Some key guidance on working with historians in preparation for your Personal Study.
As you read for your Personal Study you will be developing your understadning of key historical debates. However you need to be careful not to take historians at face value. Historians are in the buisness of convincing you of their argument. To get top marks in Persoanl Study, you need to engage critically with what historians are saying and think about their specific approach to the topic. This approach in itself might have merits and demerits fo the purpose you are using it for.
You will need to think about the evidence used and approach of historians in order to comment on their usefulness/reliability in your evidence review. This is also a really good habit to get into for further study!!
You may find this radio programme from Melvin Bragg quite useful as he investigates the history of history writing LINK.
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the writing of history has changed over time, from ancient epics to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions. In the 6th century AD, the bishop of Tours began his history of the world with a simple observation that “A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad”. For a phrase that captures the whole of history it’s among the best, but in writing about the past we are rarely so economical. From ancient epics – Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War - to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions, historians have endlessly chronicled, surveyed and analysed the great many things that keep happening, declaring some of them good and some of them bad. But the writing of history always illuminates two periods – the one history is written about and the one it is written in. And to look at how the writing of history has changed is to examine
the way successive ages have understood their world. In short, there is a history to history."
Mr F
As you read for your Personal Study you will be developing your understadning of key historical debates. However you need to be careful not to take historians at face value. Historians are in the buisness of convincing you of their argument. To get top marks in Persoanl Study, you need to engage critically with what historians are saying and think about their specific approach to the topic. This approach in itself might have merits and demerits fo the purpose you are using it for.
You will need to think about the evidence used and approach of historians in order to comment on their usefulness/reliability in your evidence review. This is also a really good habit to get into for further study!!
You may find this radio programme from Melvin Bragg quite useful as he investigates the history of history writing LINK.
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the writing of history has changed over time, from ancient epics to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions. In the 6th century AD, the bishop of Tours began his history of the world with a simple observation that “A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad”. For a phrase that captures the whole of history it’s among the best, but in writing about the past we are rarely so economical. From ancient epics – Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War - to medieval hagiographies and modern deconstructions, historians have endlessly chronicled, surveyed and analysed the great many things that keep happening, declaring some of them good and some of them bad. But the writing of history always illuminates two periods – the one history is written about and the one it is written in. And to look at how the writing of history has changed is to examine
the way successive ages have understood their world. In short, there is a history to history."
Mr F
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