Why Do We Study History

Monthly Review, 1994

2023

Course Description: This graduate seminar introduces major trends and critical issues in historiography and historical thinking, primarily focusing on developments that shaped the discipline during the twentieth century. Its principal aims are: (1) To survey important conceptual and methodological landmarks in the development of "History" as a kind of knowledge, discipline, rhetoric, and practice (2) To become familiar with critical theoretical approaches that have significantly impacted the writing of history and contributed to major historical "turns." (3) To point to often implicit and unexamined assumptions about historical research and presentation that precede our trips to the archives and hours of writing (4) To promote a sense of intellectual community among incoming graduate students in history with different areas of concentration. The seminar will put a special emphasis on scholarly debates regarding the above questions. Among other things, we will inquire into the history of certain basic historical concepts often thought not to have a history, including the past itself. We will trace how academic history came to be seen as a "science," rival conceptions that emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries over what exactly this meant, and the challenge posed by postmodern theory to classifying historical knowledge as "objective." We will look at some of the different ways historians have tried to explain the purpose of their work while also probing the tension between academic and popular uses of history. We will explore debates over how broadly or narrowly historians should delimit their subjects (micro versus macro scales), as well as what weight they should ascribe to particulars or universals, persons or collectives, individual events or large-scale structures, dominant or subordinate groups, narrative or analytical presentation, hermeneutical or causal explanation, ideas or discourses or material factors in the understanding of historical experience and change. We will pay close attention to how historians conceptualize their questions, use evidence, and develop their interpretations, arguments, analyses, narratives, and explanations. Finally, we will examine how historians have assimilated (or not) insights and models from other disciplines, including philosophy, the natural sciences, social and economic theory, literary and critical theory, and anthropology.

An exploration of historical rendition and the philosophy of History. How historical narrative challenges and shapes our understanding of the past, religion, prejudice, and propaganda. Why does the academic establishment propagate a lie when it knows it is a lie. Is history, as a discipline, nothing more than a propaganda machine?

American Journal of Sociology, 2012

The rich and famous have looked down upon history for most of the 20th century. In 1916, the pioneer car manufacturer, Henry Ford, declared „History is bunk‟ because it‟s an unwanted vestige of tradition. On the other hand, in 2005, Thomas Friedman, thought the past was overloaded with memories, these remembrances were the assassins of dreams and any society with more memories than dreams was destined to decay. Contrary to this, we argue here that history has four distinct uses, it is an aesthetic guide and moral teacher like biographies, it has a utilitarian value as a rear view mirror, it is a political device to legitimise nations and it is one epistemological tool to understand society.KeywHistoriography; Historical ords: History; thinking

2008

This compilation thesis contains an introductory chapter and four original articles. The studies comprising this thesis all concern aspects of how historical culture is constituted in historical media and history teachers’ narratives and teaching. It is argued that the teaching of history is a complex matter due to an internal tension resulting from the fact that history is both a product and a process at the same time. While historical facts, and knowledge thereof, are an important aspect of history, history is also a product of careful interpretation and reconstruction. This study analyses and discusses how history is constituted in history textbooks and popular history magazines, i.e. two common historical media, and in teachers’ narratives and teaching of history. The study finds that the historical media studied generally tend to present history as void of perspective, interpretation and representation, suggesting this to be the culturally warranted form of historical exposition. Moreover, the teachers studied also tend to approach history as if it were not contingent on interpretation and reconstruction. These results indicate that the history disseminated in historical media and history classrooms presents history in a factual way and disregards the procedural aspects of history. Applying the history didactical concepts of historical consciousness, historical culture and uses of history, this thesis argues that an essential aspect of historical understanding is an appreciation of the contextual contingency that characterises history. All history is conceived within a particular context that is pertinent to why and how a certain version of history is constructed. Furthermore, all history is also received within a particular context by people with particular preconceptions of history that are contextually contingent, in the sense that they are situated in a certain historical culture. Readers of historical media are members of societies and are thus affected by how history is perceived and discussed in these contexts. This thesis argues that an awareness of these aspects of history is an important factor for furthering a complex understanding of history that encompasses the tension highlighted above.

2018

Throughout my childhood in the relatively young country of Pakistan, I've been consistently exposed to two very different sides of the same history: that present in the British textbooks we were made to read in school and the accounts of those around me who had lived or whose ancestors had lived during those times. The incongruency of these accounts was what first caused me to be skeptical of the idea of a factual, objective history. However, it was not until reading Edward Hallett Carr's essay, "The Historian and His Facts," that I saw my own skepticism take a strong form and gain validation. In this essay, Carr seeks to show the reader how accounts of the past can never be divorced from interpretation while simultaneously grappling with larger questions of 'What is a historical fact?' and 'What is history?'. Though somewhat pretentious, the argument Carr presents is compelling. Through organized explanation and the extensive use of examples, rhetorical questions, emphatic language and metaphors, the essay effectively illustrates the complexity and dynamic nature of what we think of as history and its relationship to the facts that constitute it. The essay is very reminiscent of the opening speech of a parliamentary debate, in which the speaker is so utterly convinced of his own argument that he belittles any other way of viewing things. In any other setting, such an approach would detract from what the author had to say because it would make it seem that the counter argument has not been fully considered. Here however, it works to Carr's advantage, as he is challenging beliefs that have been deeply ingrained

2013

For tonight's launch of SEPHIS's new e-magazine, I volunteered a title, which has already been subject to considerable misinterpretation. As you know, there is declining interest in the study of history all over the world, particularly in developing countries. Almost all the History Departments in Malaysia have closed down or have been reinvented to study politics, international relations and other 'more relevant' subjects. Probably, there is only one Department of History left in the country right now. This is a matter of great concern because people who do not know history run the risk of repeating it. And as we know, when history repeats itself, tragedy becomes farce. So there is an important plea to be made for the study of history. Second, there is a rather urgent need to return to the study of history, and particularly in this period for us in the South, to the study of imperialism and its discontents. We are living in very special times, which require us to return to the study of our past, to better understand the present and anticipate the future. Recent debates during the last decade and a half have had to