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From the Beginning to the Enlightenment:

Western Historical tradition begins with Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus

and Plutarch. History was then quite unabashedly a preparation for life, especially

political and military life. Essentially it was a narration of memorable events designed t

o preserve the memory and propagate the knowledge of glorious deeds or of events which

were important to a man, a family, or a people. Political incidents, wars, and revolutionspredominated.

n the post!classical period, the tradition was left almost e"clusively in the hands ofmonkish chroniclers whose annalistic accounts lack the elements of reflection or analyses

which would make them history.

The #enerable $ede %&'() was an e"ception* he paid special attention to chronology,enumerated his written sources and made some effort to test and evaluate oral tradition.

n medieval times, there was some difficulty in separating the sacred from the profane.

+iracles were accepted. ot much analysis due to belief in divine intervention.

-enaissance historians rational, secular approach and critical scholarship. /ue toe"ternal features such as geographical e"pansion, printing etc. -eformation and counter!

reformation lent impetus.

+achiavelli and 0uicciardini the inductive method. 1onclusions based on evidence

rather on some accepted a priori theory. 2ollowed by $acon and Hyde.

The greatest advances were made in seventeenth century 2rance where men like/uchesne, $alu3e, +abillon and +ontfaucon created the 4science of history5 and placed

new tools like palaeography, archaeology and diplomatics in the historian5s hands.

$odin %6('7!89) declared history to be both of intellectual interest and of pragmatic

value.

#oltaire and +ontes:uieu were the 2rench Enlightenment historians. Voltaire insisted

that historians must give due attention to the civilisations of India and hina, that

religions should be treated comparatively, with no suggestion that any automatic

primacy was inherent, and that economic, social and cultural matters were as much

the concern of the historian as the doings of popes and !ings"

;cottish historians< Hume5s idea of history a man ac:uainted with history can be said tohave lived since the beginning of time.

=dam ;mith economic history.

+illar sought to trace back the history of society to its most simple and universalelements to resolve almost all that has been ascribed to positive institution into the

spontaneous and irresistible development of certain obvious principles and to show

with how little contrivance or political wisdom the most complicated and apparently

artificial schemes of policy might have been erected.

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0ibbon Wars and public affairs are the principal sub>ects of history.

Three fundamental weaknesses of the Enlightenment periodectivity through The Cambridge Modern History. %/escription of

Waterloo).

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0he *evelopment of Historical 4tudies: 0he 0wentieth entury

5iterary History % $egun by Trevelyan. Trevelyan argued that History could perform

neither of the functions properly e"pected of a 4physical science5 which he defined as4direct utility in practical fields5 and 4in more intellectual fields the deduction of laws of

cause and effect.5 The only fashion in which history could be scientific was in 4the

collection of facts, the weighing of evidence as to what events happened.A He went on tosay that ?no one can ever give a completely or wholly true account of history, but several

imperfect readings of history are better than none at all* and he will give the best

interpretation who, having discovered and weighed all the important evidence obtainable,

has the largest grasp of intellect, the warmest human sympathy, the highest

imaginative powers"

To sum up Trevelyn5s stand< ?in the most important part of its business, history is not a

scientific deduction, but an imaginative guess at the most li!ely generalisation"

Trevelyn believed that history5s primary purpose was educative. t provides a basictraining in citi3enship.

Trvelyn believed there were three distinct functions of history the scientific 6collectingand weighing evidence as to facts), the imaginative %selection and classification,

interpretation and generalisation) and the literary %that which would attract and educate).

7ew 'pproaches % Economic % ;ombart and +einecke. /evelopment of 4intellectual

history5, fusing -anke and $urckhardt.

Pirenne ?every effort at synthesis, however premature it may seem, cannot fail to react

usefully on investigations, provided one offers it in all frankness for what it is.ALefebvre Without scholarship, there can be no history. =dmired social psychologists.

1lapham Economic historian, early twentieth century England.

Intellectual History and 0otal History % Turner frontier thesis. ?$ehind institutions,

behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs

into life and shape them to meet changing conditions.A ;ignificance of sections.Bames -obinson History used to e"plain the present.

Lucian 2ebvre geography and tomorrow. =lso 4psychological history.5

+arc $loch 1omparative method comparisons within a country, or between

countries. -egressive method using customs etc. of a later period to learn more aboutan earlier period. #iewed feudal society from the standpoint of peasants.

?E"emplary virtues of honest labour backed by solid and conscientious research, e"act

impartiality.A $loch ?history is the science of men in time.A $elief in a ?total integratedhistory.A

hilosophies:

$ury Historical relativism truthfulness of history can be only assessed relative to the

age in which it was written.

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$ecker History keeps getting outdated true only in one sense, that is relative to the

needs of the age which fashioned it.

1roce historical knowledge is a kind of intellectual intuition. The past has no e"istence therefore history is only in the mind of the historian all history is contemporary

history it has e"istence only in the minds of the contemporaries. -elativity of history

not a symbol of weakness, but one of intellectual and imaginative power.1ollingwood History is the creation of the historian, not synonymous with the past

the facts of the past only e"ist when the historian envisions them through sheer historical

thinking. =ll history brings its narrative down to the present day. Therefore, every agemust write history afresh.

?Everyone brings his own mind to the study of history, and approaches it from the point

of view which is characteristic of himself and his generation* naturally therefore, one age,

one man, sees in a particular historical event things which another does not, and viceversa. The attempt to eliminate this sub>ective element from history is always insincere

it means keeping your own point of view while asking other people to give up theirs.

The historian5s goal is knowledge of the present and as a historian, how it came to be

what it is. n this sense, the past is an aspect or function of the present* and that is how itmust always appear to the historian who reflects intelligently on his own work.

=ll history is the history of thought.Toynbee comparative study of civilisations which passed through similar stages of

growth, breakdown and eventual dissolution advanced 4laws5 to e"plain the same. The

ob>ective of the historian is to help his fellow men of different civilisations to becomemore familiar with one another and, in conse:uence, less afraid of one another and less

hostile to one another by helping them to understand and appreciate one another5s

histories and to see in these local and partial stories a common achievement and common

possession of the whole human family.

0he 4traight 5ine rofessionals: