Historical Research

A Guide for Writers of Dissertations, Theses, Articles and Books

Bill Mcdowell

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317886365
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Geschichte
• Categoría: Historiographie

This is the first practical guide to cover the various stages of a history research project, from the selection of the topic and the organization and interpretation of source material, through to the completion of the written-up record.Whether it is for a dissertation, thesis article or, indeed, full-length book, Historical Research deals with the purpose of research, and the implications, limitations and benefits of different research methods, as well as the effective presentation of the finished result.

PART I THE STUDY OF HISTORY

1

The nature and value of history

Everything in the social or natural world is subject to change with the passage of time. It is this process of change which humans are most conscious of, and which influences their day-to-day behaviour. Change occurs on a constant basis and so we are unable to freeze reality, except perhaps when we look at historical evidence, such as written or photographic material. We instinctively try to locate events in time and often make contrasts between past and present, perhaps hoping that knowledge of the past will help us to make informed judgements about the present. We are surrounded by traces of the past, such as buildings, the landscape, artefacts, as well as written, printed and visual records. This record of the past can help to enrich our understanding of our own society and that of other cultures, because individually we only have a fragmentary and imperfect knowledge of the past. It is the discipline of history which provides us with the opportunity to understand and appreciate the past, to distinguish myth from reality, and to see which elements of the past had an influence on future events. This image of the past is static because history can only offer snapshots of the past, albeit sometimes in profuse detail. History enables us to view ourselves and society in a proper perspective, to focus on human motives and the consequences of them for other individuals or for society, and to enhance our knowledge of the potential, as well as the limitations, of human actions.

The study of history has both a practical and educational value. It helps us develop an active enquiring mind, promotes the use of critical skills in the handling and evaluation of various types of source material and assists in the presentation of written work. Historical problems often have to be considered from different angles to arrive at a satisfactory solution; sometimes a solution is never found and instead various arguments and counter-arguments emerge, to be examined by others who look at the conflicting evidence. Some people regard history as offering a good training in how to be civilised citizens, whereas others focus on the enjoyment to be derived from reading about historical events. In an article published in the journal History in 1970 the value of history was summarised as follows:

At whatever level history is studied it is highly likely to result in more active and inquiring minds, a more refined and critical judgement, a greater understanding of present-day society, nationally and internationally, an increased enjoyment of the historical artefacts left by our ancestors, even better citizens. But none of these can logically be the reason for the study, they are bonuses of a human endeavour which is legitimate in itself and not because of its utilitarian function.¹

The discipline of history obviously has an intrinsic value, and writing about historical events can be both educative and entertaining. This provides a good starting point for looking more closely at the study of history and the task of historians. This should provide you with useful general background information and a context within which you can plan the development of your own historical research.

Historians examine the past so that we may have a better understanding of the content of past events and the context in which they took place. This can help us appreciate the similarities and differences between the circumstances and conditions which govern both past and present events. Historical research does not consist in the mere collection of ‘facts’, but rather in the interrelationship between factual evidence and the interpretation of this evidence by historians. We may never succeed in knowing the past exactly, but we can make progress if we use our knowledge and skills to move closer towards that ideal. The collection of facts may be appropriate in the study of the mathematical and physical sciences, but this is not the primary function of history. There is no standard text on history, nor is there any standard list of historical facts or a single interpretation of many historical events. However, there are historical events where a genuine consensus of opinion among historians does in fact exist. For example, there may be consensus about when a particular war began, including the factors which contributed to the outbreak of armed conflict. But there might not exist any consensus about which factors were more influential in triggering these events. Historical research represents a systematic enquiry into the past and an attempt to separate true from fictionalised accounts of historical events, based upon the examination of a wide range of relevant source material. This is an important task because history is the source of many of our ideas, beliefs and customs. A better understanding of the past places us in a more advantageous position to appreciate change in the present and to try and learn from past mistakes. This is not to say that the future can be predicted. A complex conjunction of circumstances may never be repeated or lead to the same outcome. We may be able to detect trends over a period of time, so there is a degree of continuity as well as change in history. The content of historical work may also vary, depending on whether we agree to view the past from the perspective of those who lived through earlier times, or from the vantage point of our present-day values and beliefs.

