Comments for History

Comment on The Annales School by Elle

Elle — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:16:50 +0000

Marc Bloch 1886 – 1944

➢ Worked for a “wider and more human history”
➢ Compared history and science as well as combing the disciplines to create a more complete representation of the past.
➢ Science involves analysis and clarification, whilst history traditionally involved narration and description. If both were combined then a total history will be presented.
➢ Believed scientists deal with simple phenomena where as were as historian deal with ‘psychosocial phenomena’
➢ Historians in the opinion of Bloch should therefore aim for scientific validity
➢ Wished to change the ways in which history was written and taught in France.
➢ “In order to discover how rumors and misconceptions gain credence, the historian must examine the ‘collective consciousness’ (assumptions and perceptions) of a people”
➢ Searching for a vocabulary that describes facts.
➢ To examine history the social structure must be explored through language, literature, group psychology, geography, medicine, economics and the critical analysis of sources both documentary and visual
➢ Within a Historians Craft it states “the science of men in time”, thus meaning that a historian must require an understanding of the varied forces that may have interacted ad shaped the human past. Therefore a historian must be familiar with linguistics, psychology, archaeology, sociology, geography, economics and other fields for collective understanding. By taking a scientific approach (more analysis) a broader a more contextualised history will result.
➢ Concludes that many of the past are possible
➢ Aimed to produce works which were systematic accounts
➢ Aimed at producing productivity as well as objectivity which broader history
➢ Many themes in his works include clergy’s role in society, economy, relationship of monarchy and peasantry, closed and open fields in French rural society, forms of feudal justice and the medieval era
➢ Approached important historical problems from unusual angles
➢ Believes work of historian consists of identifying true, false and probable saying, “If your neighbor on the left says two times two equals four and the one on the right says five, do not conclude that the answer is four and a half.”
➢ Used wide range of evidence in his works
➢ Used method of reading history backwards or what he calls ‘regressive method’ as believed it wise to proceed from the known to the unknown
➢ Works usually broad in scope and rich in detail
➢ Described history as ‘the science of men in time’. Understood that history feed the imagination as well as allowing one to establish an understanding of the human story
➢ To have a more ‘Total history’ will allow for further discoveries of the human race thus the ‘science of men in time’ is a way in which we will find differences between the past and the present

Comment on The Annales School by Morgan

Morgan — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:30:23 +0000

The Annalist School – Web:
• Refers to a group of historians stretching from the 1920s to the late 20th century.
• The term “annalists” come from the historical journal, Annales d’histoire économique et sociale.
• The principal writers were March Bloch (1886 to 1944), Ferdinand Braudel (1902 to 1985), Lucien Febvre (1878 to 1956) and Emmanual Le Roy Ladurie (1929 to present).
• There have been three stages in the development of the annalist school of thought;
 Bloch/Febvre era; small, radical and somewhat subversive in its approach.
 Braudel era; annalist school had become establish and institutionalised. It had complete methods and distinct concepts.
 1968 to present; become more fragmented and influenced other disciplines.
• Up until the mid 18th century history had been focused upon the deeds of great men.
• Annalist thought went beyond politics with a wider consideration of the history of society.
• Von Ranke’s professionalisation of history and his close use of primary sources had steered history back into a story of great events and great men.
• Principal challenge to Von Ranke came from the Marxist emphasis upon class conflict.
• Annalist set out to analyse a problem.
• They write about beliefs, ideas, mass psychology, culture and religious practice.
• Collaborates with other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and geography.
• The emergence of new concepts influenced the development of the annalist approach to the writing of history;
 A rejection of the idea that history was the inevitable progress of humanity.
 Rejection of an emphasis on national and political units.
 Rankeanism.
 Marxist thinking had begun to concentrate upon other disciplines.
• Annalists have a notion of time; one’s view of past time depends upon the perspective from which the researcher was coming and history is not so neatly packaged and always overlapping.
• Societies can be compared.
• Concept of “total history.”
• Utilises non-literary sources and the use of regressive methodologies.
• Braudel relied upon geohistory and saw history as time moving at different speeds, immobile history, slowly changing institutional structures and more rapid changes.
• The school has become polycentric and has influenced historians such as Arlette Farge and Robert Mandrou.
• Has provided an approach to history that is quite disparate to the solidly politicians/generals approach and the determinist system based on ideas of Marxist historiography.

