In The Houses of History, many different schools of historical thought are presented and light in shed on what exactly it means to be those different types of historians. Not all historians think the same way or approach history from the same perspective, but some similar groups of thought have converged together and have formed the various types of historians that will be presented, such as empiricists, psychohistorians, oral historians, and gender historians. All of these groups can approach the same event or concept and look at them in an entirely different way simply due to the way the historical approach they are accustomed to views things. A beginning group of historians to take a closer look at is the empiricists. The empiricists have a very strictly factual and logical view on history and how to examine it. They believe that past is both “observable and verifiable” and that through adherence to three strict principles, the past can be represented objectively and accurately. (Green, Troup 3) The three aforementioned principles can be summed up as: meticulously examining historical evidence and verifying the evidence with references, making sure the research is completely impartial and free of biases and prejudices, and using an inductive, or observational, method of reasoning. (Green, Troup 3) The empiricists seek to find universal historical truths through objective research and sticking to the facts. The next group of historical thinkers is the psychohistorians. Sigmund Freud was the pioneer of psychoanalytic theory and psychohistory interprets history through psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic theory helps explain the players in history through their behavior and how they operate psychologically. Psychoanalytic theory was... ... middle of paper ... ...ngs throughout different cultures. It’s truly fascinating how there are so many different approaches to history, how so many different types of minds and schools of thought can come together to study the events of the world’s past. There are so many ways to approach what happened in our past, and the groups of historians previously mentioned are only a fraction of the actual number of different ways of researching and thinking that exists as it pertains to the study of history. History is in some ways, always a mystery, and all historians, regardless of schooling, training or biases, seek to accomplish one goal: to understand what occurred before us and why, and to use that knowledge to learn how the world was shaped into the world we live in today. Works Cited Green, Anna, and Kathleen Troup. The Houses of History. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1999.
Heritage is one of the most important factors that represents where a person came from. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, this short story characterizes not only the symbolism of heritage, but also separates the difference between what heritage really means and what it may be portrayed as. Throughout the story, it reveals an African-American family living in small home and struggling financially. Dee is a well-educated woman who struggles to understand her family's heritage because she is embarrassed of her mother and sister, Mama and Maggie. Unlike Dee, Mama and Maggie do not have an education, but they understand and appreciate their family's background. In “Everyday Use,” the quilts, handicrafts, and Dee’s transformation helps the reader interpret that Walker exposed symbolism of heritage in two distinctive point of views.
To study history, the facts and information must be passed down. To do so, historians record the information in textbooks and other nonfiction works. Whether or not the historians retell facts or construct their own version of history is debatable. History can be percieved as being “constructed” by the historians due to their bias, elimination of controversy, strive for entertainment, and neglect to update the information.
Though at times one can be told to not dwell on the past, the study of history is complete different means. After reading the papers, Why Study History? by Jerry Bentley and Why Study History (1998) by Peter N. Stearns, the many complex reasons of why one should study history were made clear. Both authors addressed that history teaches change and human nature, referencing known reasons that make history relevant in everyone’s life. Author Bentley made his writing focus around the theme of making connections and gaining a basic understanding of the current world around us. On the other hand, author Stearns wrote mainly that history is important to the functioning of our modern day societies, for it adds skills and moral values. The study of
History comes from the Greek word historia, meaning "inquiry, investigation” and it later came to specifically mean “investigation of the past”. It is a field of study which uses a story to scrutinize and evaluate a chain of events in order to objectively determine patterns of cause and effect of past events. All events that are remembered & safeguarded in some way or the other form part of a historical record. A “historian” is a person who becomes an expert in the field of history by finding, collecting, organizing and submitting information, usually in writing, about past events. The research interests and priorities of historians change over time and each age has its own methodology of assembling and presenting their findings.
History is a story told over time. It is a way of recreating the past so it can be studied in the present and re-interpreted for future generations. Since humans are the sole beneficiaries of history, it is important for us to know what the purpose of history is and how historians include their own perspective concerning historical events. The purpose and perspective of history is vital in order for individuals to realise how it would be almost impossible for us to live out our lives effectively if we had no knowledge of the past. Also, in order to gain a sound knowledge of the past, we have to understand the political, social and cultural aspects of the times we are studying.
