Historiography

**Historiography** is about the writing of history and the use of historical methods. Thus it looks at authors, sources, interpretation, style, bias, and audience. It is sometimes called "the history of history". The word historiography can also refer to a body of historical work.

## Written history

For thousands of years people have been telling stories about the past, and making written records of the actions of kings and prophets and other famous persons. After 500 BC, they began writing more organized histories.

### Hellenic world

Written history appeared first with the ancient Greeks, whose historians greatly contributed to the development of historical methodology. The very first historical works were _The Histories_ composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484 BC–ca.425 BC), who became later known as the 'father of history' (Cicero).
Thucydides was the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, and his successor Xenophon (ca. 431–355 BC) introduced autobiographical elements and character studies in his Anabasis.

### Roman world

The Romans adopted the Greek tradition, becoming the first people to write history in a non-Greek language. The most famous writers are Julius Caesar's (100 BC–44 BC) _Bellum Gallicum_.
Livy (59 BC–AD 17) who records the rise of Rome from city-state to world dominion.
Plutarch (c. 46 - 127) and Suetonius (c. 69-after 130) introduced biography as a branch of history. Tacitus (c. 56–c. 117) criticizes Roman immorality by praising German virtues.

### Medieval Europe

Writing history was popular among Christian monks and clergy in the Middle Ages.  They wrote about the history of Jesus Christ, the Church and of their patrons, the dynastic history of the local rulers.  In the Early Middles Ages historical writing often took the form of annals or chronicles recording events year by year but this style tended to hampered the analysis of events and causes.

An example of this type of writing are Anglo-Saxon Chronicles which were the work of several different writers and start during the reign of Alfred the Great in the late 9th century and one copy of which was still being updated in 1154.

History was written about states or nations during the Renaissance. The study of history changed during the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Voltaire described the history of certain ages that were important according to him, instead of describing events in a chronological order. History became an independent discipline. It was not called _philosophia historiae_ anymore, but merely history (_historia_).

### Modern era

Modern historiography began with Leopold Ranke in the 19th century, who was very critical on the sources used in history. The French Annales School radically changed history during the 20th century. Fernand Braudel wanted history to become more scientific by demanding more mathematical evidence in history, in order to make the history discipline less subjective.

Furthermore, he added a social-economic and geographic framework to answer historical questions. Other French historians, like Philippe Ariès and Michel Foucault described history of daily life topics such as death and sexuality. They wanted history to be written about all topics and that all questions should be asked.

#### Historical journals

Historical journals for academic historians to exchange ideas started in the nineteenth century.  The early journals were similar to the academic journals used in the physical sciences, and were seen as a means by which history could be professionalised.

Journals also helped historians to establish various historiographical approaches, the most notable example of which was _Annales. Économies. Sociétés. Civilisations._ a publication instrumental in establishing the Annales School.

- 1840 _Historisk tidsskrift_ (Denmark)
- 1859 _Historische Zeitschrift_ (Germany)
- 1866 _Archivum historicum_, later _Historiallinen arkisto_ (Finland, published in Finnish)
- 1871 _Historisk tidsskrift_ (Norway)
- 1876 _Revue Historique_ (France)
- 1881 _Historisk tidskrift_ (Sweden)
- 1886 _English Historical Review_ (UK)
- 1895 _American Historical Review_ (USA)
- 1914 _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_ (renamed 1964 the _Journal of American History_) (USA)
- 1916 _The Journal of Negro History_
- 1916 _Historisk tidskrift för Finland_ (Finland, published in Swedish)
- 1918 _Hispanic American historical review_
- 1928 _Scandia_ (Sweden)
- 1929 _Annales. Économies. Sociétés. Civilisations	_
- 1952 _Past & present: a journal of historical studies_ (Great Britain)
- 1953 _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ (Germany)
- 1956 _Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria_ (Nigeria)
- 1960 _Journal of African History_ (Cambrid
- 1960 _Technology and culture: the international quarterly of the Society for the History of Technology_ (USA)
- 1975 _Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift für historische Sozialwissenschaft_ (Germany)
- 1976 _Journal of Family History_
- 1982 _Storia della Storiografia — History of Historiography — Histoire de l'Historiographie — Geschichte der Geschichtsschreibung_ http://www.cisi.unito.it/stor/home.htm
- 1982 _Subaltern Studies_ (Oxford University Press)
- 1986 _Zeitschrift für Sozialgeschichte des 20.und 21. Jahrhunderts_, new title since 2003: _Sozial.Geschichte. Zeitschrift für historische Analyse des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts_ (Germany)
- 1990 _Gender and history_
- 1990 _L'Homme. Zeitschrift für feministische Geschichtswissenschaft_ (Austria)
- 1990 _Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften (ÖZG)_
- 1992 _Women's History Review_
- 1993 _Historische Anthropologie _

## Approaches

The question of how a historian approaches historical events is one of the most important questions within historiography. It is commonly recognised by historians that, in themselves, individual historical facts are not particularly meaningful.

