Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
importance of history research
importance of history research
importance of history research
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: importance of history research
The knowledge, varied approaches, concepts, and methods of collecting evidence and interpreting the past are essential to the study of history. These approaches are not static; they evolve as society and culture evolves, and evolution of approaches and methodology is vital to the continued study of history. The tradition of cataloging and referencing is the foundation of traditional history and this is their legacy to the modern practice.The new approaches of history have seen the value of borrowing from the knowledge, approaches, and concepts of other disciplines. The modern historian takes what is useful from each approach and uses it to build the best history; that is in harmony with their personal vision, values, and experience to gain greater understanding of the past.
Empiricism was a reaction to the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century which celebrated feelings and the popular culture of the present to evaluate the past. It associated outstanding attributes with specific cultures and the institutional and traditional practices within that society. This concept evolved into nationalistic sentiment; that enhanced the virtues of individual national heroes and historic actors in history. It also sanitized the past by omitting unfavorable aspects of the society and its culture, while failing to fairly scrutinize the past, to affect a history that promoted racism, national superiority, nationalistic ideologies and interests. Empiricism was a corrective action that promoted objectivity and scientific method to the pursuit of history. (Howell and Prevenier, 9-12)
Empiricism’s basic tenets are that with historical knowledge nothing can be assumed. Historic evidence should be meticulously studied, both in the small and lar...
... middle of paper ...
...obal perspective; It contends that although colonialism no longer exists, its influence is still present, evident in the culture, society, and power constructs in the Post Colonial era. (Green and Troup, 278)
In conclusion, these different approaches to history were all reactions to the deficiencies of prior methodology and approaches. They responded by expanding the way that history was perceived, it methods, and view. The approaches should be viewed as complementary rather than competitive. Each has given insight from the conceptual sphere it occupies. Not all approaches are appropriate for all subjects, and historians should not be held captive by constraints of their preferred approach. The different approaches methodology should be viewed as additional tools in the historian’s tool box, to be used as needed to produce the best possible history possible.
This investigation uses two sources frequently, the Encyclopædia Britannica and Alpha History. Both are accredited tools which concentrate on history of the world. These have provided much of the necessary information to complete this investigation.
...es are manipulated for his argument. Goldhagen’s controversial and stimulating study encourages research to continue and in 2013 Jewish leaders pressured Pope Francis to open the Vatican archives from 1939-1947. The opening of these archives will instigate more investigations in this field and until these archives are opened the historical record will not be clarified. The importance of these archives illustrates the interesting nature of historical literature. The study of history focuses predominantly around primary materials, however these materials do not provide a definitive depiction of the past. Historians analyze primary sources to deduce an interpretation of the past. The discrepancies between historian’s interpretations form historiographical debate. It would be interesting to examine the extent to which historians are perhaps just academic storytellers.
In his short article “World History as a Way of Thinking” Eric Lane Martin, “…argue[s] that the most important things the field of world history has to offer the researcher, teacher, student, and general public are the conceptual tools required for understanding complex global processes and problems.” Anyone who follows the evening news or shops at Wal-mart, has encountered the processes and problems Martin speaks of. Our modern society puts pressure on a variety of citizens to grapple with and attempt to understand issues on a scale that moves beyond the local and national. History has long been a tool utilized by scholars, politicians and citizens to help them put current day happenings into context. That context has allowed for a deeper understanding of the present day. In an era when the issues cross national and regional boundaries the need for a different scale of history has become apparent. World history has emerged as a relatively new discipline within academia that is attempting to provide the context for large-scale processes and problems. As the field has grown a variety of authors, some historians, some from other fields, have attempted to write a history of the world. With such a daunting task how can we define success? How can we analyze the history that provides a true global perspective on processes and problems we face? By taking Martin’s two key characteristics of world history, one, it is defined by the kinds of questions it asks and two, it is defined by the problem-solving techniques it uses, we can analyze texts purporting to be world history and access their utility in providing context for the global processes and problems we face today.
In a comprehensive summary and analyzation of the history of mankind’s record of affairs, Mark T. Gilderhus tackles the many aspects of the overall biography of human existence. Through scrutiny of the goals of past and present historians, a brief explanation of the origins of historiography, a thorough exploration of the philosophies behind history, and a review of the modern approach to past events, Gilderhus sums up the entirety of historical thought in one hundred and twenty-five pages. His superior knowledge is exemplified through his work which effectively conveys the full extent of historiography.
Perry, M., Davis, D., Harris, J., Laue, T. V., & Warren, D. J. (1985). A history of the world (Revised Edition ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
2. Reilly, K. Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader. Third Edition. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2007.
History is the investigation of occasions that have just gone through the stream of time (“1941,” 1). History specialists decipher occasions and after that procedure them into an account that tells circumstances and end results [2] . History can't be viewed in general, on the grounds that there is such a great amount of data to deal with. In this way, a student of history must pick and pick what to see at with a specific end goal to better comprehend history.
