Historical schools and methods quiz

Chapter: Historiography If you pick up a history textbook from the 1950s and compare it to one written today, you will notice they often tell very different stories about the exact same events. The dates of a war or the names of kings don't change, but the meaning we give to them does. This shift is the heart of a field called historiography. Historiography is not the study of the past itself, but the study of how historical writing has changed over time. Think of it as the 'history of history.' It examines the different methods, biases, and perspectives that historians have used throughout the centuries. In Gibbon's time, it was common to blame the rise of Christianity for the weakness of Rome. Today, a modern historian might look at climate change or economic trade routes instead. This brings us to a core truth: history is a living discipline. It is never 'finished' or set in stone. Every new generation rewrites the past based on its own unique concerns, values, and the new information it discovers. They will likely focus on issues we haven't fully understood yet, such as the long-term impact of specific technologies or environmental changes that seem minor to us now. When historians actively challenge an established, 'standard' version of history, they are practicing what we call the Revisionist approach. Revisionism isn't about lying; it's about correcting a narrative that might be incomplete, biased, or based on outdated information. For example, for a long time, the 'standard' story of the American West focused almost entirely on heroic pioneers 'taming' a wild land. By using historiography, we can see how these two different versions of the West were created and why the Revisionist version eventually became more accepted. In short, history is not a static list of dates. It is a constant dialogue between what actually happened and how we choose to remember it. We trust history by looking at the evidence and the methods used. While interpretations change, they must be based on verifiable facts. Historiography helps us see *why* an author wrote what they did, which actually makes us more critical and informed readers. In popular media, it is sometimes used to mean 'distorting the past.' However, in professional history, it is a neutral and necessary term. It simply means revising an old story when new information or better perspectives become available. Yes! Historians generally agree on the 'raw facts'—like when a battle happened or who signed a treaty. The disagreement (and the historiography) comes from the meaning and importance of those facts. Absolutely. If you find a topic where the common story seems to ignore a certain group of people or a specific set of facts, and you use evidence to show a different side, you are practicing revisionism. There is no set time, but many standard narratives last for decades until a major social shift (like the Civil Rights movement or the Digital Revolution) or a massive new discovery forces historians to rethink the entire era. Chapter: Rankean Empiricism When we hear a story about the past, we often take for granted that the person telling it actually knows the facts. Before the 1800s, many historians wrote books that read more like epic novels or moral lessons than scientific reports. If a king was described as 'brave,' the historian might have just been following a tradition rather than checking evidence. This lack of certainty led to the rise of Empiricism, a philosophy that changed how we define 'knowledge'. Empiricism is the belief that knowledge comes primarily from what we can see, touch, and measure. In history, this meant that a claim about the past was only as good as the physical evidence left behind. A German historian named Leopold von Ranke took this idea and applied it strictly to the study of the past. To describe the events exactly as they happened, without adding personal bias or moral judgments. Ranke famously established the ideal of telling history 'as it actually was' (wie es eigentlich gewesen). To achieve this, he argued that historians must stop relying on legends and start looking at primary sources. Simply finding a document isn't enough; Ranke insisted on a process called source criticism. This methodology turned history into a professional discipline that required years of training in archives. Ranke especially emphasized the use of official state documents as the most reliable evidence. He believed that the records kept by governments—like treaties and meeting minutes—were the 'backbone' of true history. By focusing on the state, Ranke focused history on politics, war, and the 'great men' who ran governments. While this method gave us much more accurate timelines, it also meant that the lives of common people were often ignored. Since common people rarely left behind official state documents, their stories didn't fit into the Rankean model. Despite this, the tools of source criticism remain the standard for every professional historian today. Ranke believed the state was the primary 'actor' in history. In the 19th century, government archives were the most organized and detailed sources available. He felt that by following the state's paper trail, he was following the most reliable path to the truth, even if it meant focusing mostly on politics and war. Most modern historians believe total objectivity is impossible because every researcher has their own perspective. However, Ranke's goal serves as a 'North Star.' Even if we can't be 100% objective, trying to reach that goal makes our work much more accurate and fair than if we didn't try at all. A primary source is simply 'from the time.' It isn't always reliable. For example, a soldier's diary from a battle is a primary source, but he might lie about his own bravery. Source criticism is the process of checking a primary source to see if it is actually reliable. His method relied on official documents. Since only the powerful (kings, ministers, generals) created these documents, the history written from them naturally focused on those people. Regular people, who were often illiterate or didn't interact with the state's record-keepers, were effectively 'invisible' to this method. Absolutely. While historians now look at many more types of evidence (like oral histories, archaeology, and climate data), the core idea that you must have *evidence* to make a claim remains the foundation of all professional historical writing.

