures?

I guess that Mitchell takes for granted that there is not a principle of human reason, or that these European colonial historians of the European colonial rights of property were wrong about a principle of human reason.

Was there any history before European colonialism and is there any history of something other than property rights?

What is troubling about history being locally contingent to an historian or to the topics of the history in question? Is it that history nowadays (or in the not so recent past) claimed to be universal, objective, absolute, or unqualified despite not being so?

When one reads Ms. Y’s history of Z, is it given that Ms. Y, from such and such a time and place, with such and such training, is writing about such and such a topic, that the reader from such and such a time and place, with such and such experiences, chooses to read?

Thanks again, telkanuru!

[fordlandia]

@appleapple Another must-read on the subject is Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past. It's a succinct study of the silences in historical narratives, what is left out and what is recorded, and what these omissions reveal about inequities of power throughout modern society.

 

 

 

[appleapple]

3 hours ago, misternovember said:

Oh no, my apologies! The quotation marks are just a quirk of my writing/explaining things; I genuinely meant no offense, I just like to block out certain phrases/words in quotes for emphasis. My apologies

Historical thinking and doing history can broadly be defined as how we think of the past. Crudely divided (and albeit stereotypical, I know popular history has much more nuance than this but its not my expertise by any means), popular history understands the past as an unproblematic sequence of events, with particular moments immortalized due to their later-understood significance (think in terms of how history textbooks present them: the signing of the Magna Carta, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, etc framed as singular moments which irrevocably changed the course of human history, leading to the modern day). That thinking isn't necessarily wrong, but it is problematic: often it manifests in thinking of history as simply the decisions of a few great men (and, indeed, it often framed as male: for this mode of thinking, see the work of Thomas Carlyle).

Academic history is of course not immune to this impulse, but it tries to distinguish itself in adopting historical research methods (namely, critically reading, evaluating, and comparing primary sources to explain the past). For some historians, this is seen as a better alternative to popular history, as it (ostensibly) adopts an objective view of the past through a rigorous method. White's Metahistory criticizes this view in particular, leading him to argue that history writing is not a mere analysis and ordering of the past, but instead akin to a literary genre. For White, historians infuse narrative into their work, creating histories that describe the past as essentially stories but with a veneer of objectivity. This argument is controversial among some historians, but I think its an essential one to be familiar with.

Apologies for my reductionist approaches above, I can only elaborate so much in a forum post (and, admittedly, I'm hardly a historical expert).

 

Thanks so much for this.

Yes, I am starting to see some boundaries of popular history, academic history, and critiques of these.

Then again, it seems as though I am almost right where I began! 

I still go around asking myself and anyone whom I expect to be able to tell me—what in the world is history, anyway?

[appleapple]

19 minutes ago, fordlandia said:

@appleapple Another must-read on the subject is Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past. It's a succinct study of the silences in historical narratives, what is left out and what is recorded, and what these omissions reveal about inequities of power throughout modern society.

 

 

 

Thanks, fordlandia.

This does seem like a must-read, especially if the things that were omitted from historical narratives in former times are indications of inequities here and now.

[dr. t]

On 2/11/2019 at 9:26 AM, appleapple said:

Do you find post-colonial theory productive? If so, do you have a good reference for that?

You have a lot of questions, which is good, but you need to be a bit more aware of what you're asking from others. Case in point, a good introduction to postcolonial theory should be something you can find with your research skills; if and when you're a graduate student, your adviser will rightly expect you to do this legwork for yourself. That's not to say I can't or don't want to answer you, but I really can't just type out the theory section of my dissertation here. 

What are your answers to some of the questions you've posed?

[appleapple]

1 hour ago, telkanuru said:

You have a lot of questions, which is good, but you need to be a bit more aware of what you're asking from others. Case in point, a good introduction to postcolonial theory should be something you can find with your research skills; if and when you're a graduate student, your adviser will rightly expect you to do this legwork for yourself. That's not to say I can't or don't want to answer you, but I really can't just type out the theory section of my dissertation here. 

What are your answers to some of the questions you've posed?

Thanks again, telkanuru.

You ask me as though I'm a knower, but I am so little a knower that I can do no better than to seek answers from knowers like you.

I hope that I will be able to find someone who will be able to teach me what history is.

[appleapple]

"History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation")^[2]is the study of the past as it is described in written documents.^[3][4]Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians."

This is from Wikipedia.

Is it true that history is entirely dependent on written documents, with the objects of history being receipts, diaries, letters, laws, literature, and the like?

Is it true that there is no history apart from written documents?