Such facts will only become useful when assembled with other historical evidence, and the process of assembling this evidence is understood as a particular historiographical approach. Some of the more common historigraphical approaches are:

- Oral history
- Annales School
- Deconstruction

### Determinism

Determinism means that historians view history as being caused more by certain factors than by other factors. The two most common types of determinism are geographic determinism and economic determinism.

Geographic determinism means that historians think history is mostly caused by geography. Frederick Jackson Turner was a proponent of geographic determinism.

Economic determinism means that historians think history is mostly caused by economics.  Charles Beard was a proponent of economic determinism.

Other historians believe that history is caused mostly by politics or mostly by a struggle for natural rights, but these are usually not labeled as determinism.

### Theory and philosophy

- R.G. Collingwood, _The Idea of History_, 1936,
- W.H. Walsh, _An Introduction to Philosophy of History_, 1951.
- E. H. Carr, _What is History?_ 1961,
- Marc Bloch, _The Historian's Craft_ c. 1940]
- Geoffrey Elton, _The Practice of History_, 1969,
- Arthur Marwick, _The Nature of History_, 1970,
- David Hackett Fischer, _Historians' Fallacies: Towards a Logic of Historical Thought_, Harper & Row, 1970.
- Hayden White, _The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation_, 1987,
- Keith Jenkins, _Rethinking History_, 1991,
- Peter Burke, _History and Social Theory_, Polity
- Frank Ankersmit (ed), _A New Philosophy of History_, 1995,
- Richard J. Evans _In Defence of History_, 1997,
- Michael Bentley, _Modern Historiography: An Introduction_, 1999
Press, Oxford
- Alun Munslow. _The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies_ (2000)
- John Tosh, _The Pursuit of History_, 2002,
- Keith Jenkins, ed. _The Postmodern History Reader_ (2006)

### Histories of historical writing

- Geoffrey Barraclough, _History: Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human Sciences,_ (1978)
- Susan Kinnell, _Historiography: An Annotated Bibliography of Journal Article, Books and Dissertations_, 1987,
- Arnaldo Momigliano, _The Classical Foundation of Modern Historiography_, 1990,
- Ernst Breisach, _Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern_, 2nd edition, 1994,
- H. Floris Cohen, _The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry_, Chicago, 1994,
- Michael Bentley (ed.), _Companion to Historiography_, Routledge, 1997,  990pp; 39 chapters by experts
- Philippe Poirrier, _Aborder l'histoire_, Paris, Seuil, 2000.
- Mark T. Gilderhus, _History an Historiographical Introduction_, 2002,
- Philippe Poirrier,_Les enjeux de l'histoire culturelle_, Paris, Seuil, 2004.
- Georg G. Iggers, _Historiography in the 20th Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge_ (2005)
- Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza, eds. _A Companion to Western Historical Thought_ Blackwell 2006. 520pp; .

### Feminist historiography

- Mary Ritter Beard, _Woman as force in history: A study in traditions and realities_
- Gerda Lerner,  _The Majority Finds its Past: Placing Women in History_, New York: Oxford University Press 1979
- Bonnie G. Smith, _The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice_, Harvard UP 2000
- Mary Spongberg, _Writing women's history since the Renaissance_, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002
- Judith M. Bennett, _History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism_, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006

### Thematic and regional

- John Ernest. _Liberation Historiography: African American Writers and the Challenge of History, 1794-1861_. University of North Carolina Press, 2004
- Frank Farrell. _Themes in Australian History: Questions, Issues and Interpretation in an Evolving Historiography_ (1990)
- Marc Ferro, _Cinema and History_, Wayne State University Press, 1988
- R. Darcy and Richard C. Rohrs, _A Guide to Quantitative History_ (1995)
- Hudson, Pat. _History by Numbers: An Introduction to Quantitative Approaches_ (2002)
- James W. Loewen, _Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong_, Touchstone Books 1996
- Tessa Morris-Suzuki, _The Past Within Us: Media, Memory, History_, 2005,
- Gary Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross Dunn. _History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past,_ (2000)
- Peter Novick, _That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession_ (1988),
- Thomas Söderqvist. _The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology_ (1997)
- Sommer, Barbara W. _The Oral History Manual_ (2003)
- Jan Vansina, "Oral Tradition as History," University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1985
- Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. _Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory_ (1982)

### Journals

- Cromohs — cyber review of modern historiography
- _History and Theory_
- History of Historiography

## Related pages

- List of historians
- Historical revisionism