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Chapter: Marxist Historiography A massive textile mill in 1820 Manchester was more than just a place of work; it was the engine of a social revolution. Traditional history often focuses on the decisions of kings, the strategies of generals, or the signing of famous treaties. Marxist historians argue that these famous individuals are not the real drivers of change. This perspective is called Historical Materialism, a theory that views economic production as the foundation of every society. To understand this, we must look at how a society is built from the ground up. According to this view, the Base determines what the Superstructure looks like. Laws change to protect factory owners and industrial patents rather than just land ownership rights. This constant shift in the Base creates different groups of people with opposing interests. These groups are called classes, and their relationship is defined by who owns the tools of production. Marxist historians believe that Class Struggle is the primary engine of historical change. When these two groups clash, it forces society to move forward into a new stage of history. Because of these conditions, workers eventually organized to fight for their rights. This leads us to the third core concept: History from Below. Instead of looking at the 'Great Men' of history, this approach focuses on the lives of ordinary people. A historian practicing History from Below might study a worker's diary or local court records instead of royal decrees. By centering the worker, Marxist historiography changed how we understand the meaning of progress. It suggests that history is not a series of accidents, but a logical sequence driven by economic necessity. Not necessarily. While the theory originated with Karl Marx, many historians use his analytical tools—like focusing on class and economics—without being political activists. It is a method of looking at the past, not just a political platform. Marxists argue that you cannot have art, philosophy, or laws until you have food and shelter. Therefore, the way we secure those basic needs (the economy) must be the starting point for everything else in society. Absolutely. Historians today use it to study the lives of immigrant workers, gig-economy drivers, or stay-at-home parents—groups whose daily experiences might be missing from official government records. While both look at ordinary people, Marxist history specifically emphasizes the conflict between classes and the role of the economic system as the primary cause of change. It doesn't ignore them, but it suggests that our 'choices' are limited by our economic reality. You can choose to quit a job, but if you own no tools or land, the system 'forces' you to find another boss to survive. Chapter: The Annales School For a long time, history books focused almost entirely on the lives of kings, the outcomes of specific battles, and the signatures on peace treaties. This traditional approach assumed that the most important things in the past were unique political events triggered by powerful individuals. In the early 20th century, a group of French scholars known as the Annales School began to argue that this was like looking only at the waves on top of the ocean. They believed that the deep, slow-moving currents beneath the surface were what truly shaped human life over hundreds of years. Instead of asking 'Who won the battle?', these historians asked 'Why did people in this region farm wheat instead of rice for five hundred years?' They shifted the focus toward long-term social structures, which are the stable patterns of life that remain the same across many generations. It would likely miss the lives of the poor, the price of grain, the impact of the climate on harvests, and the shared beliefs of common people. To study these slow changes, the Annales historians realized they couldn't just rely on old government documents. They pioneered interdisciplinary history, which means using tools and methods from other sciences to understand the past. By borrowing from fields like geography and economics, they could see patterns that traditional historians ignored. Consider a historian studying a 16th-century mountain village. Instead of looking for a famous resident, they look at the geography. They see that the steep terrain made trade difficult, which forced the villagers to be self-sufficient for three hundred years. This interdisciplinary approach shows that the mountains were more important than any local lord in shaping the villagers' lives. The Annales School didn't just stop at physical things like mountains and money. They also wanted to study the human mind. They developed the study of Mentalités, which is the investigation of the shared mindset of people in a specific period. A mentalité isn't the thought of one person. It is the 'mental equipment' that everyone in a society uses to understand the world. This includes everyday psychology: how people felt about death, how they perceived time, or how they viewed childhood. For example, in the Middle Ages, most people did not think of 'time' in minutes or hours. Their mentalité was tied to the sun and the church bells. By understanding this shared mindset, historians can explain why people acted in ways that seem strange to us today. The belief that the future will always be technologically better than the past. In the Middle Ages, many believed the world was slowly decaying or staying the same. By combining interdisciplinary tools and studying mentalités, the Annales School changed history from a list of names into a study of human life. They proved that the most powerful forces in history are often the ones we cannot see immediately, like the slow shift of a coastline or the quiet beliefs of a peasant. It is named after the academic journal founded by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in 1929, called *Annales d'histoire économique et sociale*. The name simply refers to 'annals' or historical records. No, but they viewed them as 'surface disturbances.' They believed that to understand why a king could even exist or why a battle happened, you first had to understand the deeper economic and social structures beneath them. They are very similar, but 'mentalités' focuses specifically on the *unconscious* or automatic ways of thinking that everyone in a society shares, rather than just high-level art or literature. Since there are no diaries, they used interdisciplinary tools. They looked at physical objects, tax records, church burial lists, and even the layout of houses to reconstruct how these people lived and thought. Yes, very much so. Most modern historians now accept that they must look at social, economic, and geographic factors, not just politics. It paved the way for 'Social History,' which we will study in the next chapter.

From the Knowverse course text.