Each generation of historians has its own preoccupations and values and these may shape their perception of past events: what they see as significant, what they disregard, and what connections they assume between the occurrence of particular events. For example, a more pessimistic assessment of the ramifications of wars was apparent after 1918 than it was just prior to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. We can look at previous historical research to distinguish significant from unimportant events, and to see what social, economic and political patterns emerge over a period of time. We attempt to discover what happened in the past in order to correct our interpretation of what we think may have occurred. The study of any historical topic should encourage you to develop a greater awareness and interest in the past, understand its complexity, and appreciate the forces which have brought about change in society. Herbert Butterfield once stated that ‘a people that lived without any knowledge of its past – without any serious attempt to organise its memory – would hardly be calculated to make much progress in its civilisation’.² The study of history provides a framework which we can use to make sense of our experience and guide our actions. The future is, in any case, partly conditioned by the past: it is not entirely predictable, but equally it is not the outcome of pure chance.

The professionalisation of history and its emergence as an independent discipline can be traced to the nineteenth century in work such as that produced by Leopold von Ranke and Auguste Comte. The subject has been increasingly studied and researched since then by experts working in universities where many history departments were eventually established and where research into specialised topics proceeded. History came to be regarded as a valuable intellectual pursuit in its own right, regardless of its practical applications. Many historians emphasised the similarities between history and scientific study, which had been making significant progress during the nineteenth century. This led to greater emphasis within history on the discovery and critical examination of primary sources, combined with more training in research techniques. The study of history was regarded as the objective pursuit of knowledge and not dependent on the subjective perceptions of individual historians. Research work initially focused on political and diplomatic history, rather than on social and economic history as the Annales School of historians were later to do, because it was here that the primary sources were more readily available. These developments also coincided with the launch of several scholarly history journals aimed at professional historians, as well as the founding in 1868 of the Royal Historical Society. In January 1886 the English Historical Review appeared, the first journal in Britain dedicated to the study of history and targeted primarily at professional historians. In 1902 the British Academy (for the promotion of historical, philosophical and philological studies) was founded. A few years later in 1906 the Historical Association was formed by history teachers in Britain to assist in the development of history as a separate discipline and to raise professional standards. These developments were accompanied by more extensive work in archives to systematise historical knowledge, more undergraduate courses in history and the creation of national histories based on access to official papers. The subject matter of history also began to widen so that by the 1960s an increasing number of historians began to take more interest in themes developed within sociology, psychology, economics and anthropology. This represented a significant change from the former preoccupation with political and diplomatic history.

For knowledge of most historical events we rely not on our memory but on evidence, such as documents, paintings, sculpture, photographs, or sound and visual recordings. We rely partly on the work of previous generations of historians who have sifted through and analysed this evidence to present an account of what aspects they regarded as significant. Historians are expected not just to describe how things were, but why they took a particular course. This requires an appreciation of change through time, combined with a questioning attitude which seeks to discover why specific events occurred at a particular time and in a particular sequence. Historians may be unable to totally reconstruct past events but they can bring revealing insights into aspects of the past if they use their skills to accurately represent historical events. It involves not basing our assessment of the unfolding of historical events on our current prejudices and preoccupations. Herbert Butterfield believed that some historians organised their historical knowledge to fit in with a predetermined (or what was referred to as a Whig) interpretation of history. This type of interpretation equated history with evolution by identifying progress as the key theme. Butterfield argued that some historians studied the past with reference to present economic progress rather than study it for its own sake, so that the legacy of current events would be discerned by looking at the past. He called this a Whig history because the Whigs were identified as the supporters of progress. The Whig interpretation of history was regarded as one which any historian could be guilty of:

The Whig interpretation of history is not merely the property of Whigs and it is much more subtle than mental bias; it lies in a trick of organisation, an unexamined habit of mind that any historian may fall into. It might be called the historian’s ‘pathetic fallacy’. It is the result of the practice of abstracting things from their historical context and judging them apart from their context – estimating them and organising the historical story by a system of direct reference to the present.³

It was thought to be important for historians not to ignore the meaning which past events had for contemporaries at the time they occurred because this would distort the historical record of such events. In any case, it is sometimes problematical whether progress has been the by-product of an inevitable evolutionary process, or whether it is simply the outcome of a number of unpredictable events.