Comment on Marxist Historiography by Morgan

Morgan — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:08:53 +0000

Thompson Context:
• Believed that history was not simply the property of academic historians.
• Born in 1924.
• Believed governments were mendacious and imperialist.
• Studied at Cambridge University.
• Elected President of the University’s Socialist Club.
• Enlisted in the British Army and served as a tank commander.
• Influenced by the teachings of Christopher Hill and Karl Marx.
• Married Dorothy Towers in 1948.
• Wrote a novel titled, “William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary.”
• Heavily influenced by the socialist ideals of Morris.
• Novel was heavily criticised as beings too biased toward Marxism.
• Released a revised edition.
• Harboured doubts about Stalinism.
• Thompson and John Saville launched a new journal called the New Reasoner.
• Believed a “socialist humanism” was a morally conscious version of Marxism that liberated man from “slavery to things, to the pursuit of profit or servitude to economic necessity.”
• In1959 the New Reasoner merged with the Universities and Left Review to form the Left New Reason.
• Expressed his anger at the assumption that the political efforts of the middle and working classes were weak and that they were in need of a group of Marxist intellectuals to stimulate sound and lasting political action.
• Published, “The Making of the English Working Class” in 1963.
• Chief point was that class is not a thing, theoretical construct, structure or category; it is an historical phenomenon that arises out of human relationships.
• Class “owes as much to agency as it does to conditioning.”
• Work of great significance because of his sympathetic engagement with his subject, the depth of his research and his explicit statement of his ideological stance.
• Indispensible text for those interested in the late eighteenth century British history.
• In 1965 he was made director of the Centre for the Study of Social History at the University of Warwick.
• Struggle precedes class, “classes do not exist as separate entities.”
• Polemical style of argument.

Comment on The Annales School by Morgan

Morgan — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 06:05:20 +0000

Ferdinand Braudel:

• 1902.
• Heir to the Annales approach promoted by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre.
• Considerable impact upon present day scholarship.
• Taught at the University of Algiers.
• Worked on a doctoral thesis concerning Philip II’s foreign policy.
• Played a considerable role in shaping views about the intertwining histories and peoples and their environments.
• Most famous for his publication, “The Mediterranean.”
• “The Mediterranean” has been describes as a monument of twentieth-century historiography and as an impetus for revolutionary historical thought.
• Edited the post-war version of the Annales journal and published a host of articles and books including “Civilisation and Capitalism.”
• He inspired the “world-system” approach to the study of economic connections and inequalities in world history.
• For Braudel, the purpose of history is to illuminate the past.
• Because history tends to focus exclusively on events, individual actions and short-term developments, Braudel believes that history has been reduced to a theory of events.
• Believes that history is relational rather than substantial, the meaning of objects, events and individual actions lies in the relationships we construct between them.
• Believes historians must broaden and deepen their gaze across and through time.
• Detects three broad groupings in historical time; geographical, social and individual.
• Landscape plays an inextricable role in history.
• Concentrates upon the history of social structures.
• Has created a history of the rhythms and forces at work in economic systems, scientific and technological developments, political institutions and conceptual changes.
• Believes the history of individuals may steal attention from geographical and social history.
• Individuals are merely prisoners of geographical and social structures.
• He was a spatial thinker.
• Inverts the view of capitalism shared by many liberals and Marxists. Where these see capitalism as involving the establishment of a free, competitive market, Braudel sees it as involving a high degree of monopolisation.
• Pins the success of capitalism on the refusal to specialise.
• Braudel’s study of history requires the study of a broad range of historical evidence.
• Considered the father of many famous annalist thinkers, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Marc Ferro in particular.
• Wanted to consider the “deeper waters” of history as well as it content and boundaries.

Comment on What is History? – Introduction by Elle

Elle — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:12:19 +0000

Brief notes on Walter L. Adamson’s article “Marxism and Historical Thought”