Are historians the ones who write about the study of history, whereas the ones who in fact study the written documents of the past have a different name?

To my very great surprise, it seems as though I myself am an historian according to Wikipedia's definition of the Greek word, insofar as I make inquiries and insofar as I seek to acquire knowledge by means of investigation.

However, I guess that I am disqualified from being an historian if I do not acquire any knowledge from my inquiries—I've only acquired more perplexity!

 

[dr. t]

25 minutes ago, appleapple said:

I hope that I will be able to find someone who will be able to teach me what history is.

As I said, I'm not much for grand theory.

You can "know" what history is all you want - what I say it is, what Wikipedia says it is, what Trouillot says it is. But the only purpose in "acquiring more perplexity" is to actually do history; theory without praxis is just wasted breath. Similarly, in asking questions you must also try to give answers.

What does does it mean to you to say you're "doing" history?

[appleapple]

10 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

As I said, I'm not much for grand theory.

You can "know" what history is all you want - what I say it is, what Wikipedia says it is, what Trouillot says it is. But the only purpose in "acquiring more perplexity" is to actually do history; theory without praxis is just wasted breath. Similarly, in asking questions you must also try to give answers.

What does does it mean to you to say you're "doing" history?

Thanks for your encouraging message, telkanuru!

Is a "what is x" question a starting point for a grand theory or a grand narrative?

If so, then I will not ask what is grand theory and I will not ask again what is a grand narrative. If these things really are not productive, and if it really is important to be productive rather than to be not productive, then I will stay away from asking questions like this.

Yes, your message is encouraging—far from the acquisition of perplexity disqualifying me from being an historian, it is actually the starting point for becoming an historian!

Like the other post that connected one sentence to the other with "hence," I cannot discern what the meaning of "similarly" is here. I guess that you mean theory:questioning::praxis::answering or doing history. 

I wish that I could answer you and I'm sorry that I can't answer you, telkanuru.

I will quote my post, and then I will try to repeat myself in other words.

30 minutes ago, appleapple said:

"History (from Greek ἱστορία, historia, meaning "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation")^[2]is the study of the past as it is described in written documents.^[3][4]Events occurring before written record are considered prehistory. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians."

This is from Wikipedia.

Is it true that history is entirely dependent on written documents, with the objects of history being receipts, diaries, letters, laws, literature, and the like?

Is it true that there is no history apart from written documents?

Are historians the ones who write about the study of history, whereas the ones who in fact study the written documents of the past have a different name?

To my very great surprise, it seems as though I myself am an historian according to Wikipedia's definition of the Greek word, insofar as I make inquiries and insofar as I seek to acquire knowledge by means of investigation.

However, I guess that I am disqualified from being an historian if I do not acquire any knowledge from my inquiries—I've only acquired more perplexity!

 

If an historian is one who does history—and I am as uncertain about that in the quoted post as I have been throughout the thread—then doing history or being an historian is to inquire or it is to acquire knowledge by means of investigation or it is possibly both of these things and writing down one's inquiries and the answers that one has collected as a result of one's inquiries.

In this sense of doing history—writing one's inquiries, writing down the answers that one collects from one's inquiries—it seemed to me that I was doing history.

For a moment, it seemed to me that I was doing history about history: I was inquiring about that very thing, history, in order to acquire knowledge about it, and I was collecting the answers with each next post.

Yet, in point of fact, because I am as unsure as ever about what history is, it seems as though I have not garnered knowledge about history from my inquiries. Instead, I have only garnered perplexity.

Without knowledge having obtained as a result of my inquiries, and with knowledge having been that for the sake of which I inquired in the first place, it seems to me that I am not in fact an historian, because I have so far failed to fulfill the purpose of history: the acquistion of knowledge.

I hope that this helps you understand my dilemma, telkanuru.

For my part, I have only gained the slight advantage of beginning to see how great my ignorance really is. 

However, if you really were encouraging me, then I can assure myself that this ignorance is a springboard from which I can really begin to acquire knowledge about history and, as a result, do history. 

[AfricanusCrowther]

You've been given some suggestions for reading; I would urge you to start there. They address these very questions more thoughtfully than graduate students on a discussion forum can.

[appleapple]

50 minutes ago, AfricanusCrowther said:

You've been given some suggestions for reading; I would urge you to start there. They address these very questions more thoughtfully than graduate students on a discussion forum can.

Thanks, AfricanusCrowther. 

I guess that this inches closer to the definition of an historian who inquires about the study of the past, insofar as I will be seeking answers about history from authors who have studied documents from the past in order to say what history is.