History What is history? What is History? Historical study is not the study of the past but the study of present traces of the past. If people have said, thought, done or suffered anything of which nothing no longer exists, those things are as though they had never been - G R Elton Herodotus Historical Sources • primary • secondary Primary Sources Problems:- individual fallibility/ bias - social bias - deliberate manipulation Primary Sources Primary Sources Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past - George Orwell Secondary Sources historiography:- the study of the writings of history Historical Causes The annalist is content to say that one thing followed another; what distinguishes the historian is the proposition that one thing led to another - Isaiah Berlin Historical Causes Causes of the First World War M. militarism A. alliances divide Europe into competing camps N. nationalistic feelings (desire for war) I. imperialism A. alliances cause diplomatic failures C. competition over colonies in Africa/Asia S. Serbian assassination of Archduke Ferdinand Historical Causes The human universe is so enormously complicated that to speak of the cause of any event is an absurdity - H A L Fisher Historical Causes • • • • individual motives chance occurences social and economic conditions geographical conditions Historical Causes: individual motives The history of the world is but the biography of great men - Thomas Carlyle Historical Causes: individual motives The cause of the event means the thought in the mind of the person by whose agency the event came about...All history is then the history of thought - R G Collingwood Historical Causes: chance occurences Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole history of the world would have been different - Blaise Pascal Historical Causes: social and economic conditions The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles - Karl Marx Historical Causes: geographical conditions History and Narrative • Deteriorationist • Positivist • Circular History and Narrative Of course, if History were nothing but a succession of extraneous ‘accidents’, it could not be a serious study at all. - E H Carr History and Narrative Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following another as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen - H A L Fisher The role of the historian There is a two-way traffic between past and present, the present being moulded out of the past, yet constantly recreating the past - E H Carr Historical Bias • topic choice bias • confirmation bias • national bias Historical Bias The awkward thing about history is that bias seems an essential element in it- even in the best of history. The fact is that the facts do not, as is sometimes said, ‘speak for themselves’ - E H Carr Historical Objectivity Historical Perspective Can we learn the lessons of history? Those who don’t study the past are condemned to repeat it - George Satayana History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce - Karl Marx History and Prediction History and Truth Linking Questions