PPT is all about :- What is History ? What is History ? What is History ? What is History ? What is History ? Understanding Facts ..

1. Some Aspects of History and Historiography
Dr. Sangeeta Pethiya
Assistant Prof. History
DESSH

2. What is History
• E.H Carr quotes in his book “ What is History”
Acton, who says that History is a unique
opportunity of recording, in the way most
useful to the greatest number, the fullness of
the knowledge which the nineteenth century
is about to bequeath....
• According to Collingwood “ All history is the
history of the thought and its re-enactment”

3. The Fascinating world Of history
• It is reliving the past - exploring the minds of
people who lived in the yesteryears, looking at
their day-to-day lives i.e. way of dressing,
entertainment, food habits, art, architecture,
music and dance, to name a few, marveling at
their achievements and learning from their
failure

4. Nature, Method and Objects of History
History like theology or natural science is a
special form of thought . Pertaining to
the thought there are a few questions to
ponder upon...
• Nature of thought i.e. What history is?
• Object of thought -What it is about?
• Method of thought -How it proceeds?
• Value of thought- What it is for?

5. What is it for?
• There could be so many answers to this
question.....perhaps as many as our creativity
might as well permit
• Collingwood says History is for self-
Knowledge.

6. The Many Goals of Learning History
• It is useful for accumulation of definite
knowledge of the past.
• Perspective building.
• Honing analytical skills
• Developing mental and moral qualities.
• Developing abilities for impartial and effective
investigation .
• Rendering constructive judgments .
• Inculcating the attitude of historical mindedness.

7. What idea of daily life can you
gather from the image?
What could these be used
for?
Posing the right questions will enhance
lateral thinking and perspective building of
the learners.

8. How does History proceed?
• History proceeds by the interpretation of
evidence
• What is an evidence: Literary, archaeological,
numismatics .
• Historical procedure or method consists
essentially of interpreting evidence.

9. Understanding Facts
• If the nature of History is to answer questions,
and it proceeds to answer these with the help
of facts. This brings us to the next stage of
understanding Historiography...Understanding
facts .

10. The Historian and His Facts :
Importance of Facts
• 19 century was an age of facts . All Historians agreed to Mr.
Gradgrind* when he said that “facts alone are wanted in
life”.
• Rake in 1830 said “ Historian cannot moralize history. His/her
task is to just show as things really were.”
• Facts as defined in oxford dictionary “ A datum of experience
as distinct from conclusions”
• A commonsense view of history is History - Corpus of
ascertained facts available to the historian in documents,
coins, archaeological buildings etc.

11. Documents as Facts
• Documents are the ark of the covenant in the
temple of facts- decrees , blue books, private
letters rent rolls official diaries , official
correspondences.
• No document can tell us more than the
author of the document thought.
- Documents have to be processed, understood
and then decided by the historian whether
he/she actually wants to use them.

12. Caesar Crossing the Rubicon
Courtesy http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/78900/78944/78944_rubicon_01.htm

13. EMPEROR ASHOKA

14. Battle of Kalinga

16. Newspaper Report on Storming of the Bastille downloaded
from French revolution documents.
Source- alpha history, http://www.alphahistory.com

18. How does a Fact become a Historical
Fact?
• Accuracy of Facts is a very necessary condition
• If Fact is accepted by other Historian as valid and
significant.
• How are the facts collected and with what point of
view? Does it include the perception of common
people.
• Status of a fact as a historical fact also depends on how
it has been interpreted.
• It is not the quality of the fact that is important but the
decision of the historian as to which fact is important .
For Example : Caesars crossing of Rubicon

19. Indus era 8,000 years old, not 5,500;
ended because of weaker monsoon
( Courtesy :May 29, 2016, Times Of India
A painting on Indus Valley civilization TOI photo by Sanjay Hadkar)

20. At 8000 years, Indus Valley civilization is now officially
the world''s oldest civilization!
Times Of India 29 May 2016
• It may be time to rewrite history textbookKOLKATAto rewrite s. Scientists from IIT-
Kharagpurand Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have uncovered evidence that
the Indus Valley Civilization is at least 8,000 years old, and not 5,500 years old,
taking root well before the Egyptian (7000BC to 3000BC) and Mesopotamian
(6500BC to 3100BC) civilizations. What's more, ythe researchers have found
evidence of a pre-Harappan civilization that existed for at least 1,000 ears before
this.
The discovery, published in the prestigious 'Nature' journal on May 25, may force a
global rethink on the timelines of the so-called 'cradles of civilization'. The
scientists believe they also know why the civilization ended about 3,000 years ago
— climate change. We have recovered perhaps the oldest pottery from the
civilization. We used a technique called 'optically stimulated luminescence' to date
pottery shards of the Early Mature Harappan time to nearly 6,000 years ago and
the cultural levels of pre-Harappan Hakra phase as far back as 8,000 years," said
Anindya Sarkar, head of the department of geology and geophysics at IIT-Kgp
• Source :http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indus-era-8000-years-old-not-5500-ended-because-of-
weaker-monsoon/articleshow/52485332.cms

21. Positivists?
• Positivists belonging to the school of thought that
history is a science supported the argument on facts
being the most important aspect for the study of
history . This is followed by its interpretation.
• Two steps in history
1. Ascertaining Facts
2. Framing laws( The facts were immediately ascertained
by sensuous perception. The laws were framed
through generalizing these facts by induction. Under
this influence a new kind of historiography arose,
which may be called Positivistic Historiography. )

22. Interpretation of facts
• Facts have to be interpreted in History
Objectively by a historian else historian would
become ‘thereafter to turn him from a man of
letters into the compiler of an encyclopedia.