To make sense of the complexity of past events we consult intentional and unintentional evidence. The past cannot be directly experienced, and those events which have been observed by other people may have been forgotten, misunderstood or misrepresented, or perhaps taken out of proper sequence. The historical evidence we have available can sometimes be selective because the occurrence of dramatic events are often recalled, whereas the passage of unremarkable events which may be of longer-term significance are less likely to have been observed and documented at the time they occurred. A proper historical perspective may enable us to see the significance of events which may not have been regarded as important to those who witnessed them at the moment they occurred. It also helps us to appreciate how and why some events became less significant with the passage of time. By developing a proper perspective on past events we may come to a different conclusion about what is historically significant.

There are two ways in which we can approach the study of the past. The cyclical view of history regards societies and civilisations as similar to living organisms which all experience a cycle of growth, maturity and decline. According to this perspective, no society or civilisation would be expected to remain static because each would experience alternating periods of growth and decline. The underlying implication seems to be that there cannot be any permanent progress or development because each new civilisation must virtually start afresh, rather than be built on the foundations of earlier ones. In contrast to this perspective, the sequential view of historical change regards history as the unfolding of a sequence of events in a linear progression. It implies that if we have some understanding of the past sequence of events we will be in a better position to predict the likely course of future events, or at least understand the nature of change in society. The outcome of events may also lead us to question either our earlier interpretation or the significance of these events so that we can provide a more accurate historical analysis. The sequential perspective appears to regard historical development as synonymous with progress, whereas the cyclical view seems to regard history as exhibiting a cyclical pattern of progress followed by decline. Adherents of the sequential view tend to see a much greater purpose to history, although this can lead to a more overtly determinist theory of historical change. The nature and subject of your own research may influence which perspective you find the most convincing. Neither theory alone provides us with a comprehensive view of historical change, yet each may be valuable for illustrating and explaining change in specific historical contexts.

Historians have an immense curiosity about the past but need to be aware of the strengths and limitations of the evidence they use. You may have formulated some questions which you hope the historical evidence will answer, but equally this evidence may persuade you to ask further questions which you had never originally thought about. A research topic must be manageable so that you can develop a good mastery of the source material. The possession of an ability to examine a subject in detail needs to be combined with the ability to see the broad picture. To make sense of the past we have to be able to see the relationship between a unique event and a general pattern of events. The search for connections between individual historical events may help us to explain the nature of a specific event. Historians are also expected to adopt a critical, but not over-critical, approach to the work of other historians. As A.F. Pollard once remarked: ‘It is easy to earn a cheap reputation as a critic by pointing out details the historian has advisedly omitted. Still easier is it to earn an even cheaper reputation by using, to decry an historian’s scholarship, sources which were not available when he wrote, or to stand on his shoulders and vaunt one’s superior height.’⁴ We cannot be seen to be selectively critical by adopting an extremely cautious attitude towards some evidence, while uncritically accepting other evidence. As G. Kitson Clark has noted:

The blind denial of a statement can be as irrational as the blind acceptance of one, the anti-myth may supply nearly as many over-simplifications and deceptive short-cuts to truth as the myth. Moreover, scepticism may be curiously selective. Men will reject one section of a document basing their argument on facts drawn from another part of the same document. The fact that certain types of assertion have been bustled unceremoniously off the stage is often balanced by the fact that other equally unlikely assertions have been very easily accepted.⁵

We must be aware that improbable events may just be possible, the simple theory may be nearer the truth than the more complex theory and the obvious explanation may provide a more reliable guide to historical events than the less obvious.

Unless we fully appreciate the circumstances and the context in which historical events occurred, and approach them without preconceived ideas, then our speculation may lead us to the wrong conclusions. The historical record of many events is, in any case, always incomplete. Our task is to provide the best interpretation of the events which is possible and is supported by the available primary and secondary source material. The facts, as they say, do not speak for themselves. We must be aware that past generations may have viewed historical events differently from present-day historians. A degree of selection is involved in our choice of research questions, as well as in the source material we choose to examine. To write about the complexity of the past, historians are selective in what they regard were the significant events. A satisfactory balance therefore has to be reached between simplifying and oversimplifying (or sensationalising) the past. In ref...