To what extent is history focused only in the past? To what extent is the human scientists job to change the future? To what extent does the way of knowing reason, play a role in gaining knowledge from these two areas of knowing? A historian is a person that works in studying or scrutinizing the past. A human scientist has the job of examining and formulating answers to issues that exist within and affect the human. The answers found, help progress the field futuristically. By analyzing History, the study of past events and Human Sciences, the study of the human, we will see how history does help us understand the past and how the human sciences deal with the study of the past to gain knowledge for the future.
There are many people who claim they have the “true” history; these types of people are known as historians. In this case my definition of historian is: an expert in the study of history, especially in that of a particular period, region, or social phenomenon. There are many different kinds of historians ranging from economics to environmental, and even to, urban. However in history, which we want to focus on, we have orthodox, revisionist, post-revisionist and many more. One may ask himself why there are so many different historians if there was but only ONE true accurate history. This is because history is full of “gaps” which the historians TRY to fill with their ow...
History: History is the exclusive experiences that are a part of a culture's shared insights. The unique history of a culture affects the development and maintenance of a culture. The history of every cultures is different and because of it, the cultures differ from one another too. People describe about their historical events, and the information transfers from one generation to another. The shared knowledge about the history leads the components of a culture and guides the collective actions.
A historian’s job is to discover historical facts and interpret them. Some historians believe that historical facts are not absolute, meaning they are subjective. This causes many factors to influence a historian’s interpretation on the past. These factors include bias and perspective. This gives history the appearance of being constructed.
Sigmund Freud is psychology’s most famous figure. He is also the most controversial and influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Freud’s work and theories helped to shape out views of childhood, memory, personality, sexuality, and therapy. Time Magazine referred to him as one of the most important thinkers of the last century. While his theories have been the subject of debate and controversy, his impact on culture, psychology, and therapy is cannot be denied.
The study of history has always been systematic with historians asking questions, collecting background information, evaluating sources, linking evidence, and presenting a conclusion while maintaining objectivity. The methods of explaining history has largely been a similar process. While the nineteenth century movement focused on altering the study of history through the importance of objectivity and professionalism, it did little to change it completely. New methods may have emerged to become more objective and added new perspectives, but the study of history has always consisted of obtaining information and presenting the findings. The study of history maintained the same methods of processing information and sense of objectivity since the time of the ancient world to the Renaissance and Progressive Era.
In conclusion, these different approaches to history were all reactions to the deficiencies of prior methodology and approaches. They responded by expanding the way that history was perceived, it methods, and view. The approaches should be viewed as complementary rather than competitive. Each has given insight from the conceptual sphere it occupies. Not all approaches are appropriate for all subjects, and historians should not be held captive by constraints of their preferred approach. The different approaches methodology should be viewed as additional tools in the historian’s tool box, to be used as needed to produce the best possible history possible.
Learning about history helps us learn about the humanities own reflection and what’s good or bad about it. This is just like a diary , people and by people I mean historians , just wrote what they saw and what seemed to cause a major change in society and we just happen to be reading it a couple of years later. I believe that historians actually wrote historical truth because it makes sense and it has been scientifically proven
Today’s world is divided into many groups based on race, religion, jobs, and many other things. It is basically presumed all over the world that a historian’s task is to understand the past even the Question lacks the truth; Historian’s task is not only to understand the past but to discover it, study it, tell it to other people, give facts that make it right, this introduces the 1st area of knowledge of the essay history, it is not the past, but rather the understanding and study of it is history. While the past is debatable history is its perspective, as clearly said by Whitney Brown “The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down”, for example: Aurangzeb in Indian’s history is a Mughal ruler who is thought to be bad but in the perspective of a true believer he is a ruler who didn’t made the mistake which his forefather made and as a Muslim he cared for the Muslims not the Hindus. Human sciences on the other hand is about human behavior, this science is not exactly backed up by rational theories but simply based on empirical observation. It observes human behaviors to arrive at the result, hence introducing my 2nd area of knowledge Human sciences: Sociology. The difference between both the areas of knowledge is very clique so both the area of knowledge can be well related, while history is related with our past, human science is related to us.
"Constructing History: How Historians See the Light." Constructing History: How Historians See the Light. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. .