23. Figurine of “Dancing Girl,” bronze

25. How are Facts presented?
• Acton said “Facts are sacred ,opinion is free”
• The historian collects them, takes them home
and cooks and serves them in whatever style
appeals to him. Acton whose culinary taste
were austere wanted them plain.
• Get your Facts straight. At your risk jump
into the shifting sand of interpretation.

26. The Question Of Objectivity
Objective claims meet Three Criterion:
1. They have a truth Value.
2. There is an agreed upon method for
determining whether the claim is true or
false.
3. In the event of disagreement about the
claim someone must be wrong.

27. Objectivity in History: Interpretation
bereft of Bias and Prejudice
• Social Sciences as a whole ,since they involve
man as both as subject and object, both
investigator and thing investigated, are
incompatible with any theory of knowledge
which pronounces a rigid divorce between
subject and object.
• The Aryan Invasion Theory
Romilla Thapar writes That the theory of Aryan race is a result of European Bias and prejudice and was applied to
justify the colonial interpretations of early ancient Indian history. Concept of Aryan theory does not have its roots
in ancient Indian thought ,but unfortunately it is accepted as a self established fact . Though the historians
working on European history have put a question mark on it.

28. Courtesy:

31. Dangers Of Misinterpretation: The
Nazi Holocaust
Entrance to the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp which operated 4 gas
chambers where 6,000 people were put to death each day by the Nazi regime.

32. Causation in History- Does History repeat itself?
E. H Carr in What is History says “The study of History is the
study of causes”.
• There can be innumerable events in history that call for an
answer an explanation or causation
• Ascertaining and analyzing of causes of events is thus an
attribute which distinguishes a student of History or a
historian from other readers of history. Rudyard Kipling once
said “ I have six honest serving men . They taught me all I
know- What, Why, When and How, Where and Who”
• Herodotus, the father of History, defined his purpose in the
opening of his work : “To preserve a memory of the deeds of
the Greeks and the barbarians and in particular , beyond
everything else , to give the cause of their fighting with each
other”.

33. How does the Historian make use of
the causes
• Historian deals with multiplicity of the
causes i.e. Assigning several causes to the
same event
• Historian then establishes some kind of
hierarchy. ( or reducing it to a certain order).
• Marxist School Of Historiography

34. Relation of The Historian to Causes
• The relation of the Historian to the causes is
dual and reciprocal.
• The causes determine his/her interpretation
of historical process, and his/her
interpretation determines the selection and
marshalling of the causes.
• The hierarchy of causes ,the relative
significance of one cause or set of causes is
the essence of his interpretation.

35. From Causation to Generalization
• Does History Repeat Itself? And Can lessons be learnt
from History?
• Some argue that No lessons can be learnt in History
because History cannot predict future.
• Prediction in history lies in this distinction between
the general and the specific, between the universal
and the unique....The historian therefore is bound to
generalize.

36. • The historian constantly uses
generalization to test evidences.
• History teaches ample of lessons
We learn about the present in
light of the past and we also
learn about the past in light of
the present, through the
interrelation between them.

37. Historical Determinism
Historical Inevitability
• Defining determinism: The belief that everything that
happens has a cause or causes, and could not have
happened differently unless something in the cause or
causes had also been different. S.W Alexander says
“Determinism means that ,the data being what they
are, whatever happens definitely and could not be
different . To hold that it could ,means only that it
would if the data were different “.
• Professor Proppers assertion that “ Everything is
possible in human affairs is either meaningless or
false.”
• It is not that some human actions are free and some
are determined . A historian like the ordinary person
believes that human actions have causes which are in

38. Issues In Determinism
• Who are the people who object on Determinism?
• Perhaps the people who think they have been
wronged due to certain happenings and events in
the past .
• For a historian whatever has happened in the
past is a closed chapter . He views occurrences as
happened in the past along with their outcomes,
treating the event as a closed chapter.

39. Historical Inevitability
If causes are ascertainable can the foregoing events
also be concluded as inevitable?
• What is Historical Inevitability?
• If there is a certain cause the results would be
certain and no different then that..This use of
inevitability makes us a little uncomfortable...
• E. H. Carr who himself in earlier writings used
inevitable accepts the it should be ‘extremely
probable’ is a better coinage .
• Historians do not assume that events are
inevitable before they have taken place.

