HIST-1106EL Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Joyce Appleby, Geoffrey Elton, Jigsaw Puzzle
8 Nov 2020
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1.1 Questioning history
DONNELLY AND NORTON CHAPTER 1
1. Differences between ‘history’ and the ‘past’. And on what points do historians
sometimes disagree about this distinction?
History: is referring to an activity.
Past: object of that enquiry. We cannot be sure of the past.
➔ History is about the past, but it is not the past itself.
Skilful historians, we are told, ‘summon up the past’. Great history books ‘bring the past to
life’.
• Clear separation between a determinate, knowable past (one which we can measure,
which contains its own stories), and the practices of the historian doing their research.
• The historians job is somehow to close the gap between the history they write and the
past that they claim to be writing about.
Historians have always disagreed with each other about how close various accounts of the
past have come to ‘getting it right’ – usually centring on issues of interpretation,
categorisation, and how sources have been used. Historians no longer necessarily agree that
their scholarly practices can best be described as ‘the study of the past’.
• History could be seen as a genre ‘the before now’, a genre with specific conventions
and rules.
• A common assumption behind the idea of history as an enquiry (research) into that
past is that historians can measure that past and produce truthful accounts of it.
- Geoffrey Elton: history as an objective search to discover truth about the past.
- Carl Hempel: sought to relate individual explanations for historical events to the
type of universal laws found in the physical sciences.
- Joyce Appleby: there is a singular past about which historians can write
truthfully.
- Richard Evans: the past is singular and whole, like a jigsaw puzzle, there is only
one way of putting it together that makes any sense.
Document Summary
Donnelly and norton chapter 1: differences between history" and the past". History is about the past, but it is not the past itself. Skilful historians, we are told, summon up the past". Historians have always disagreed with each other about how close various accounts of the past have come to getting it right" usually centring on issues of interpretation, categorisation, and how sources have been used. Geoffrey elton: history as an objective search to discover truth about the past. Carl hempel: sought to relate individual explanations for historical events to the type of universal laws found in the physical sciences. Joyce appleby: there is a singular past about which historians can write truthfully. Richard evans: the past is singular and whole, like a jigsaw puzzle, there is only one way of putting it together that makes any sense. Historians who reject the idea that history is best described as the study of the past begin with a straightforward proposition.