➢ Marxist theory has been continuously misunderstood and oversimplified
➢ It is a product of its political time period in history and was enormously influential
➢ Marxism found a voice for disadvantaged groups who had previously not had a voice in history
➢ The idea of “History from Below” developed in which there consisted a collective history based on all levels in society
➢ This challenged the way the world and the class system was viewed
➢ Thus different groups were empowered and a flow on effect was created
➢ Marx’s ideas are often changed and become contradictory, no definite idea of his mature view on history is discovered or understood completely
➢ Marx in early years understood the creation of a communist society through the metaphor of human beings as “a species of laboring animals” however this labor is creative and thus they will “produce a society in which each individual’s creative essence is realized.”
➢ This early Marx saw the pursuit of knowledge as “another creative activity of humankind.” It also had no privileges attached. This early view of human nature suggested a “material view of history” and “a purely secular scientific approach.” This was in contrast to Hegel’s beliefs that Marx critiqued.
➢ Disregarded many Hegelian ideas but used a similar ontology
➢ Through Marx’s conceptions of history and theory we come to understand he believed that to create any political and social change the poor working classes or proletariat had to be stimulated by new thoughts on their society and ruler or “philosophical criticism” to begin an uprising and as Marx explains this is their destiny. Marx uses a metaphor to explain this idea “lightning of thought has penetrated deeply into the virgin soil of the people.”
➢ A simple definition of Marxism is understood under these terms (wealth is shared equally amongst the people, only achieved by an uprising by the workers.)
➢ However later Marx changes these ideas to “thought and reality are actively led by the proletariat.”
➢ Contemporary political changes and developments caused Marx to reconsider the “theoretical status of history.”
➢ The relationship between history and theory is an important element of Marxism
➢ He sees the relation between theory and history as useful in understanding human life. However only when eliminated of faith and “abstract theory” can the relationship offer a “comprehensive guide to political action.”
➢ The article concludes that the 20th Centuries belief in historical theory leading to a revamping of human life as its “recipe for disaster “ is very interesting as it relates to many societies and the political ideologies present at the time of the development of Marxism and how it is a product of its time.

Comment on What is History? – Introduction by Elle

Elle — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:00:34 +0000

‘The Practice of History’ G. R. Elton Chapter one ‘Purpose’

➢ Reason to study history is the desire to know what went before and to understand the passage down time.
➢ Give meaning to the past
➢ Not all people have been as concerned with knowing and writing history bas it really was
➢ The study of history as a properly developed is really quite young, much more then law, medicine, theology, philosophy and natural sciences
➢ Men in the 17th C gave history the right to define its self as an independent form of inquiry
➢ The scientifically ordered, systematic study of history was not properly developed until the 19th C because historians understood the past was just a tale amusing and instructive but with no certainty of standard truth
➢ History written on the foundation of systematic research – Northanger Abbey quote as to history as invention, other quote for history containing unsavory characters
➢ There is a very real sense in which good modern historians are superior to great minds and abler men who in earlier times concerned themselves with history
➢ The study of history in the last 300 years has assumed the appearance of a major intellectual industry due to the amount of history written today and the amount of people engaged in studying history
➢ History has something for everyone
➢ Weary argument of whether history is an art or a science
➢ History has and always will pose the sort of problems which cause debate
Purpose
➢ Saving the social scientist from himself and the social scientist from society may be a worthy reason for studying history but not many are going to regard themselves as a nursemaid
➢ Many historians feel they must understand the past to help men understand the present and future
➢ ‘Purpose of history’ has two meanings – purpose of the historical process or the purpose to be served by the historian in studying it yet meaning are close and tend to merge
➢ History to instruct reader? Writers job to demonstrate historical process?
➢ No one reads or writes history in a fit of absent mindedness – sets out a purpose
➢ H A L Fisher believed there was no purpose to history – it is an accident just one darn thing after another
➢ No historian has ever treated their subject as though it were entirely without meaning
➢ When E. H Carr and others search for a meaning in history they are trying to fill the vacuum that was created when god was removed from history
➢ The circular – societies grow and decay replaced by others who follow the same pattern. The linear – the sum total of the past moves in a straight line of progress even though lapses, backtracking and lateral movements occur

Comment on What is History? – Introduction by Elle

Elle — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:54:31 +0000

Leopold Von Ranke: “Perception, Depiction and Description of European History: Leopold von Ranke and his Development and Understanding of Modern Historical Writing”

