The existence of history depends on the relics and traces left from the past. Primary and secondary sources are one of the most vital factors to understand history. According to Marwick, primary sources are basic raw materials that came and are created during the period being investigated and secondary sources are books and articles written by historians based on the study of primary sources later. The author argues that even though the distinction between the two kinds of sources is not a trump card to the nature of history, it is still critical. The reason is that primary and secondary sources have different usage and we cannot learn much knowledge about the past from a single source. Primary sources are fragmentary and scarce, so they can contain errors and prejudice and are not edited. However, studying primary sources is a direct connection to ideas and a way of lives of the past generations. On the other hand, secondary sources that one realizes the gaps in knowledge and problems unsolved about it and they vary from highly specialized research to non-academic history. Arthur Marwick takes examples that it is better for a history student to read through edited selections of secondary sources written by historians when he/she wants to learn the basic knowledge about the role of Renaissance women or the causes of the World War Ⅰ. Thus, history is not just a matter of analysing a single source, but accumulating details from various sources refined through qualification, corroboration and correction.
Another important factor to define work of history is strategy to exploit sources. The need for strategy using sources to identify the topics to be addressed and the archives to be used is emphasized in the article. The technical skills lie in understanding how and why a particular source came into existence and how relevant it is to the topic under investigation. Along with the strategy, it is also important to develop a structure to deliver knowledge about what was happening, what interactions there were, what changed, and what did not.
Marwick defines the fundamental of history is to convey knowledge with precise and explicit language about the past based on investigation and analysis of the evidences. He indicates that "history is not a formation dace in which everybody in one period marches in one direction, and then, in the next, marches off in a different direction." Study of history is essential to society and the knowledge helps identify who we are and who we will be. Therefore, history regards to be based on logical thought and scholarly discipline and there ought to be careful attention to how it is produced, communicated and taught about.
2. Add a second section based on your own private reading about what
you consider Historiography to be and why knowledge of historiography
is considered important to comprehending how to study the past.
From E.H. Carr lecture in 1960, later printed in a book called 'What is History?', Carr points out that diligent research and factual accuracy are necessary conditions for history and becoming a historian, but they were not sufficient in themselves. He differentiates historian from chronicler that for the chronicler, a fact was something that had happened in the past. But it only became a historical fact when it was used by a historian as part of an argument. In his book, historical arguments are more than just simply arguments about who did what in the past, and why. The historian should consider wider factors of influences in history such as at economic change, industrialization, class formation and class conflict and so on. Accordingly, Carr emphasizes that the central task of the historian, with or without the help of theory, depends on searching and interpreting patterns and regularities in the past. The review of E.H. Carr's lecture about 'What is History?' written by Richard J. Evans traces how the intellectual world of historical study has changed since the course of the 1960s. It is shown in the book that the collective discourse of the historians of a particular time and circumstances, which in turn reflected the times that they lived in. From the 1970s and 1980s, a new emphasis on cultural history emerged, on the aspects of identity, consciousness and mentality in place of social structure, social organization and the economic bases of social power. "People and above all about humble, ordinary people, history's obscure, the losers and bystanders" in the process of historical change became the main focus of historical writings. Nevertheless, this change of tendency does not mean that other forms of history have disappeared. One result of Carr's influence was to guide many historians to reflect on their own biases and preconceptions in their works, to articulate the purposes for which they wrote. However, he also encouraged them, in the long run, to make a virtue of necessity. A genuine historian will never manipulate or distort the materials which the past has left behind and which form the basis for the historian's work; but within the limits of what the sources allow there is plenty of room for differing emphases and interpretations.
Knowledge of historiography is considered important to comprehending how to study the past because it helps to grasp the cause and effect of the past and also the correlation with other happenings of importance. More importantly, the evidence from the past may be biased or mistaken, fragmentary after long periods of cultural or linguistic change. It is impossible to exactly recreate past experience. The best we can do is to create critical thinking and analytical processes, as well as establish evaluative methods to understand the past. Historians therefore, have to assess their evidence with a critical eye and provide the necessary means to interpret, analyse and evaluate the past in an informed manner.
by
kduis331 (student)