40. Chance in History
Closely attached to Causation is the question of
Chance in history . If everything happens due
to certain causes can then the Element of
accident or chance completely be routed out?
This question Is sometimes referred to as The
Question of Cleopatra's nose

41. What is the crux of Cleopatra's nose
Cleopatra, Queen
Of Egypt
Octavian later
Augustus : Roman
Ruler 42 BCE
Mark Antony

42. Chance In History
• This is a theory that history is ,by and large a chapter of
accidents , a series of events determined by chance
coincidences, and attributable only to the most casual
causes.
• The cause- effect here is the connexion between female
beauty and male infatuation observable in everyday life.
• Where did this theory originate?
• Polybius seems to be he first to address this . Why ?
• Accidents in History represent a sequence of causes and
effect observable in everyday life. These so called accidents
in history represent a sequence of case-effect interrupting
– and so to speak, clashing with the sequence with which
the historian is primarily concerned .

43. E.H Carr in What is history explicitly argues on the
role of accident and says “It is common practice
with serious historians to point out that
something that hitherto treated as accidental was
not accidental at all, but can be rationally
explained and significantly fitted into the broader
pattern of events. ... To describe something as a
mischance is a favorite way of exempting oneself
from tiresome obligation to investigate its
cause, and when somebody tells me that history
is a chapter of accidents, I tend to suspect him of
intellectual laziness or low intellectual ability.( E.
H Carr- What is History page 102)

44. Moral Judgment In History
• Does A Historian have Right To pass Moral
Judgment?
• Moral Judgment on Public/ Private Actions
• Question of Moral Judgment on Personal
Lives

45. There can be no ultimate history
But what is ultimate History?
Full, Final unchallenged truth of the past
But Why can there be no Ultimate History?
Reasons
1. Historians themselves believe and understand this. They expect
their work to be superseded again and again.
2. They consider that the knowledge of the past has been processed
by the human mind and therefore is changeable.
3. New evidences may come to light which may change entire
history
4. There may be new techniques of evaluating facts which may
require rewriting history.

46. Historiography: The Philosophy Of
History
• Wikipedia describes historiography as “ A study of the
methodology of historians in developing history as an academic
discipline.”
• The writing of history based on the critical examination of sources,
the selection of particulars from the authentic materials, and the
synthesis of particulars into a narrative that will stand the test of
critical methods : the principles, theory, and history of historical
writing
• Simply put it can be defined as the art or science of studying and
writing history.
• Historiography actually connoted the writing of history and
Historiographer is a historian.
• In ancient times the official Historian was designated as
‘Historiographer Royal’.

47. • More recently it has been defined as the
study of the way history has been written or it
is the history of the historical writing.
• When we study History we do not study the
events of the past directly but the changing
interpretation of those events in the works of
individual historians. For Example:
Historiography of the Civil Disobedience
Movement.

48. • Historiography could be of a particular topic.
As such, it refers to how historians have
studied that topic using particular sources,
techniques and theoretical approaches.
• The explanations and interpretations of
historians. All historical topics have their own
historiography, and most history books include
a historigraphical survey to help readers
understand where the book fits in with
previous research and writing on the same
topic.

49. • A historiography is a summary of the historical
writings on a particular topic - the history of the
slave trade, or the history of the French
Revolution, for example or the Historiography of
the Taj Mahal.
• It sets out in broad terms the range of debate
and approaches to the topic. It identifies the
major thinkers and arguments, and establishes
connections between them. If there have been
major changes in the way a particular topic has
been approached over time, the historiography
identifies them.

50. In writing on a topic, historians essentially enter
into a dialogue with those who have written on
the topic before. A historiography sets out the
main points of that discussion, and serves to
situate the author's work within this larger
context. This adds authority and legitimacy to
a history essay as it confirms the author's
familiarity with his or her topic, and forces the
author to acknowledge and explain
disagreements with others. It also serves to bring
the reader up-to-date on the most important
works and debates on the topic.

51. • Historiography is best situated early on in an essay, preferably in
the introduction in order to familiarize the reader with the topic
and to set out the scope of previous work in broad terms.
• Historiography establishes:
– the major thinkers on the topic, and
– their main arguments (or theses).
• Historiography may also explain:
– the perspective from which the authors are writing (e.g. Marxist,
feminist, etc.)
– the type of history they have written (e.g. political, social, cultural,
economic, etc.)
• A good historiography will present this information in a way that
shows the connections between these major works. For example,
does one work respond to an argument set out in another? Does it
expand on that argument or disagree with it? A good historiography
will also situate the author's work within the dialogue, explaining
whether his or her thesis builds on or rejects the work that has
come before.

52. Historicism
• The term historicism simply refers to a careful
interpretation of events with a mind to their
cultural, historical, and political contexts.

53. Historicity
• Historicity is the historical actuality of persons
and events, meaning the quality of being part
of history as opposed to being a
historical myth, legend, or fiction. Historicity
focuses on the truth value of knowledge
claims about the past (denoting historical
actuality, authenticity, and factuality). The
historicity of a claim about the past is its
factual status.

54. References:
1.E. H. Carr: What Is History
2. Romilla Thapar: Itihas Ki Punarvyakhya
3. R. G. Collingwood: The Idea Of History
4. A. L. Basham: The Wonder That was India
5. V.A. Smith : Asoka