➢ German historian, born in 1795
➢ Archival research to him was the basis of all historical work, as seen in his first work History of the Latin and Teutonic nations, 1494-1535.
➢ Most influential part was the appendix in which he assessed previous literature on the basis of studied sources
➢ Often quoted dictum: he was writing history as it actually occurred
➢ Appointed professor of history at university of Berlin
➢ Trained the first ‘modern professional historians’
➢ During his later years wrote national histories for European nations
➢ Received many honoured awards for his writing
➢ Wished to understand political order within its own historical context
➢ To understand the nature of an institution or an idea known as historical phenomena, the changes it underwent in its historical development over time had to be considered. Ranke argued that historical epochs should not be judged by predetermined contemporary values or ideas but should be understood by establishing history ‘as things really were’.
➢ He focused on both individuality and development in history
➢ Each historical stage had its own individuality and it was the historians job to understand the meaning of it and to do this they had to immerse themselves in the stage and find the true personality of the stage
➢ Convinced there was meaning and coherence in history
➢ Rejected the reduction of history to a grand scheme
➢ Believed that when studying history had to start with the detail and then move to the broader and more general view
➢ Seen as the father of the ‘scientific’ form of history in the 18th and 19th C
➢ Wherever he was, Ranke made copies, took notes or even acquired original documents as his form of archival history
➢ However he also used secondary sources
➢ Did not just deal with political history and history of great powers but cultural history
➢ Some of his practices have proven to be controversial, as he has been found to copy previous works on a topic, found from Dickens research that greatly criticised him
➢ Myth of him as religious and thus causing bias, proven false but continues
➢ Romantic impulses present in his writing
➢ Not a born historian, had to learn
➢ Sometimes shows protestant support and other times does not
➢ Tried but failed to write history objectively, even if he claimed to and tried to write with detachment
➢ Did not use past to justify situation but rather to understand it
➢ Growing up with traditions of the old order he was as much a conservative as an academic ‘revolutionary’.
➢ One hand highly respected, other, mainly in modern times, highly criticised
➢ Was not interested in social Darwinism popular in his time
➢ Did not follow the Romantic Movement
➢ His historical approach differed widely from his contemporaries
➢ Believes a person is a product of the historical movement in which they live

Comment on What is History? – Introduction by Morgan

Morgan — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:45:14 +0000

These are notes on the article called, “Marxist Historians”:

• Single most influential theorist for twentieth-century historical writing is Karl Marx.
• Marxism encompasses a wide range of subjects and centuries, including a broad synthesis of history, biography, intellectual history and studies of the “common people.”
• Marxist historiography owed a great deal to its antecedents.
• Took an interest in the ordinary people.
• Marxism came about from the development and expansion of capitalism as economic and social change.
• Marxists believe the class struggle is central to the historical process.
• Social history has been criticised for its lack of explicit theorisation and a tendency to separate popular culture from the matrix of economic and political relationships in which it is embedded.
• Karl Marx was born in 1818 during a period of ferment of revolutionary socialist ideas and movements in France, culminating in the 1848 revolution.
• Lived an itinerant life.
• The Marxist theory is not written down in one place, nor even developed coherently on one series of texts.
• Marx’s interpretation of human history is known as the materialist conception of history or “historical materialism”.
• The basic principles of Marxism were first developed in “The German Ideology” written in 1846.
• “The history of humanity” must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange.
• Marx believed that the economic structure of society formed the base upon which all other aspects of society rested.
• Does not ascribe an independent existence to the realm of human consciousness and ideas, but perceives these as arising out of material existence.
• Marx separates human history into three historical epochs; ancient society, feudal society and capitalist society.
• Anticipated that the proletariat would eventually overthrow the bourgeoisie.
• His grand, overarching evolutionary theory of human history rested upon a dialectic of economic transformation.
• In placing economic relationships at the core of his philosophy of human history, Marx fundamentally differentiated himself from his contemporaries, such as Leopold von Ranke.
• Concept of human agency is critical to Marx’s conceptual framework.
• Concerned with the fundamental relationship between social being and consciousness.
• That his research and writing does not rest upon a very narrow economistic perspective of class struggle is borne out by his assertion in 1958 that, “we must widen out view so as to embrace the total activity of society. Any event such as a revolution must be seen as a whole. Large numbers of men and women were drawn into political activity by religious and political ideals as well as by economic necessities.”
• Conceptualisation of society in terms of economic class.
• Attempts to explain Marist reformism circulated around the ideas expressed in an influential essay by Eric Hobsbawm, first published in 1954.
• Hobsbawm has remained close to the economic determinism of the Marxist model of history.
• Thompson published “The Making of the English Working Class” in 1963.
• Writing within the Marxist paradigm, Louis Althusser ( a French Marxist philosopher) emphasised the hegemony of capitalist ideology in society arguing that the dominant economic class also controlled the superstructure of ideology, class and politics.
• Working class consciousness is structured by the economic, social and political environment rather than as a product of human agency.
• Thompson argued the best approach to history was theoretically informed empiricism rather than Marxism.
• There have been many critiques of Marxists historiography written from poststructuralist perspectives.
• Marxism has had a profound impact upon contemporary historiography and historicism.