I am often asked Why do people study history? Is it because it makes people feel a strong connection to their ancestor? Or perhaps the thrill of uncovering lost knowledge drives history forward. History is a complex and delicate subject which unlike science there may not be just one answer so historians must continually question the “generally accepted truth.” By seeking knowledge through history, we as humans are forced to face our own personal biases by either putting them aside or using them as fuel to support one’s own hypothesis. The True historian will look beyond their opinions and cultural restrictions by collecting information from both sides and then determining the best course of action. During the twentieth century, there was a shift in idea on how historians should analyze and study history. Modern day historians study the past in hopes of better understanding the present. One technique historians use to narrow down specific events is by looking for tuning points or eras of major change that lead to a greater impact. One cataclysmic event that has recently become under great debate
History is repetitive and that requires our constant vigilance to thus pay attention (Stearns). It is proven that in history those who do not st...
Giambattista Vico was a poorly paid professor who focused on eloquence in a society that favored stoicism in the discovery of truth. “On the Study Methods of Our Time” is a revolutionary work that analyzed the philosophy of history ahead of its time, and understood the importance of cultural epistemology. While initially seen as a response to Descartes’, Giambattista ideas gained steam and eventually helped form the world we see
In his article, White discusses the nineteenth century’s post-structuralism view of contextualizing narrative itself into history. He addresses the different discourses provided by different historians, portraying New Historicist styles in his article himself, to emphasize the importance of historical communication. White’s stand is that history described through “chronological scales” do not provide justice to the experiences by societies (White 11). He followed anthropological discourses provided by Claude Levi-Strauss that led him to construe that “there is no such thing as a single scale for the ordering of events, but rather as many chronologies as there are culture-specific ways of representing the passage of time” (White 11). Culture shapes events and events shape culture and because of this, there is no escaping the connections between narrative and history. Narrative, in addition to providing new understandings also provide significance. “A chronicle is not a narrative, even if it contains the same set of facts as its informational content” because “narrative utilizes other codes [to produce] a meaning quite different from that of any chronicle” (White 19). White emphasizes the importance of multi-directional historical discourses because they can provide what science can struggle to do.
Knowledge is gained through a myriad of personal experiences through a variety of ways that shapes a person’s understanding. The knowledge we obtain is the culmination of our experiences as we learn what our brain interprets from our senses. Knowledge is the transmission of information that shapes a person’s understanding on a particular topic using a way of knowing. The language used by others to formulate our own ideas and thoughts produce knowledge. The knowledge obtained can either be objective and subjective. The two areas of knowledge, history and arts, are both typically at fault for being inaccurate or bias. The role of history is to study, interpret and analyse the events of the past and relay these findings through language. Language communicates thoughts and ideas through a verbal or written broadcast, thus allowing knowledge to be conveyed. The arts are a broad area of knowledge that communicate knowledge through the manipulation of our sense perceptions that allow us to experience sensations through any of our five senses. The inaccuracies and biases of these areas of knowledge and ways of knowing is due to the pre-set beliefs and values that affect how an artist or a historian chooses to express a particular message to others. Each historian belongs to a school of historiography that holds the belief that an event was due to a specific set of factors and the language used supports this claim. Similarly, artists utilize our sense perceptions to convey a message through a painting. Arts are a broad area of knowledge to i...
In the late twentieth century, the study of world history has emerged to allow both historians and students to understand the world from a global perspective. World history is viewed to be part of the academic field than the research field. According to Charles Hedrick, author of The Ethics of World History, Western civilization was the main course taught in schools and universities before world history became part of the curriculum. The need to understand the world in a broader perspective compared to a Western perspective made the study of world history popular in the United States. Historians approached the study of world history with a thematic approach to understand the integration and difference between people and major events of the world. The subject of world history is broad and as a result is open to many interpretations. In addition, world historians faced difficulties in connecting the past while trying to appeal to all the perspectives of other cultures. These challenges made it difficult for historians to agree with a global framework to understand world history, without being ignorant of other cultures. As a result, historians approached world history differently and developed multiple directions such as a patriotic, Marxist, postcolonial and the ecumenical approach in order to meet the criteria. Criticisms arose from the different approaches on world history. Historians questioned and criticized the study of world history because the different approaches resulted in controversial matter such as the use of a Eurocentric perspective about history, issues of ethics, and the use of definitions that changed over time.
Empiricism is the belief that all knowledge and ideas come from the senses and that the only way we can know anything about the world is through those senses. This has a tendency to be true in the fact that people learn from their mistakes. Growing u...
History and culture have come together for long time; they can not separate any more, the present have been had the modern culture, learning of relativity between culture and history