Comment on What is History? – Introduction by Elle Lawless

Elle Lawless — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:34:30 +0000

Jean Froissart 1337 – 1410
• Froissart was a French poet, romance writer and historian
• He received a clerical education and entered the service of the counts of Hainaut at an early age
• In 1361 he travelled to England and secured the patronage of Queen Phillippa this enabled him to travel and gain an understanding of the royal system
• He took holy orders in the Netherlands in 1373
• In 1384 he began writing the works he is best known for
• He realized the historical works were more likely to be privately read then publically performed
• Froissart’s ‘Chroniques’ is a history of the great deeds of many western European nobles especially those engaged in the hundred year wars between England and France and is divided into four books
• For book 1 he relied on the works of other historians, yet after mid 1360’s he began to rely on his own observations, interviews and some documents
• Book 2 was a separate work describing the Flemish troubles of 1378 – 87
• Book 3 narrates the period 1386 – 88 focusing on Charles 6th attempt to invade England
• Book 4 narrates the downfall of Richard 2nd and accession of Henry 4th
• Froissart collected information by voyages over western Europe to find information, recollection of previous visits, interviews, writing up notes and collecting texts and documents
• How he used this collected information to compose his text is harder to evaluate, it is thought he sketched a chronological framework, then may have dictated to scribes the events and may have left them to fill out the text
• It should be noted he had plenty of time to summarize, edit, synthesize and reorganize or re-write the evidence he collected
• He thought of his work as a history rather than a chronicle of events
• He tries to provide a comprehensive, detailed and impartial account of events, however there are aspects of his context which prevent this
• He is concerned with great deeds of knights and nobles almost like a literary equivalent of a funerary monument, however this causes him to show little sympathy for the poor
• He attempts to provide a means of moral instruction (like Tacitus)
• He is concerned with the virtues of honor, loyalty, fidelity and courtesy also good governance and the maintenance of public order and social distinctions
• Due to his belief in public order he barley disguises disgust at revolts and criticizes the clergy contributing to social disorder yet praises saintly figures and warrior bishops
• Apparently had writing talent and delighted in interesting stories (makes them up)
• Long standing reputation as a priceless source of 14th century history now in doubt

Comment on What is History? – Introduction by Gabby Young

Gabby Young — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 09:04:40 +0000

Historian Ibn Khaldun- Hughes-Warrington (2008)

• Few have heard of him
• Those who have described him as “the greatest historian and philosopher ever produced by Islam and one of the greatest of all time.”
• Chief work- the Muquaddimah- one of the earliest systematic explorations of the nature of history.
• Born in Tunis on Ramadan 732 (27th of May 1332)
• Education based on the Qur’an and the Hadith.
• He was thrown into prison, suspected of liberated a captured prince 1357 and was only released a year later.
• He took refuge in Algeria, where he began his work “the history of the world”
• He then moved to Cairo (academic position), then headed to Damascus, where he met Tamerlane. He then returned to Egypt in 1401 and died 17 March 1406.
• He wrote the Kitab al-‘Ibar, which comprises of three texts- the first treats the nature of history and society, the second the history of the Arabs and the third the history of the Berbers.
• Muqaddimah features as a foreword in the first book.
• He states, “ I commented on civilisation, on urbanisation, and on the essential characteristics of human social organisation, in a way that explains to the reader how and why things are as they are.
• Not modest about his achievements
• He says the Muqaddimah is not designed to please, charm, moralise or serve anyone.
• Questioned the role of fantastic in history- showed through appeal to the ideas of economics, geography, demography, military strategy and tactics, why many historical accounts are inadequate.
• Believes that “historians who merely emulate the achievements of earlier historians are dull and produce superficial work”
• His purpose- get the ‘inner meaning’ of historical events- not take them literally.
• Method- speculation, subtle explanation (causes/origins) and deep knowledge of why and how events took place.
• Looked at the social, political, economical, cultural and physical conditions that give shape to civilisations in order to get the truth- it therefore becomes a science/philosophy.
• He concludes that culture and luxury are what is aimed for in societies (goal), however this also marks the decline of the society. They are also destroyed by people who are corrupted with power and the need for conquest.
• This idea is known as a cycle (asabiya)- the vitality of the state/the life force of the people/ nationalism/ public spirit.
• This idea of asabiya is firmly linked to the medieval Maghrib, which he wrote about.
• He instead of replicating information handed down through the years; he based his work on his own study of communities/nations.