Historiography Quotes (1 Viewer)

nwatts

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I compiled these (thanks to the help of Ben and Amy, <33 you guys) earlier today for this afternoon's exam. I'm sure they'll be of use to future years, and I thought I'd throw them here as the exam-resources element of this forum is slightly lacking. :) Feel free to add more, as my list is by no means comprehensive, but it covered what I had studied nicely.

K. Jenkinspostmodernist

* The historian’s purpose is to possible impose pattern on history.
* Relativism… is a fact of life.
* History is one of a series of discourses about the world.

H. Whitepostmodernist

An historical text is in essence nothing more than a literary text…

M. Foucault postmodernist

Truth is linked… with systems of power which produce and sustain it…

E.H. Carr relativist

* The facts only speak when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context.
* The history we read is a series of accepted judgements.

G.R. Elton neo-modernist

* Interpretation… has nothing to do with independent existence….
* History deals with the activities of men, not abstractions.

R. Evans Annales school

* The principal task of history is to explain and interpret. (In defence of history against pomo).
* Ranke introduced into [philological techniques] to history…

E. HobsbawnMarxist

I continue (with qualifications to be found in these papers) to find Marx’s ‘materialist conception of history’ the best guide by far to history,

K. MarxMarxist

* The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
* History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.
* History is shaped by the “prevailing mode of economic production”.

L. von Rankeempiricist

* To such high offices this work does not aspire: it wants only to show what actually happened (how it really is) (wie es eigentlich gewesen).
* History has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages.
* The scrupulous use of primary sources to present and unvarnished picture of the facts.

E. Gibbon romantic

Wars, and the administration of public affairs are the principle subjects of history.

Thucydidesclassical scientific

It will be enough if it is considered useful by those who wish to judge clearly both what has happened and what will come about again in the future, in the same or similar fashion, given the nature of man.

Herodotus classical literary

Herodotus of Halicarnassus, here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time and great and marvelous deeds…
 
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Caratacus

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I have put together a collection of quotes on History at this blog: http://togodubnus.blogspot.com/. There is some other material there on the Crusades and other topics, and I will be adding to it.

I will post Historiography materials relating to the "What is History?" and Case-study (Crusades, Impact of Rome on the Provinces and Tacitus) components form time to time on my main blog, Domus Carataci, where there are already some resources in the Historiography section of the Topoi list (at the top of the right-hand column of the main page)..
 
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goti

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Hey nwatts this list is great! But i was wondering if you could source these quotes? Yeah a stupid requirement for the exams.

much appreciated
 
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xeuyrawp

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goti said:
Hey nwatts this list is great! But i was wondering if you could source these quotes? Yeah a stupid requirement for the exams.

much appreciated
You mean the book name?

In the HSC exam, you don't source the book name.
 

nwatts

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goti said:
Hey nwatts this list is great! But i was wondering if you could source these quotes? Yeah a stupid requirement for the exams.

much appreciated
A lot of them came from the set of readings for the course. Some came from other books, I honestly can't remember names/publishers/etc. And as Rob said, there's not much point in citing where these came from unless you're keen on wasting time in exams.
 

Meaghan

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There is one i like from the source book (1066 And All That)

'History is not what you thought. It is what you remember'

Just used it for one of my half yearly quotes, and it also fits in nicely if your doing history and memory as you english topic. Hope it helps.
 

Caratacus

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There is one i like from the source book (1066 And All That)

'History is not what you thought. It is what you remember'

And just by way of demonstrating that for every historiographical vision there is an equal and opposite revision:


Nothing capable of being memorized is history.

- R. G. Collingwood​

;)
 

trev_2541

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Heyas,
Thought this quote would b a good 1 for a trial or something that isnt as important as the real thing, because it is from from Joyces Ulysses but it isn't the usual noble and wonderfully self serving quote that markers are looking for
"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."
Maybe we will awake from it after the HSC eh?
Also read A.Parody's "The Shite History of Nearly Everything" is is a parody but contains many useful quotes.

Adam
 
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Kegs

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Something from an email to Simon Schama, where I asked a lot of questions about Ranke and Lord Acton, and recieved this as the reply. Perhaps it will help in some obscure way.

I've always thought Ranke was kidding himself. History is, invariably, colored, not colorless. - Simon Schama
 

lady Arre

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completely agree with you matmatt... so simple but so poignant.

and it gets hollywood off the hook :)
 

matmatt

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haha, thats ok.
It was by a little known historian A. Van Soest.
 
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hey, i did Ex History last year for my HSC (HSC mark 47 surprisingly!)... anyway i have just finished reading Jared Diamond's 'Guns Germs and Steel' which is an awesome world history in its own right but it also came up with a few historiography quotes that took me back to last year's search for relevant material. these might help for those history-as-science theses:

The time is now ripe for a fresh look at these questions, because of new information from scientific disciplines seemingly remote from human history. Those disciplines include, above all, genetics, molecular biology, and biogeography as applied to crops and their wild ancestors; the same disciplines plus behavioral ecology, as applied to domestic animals and their wild ancestors; molecular biology of human germs and related germs of animals; epidemiology of human diseases; human genetics; linguistics;
archaeological studies on all continents and major islands; and studies of the histories of technology, writing, and political organization. (Prologue, p.26)
Perhaps the biggest of these unsolved problems is to establish human history as a historical science, on a par with recognized historical sciences such as evolutionary biology, geology, and climatology. The study of human history does pose real difficulties, but those recognized historical sciences encounter some of the same challenges. Hence the methods developed in some of these other fields may also prove useful in the field of human history.
Already, though, I hope to have convinced you, the reader, that history is not "just one damn fact after another," as a cynic put it. There really are broad patterns to history, and the search for their explanation is as productive as it is fascinating. (Prologue, p. 32)

hope that can be of some use,
Good luck to you all. The end is in sight and what a glorious end that is!​
 

dodgyv

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matmatt said:
i love this one;
"History, is based on a true story"
matmatt said:
haha, thats ok.
It was by a little known historian A. Van Soest.

anyways i just sat down and thought about the quote... i am confused now LOL. cause i initially thought that the quote ment that history is the study of true stories. and Wtf. how does he conclude that its a true story? but its through historians that we come 2 the truth..right?
so to say that "History, is based on a true story" its just wrong.
but did i interpret that right. i am not even sure what it means now.

cause history is pretty much the study of historians interpretations...which the historians interpretation define whether or not its true, false inclusive who do fck cares...its differs....

Anyone on this quote?

cause really i laughed so hard when i read it and now im like wtf why was i laughing 4.
now that i think of it again... like history can be based on a true story. if for some miraculous reason all historian came 2 conclusive answer and said yesh its true 4 eg the start of a Fckin ummm significant event then is it not true?


rararrrararararararararar plz explain Lol make me laugh...i am pretty sure it means something stupid

i think this deserves a thread of its own if no one answers
 
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sonyaleeisapixi

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dodgyv said:
anyways i just sat down and thought about the quote... i am confused now LOL. cause i initially thought that the quote ment that history is the study of true stories. and Wtf. how does he conclude that its a true story? but its through historians that we come 2 the truth..right?
so to say that "History, is based on a true story" its just wrong.
but did i interpret that right. i am not even sure what it means now.

cause history is pretty much the study of historians interpretations...which the historians interpretation define whether or not its true, false inclusive who do fck cares...its differs....

Anyone on this quote?

cause really i laughed so hard when i read it and now im like wtf why was i laughing 4.
now that i think of it again... like history can be based on a true story. if for some miraculous reason all historian came 2 conclusive answer and said yesh its true 4 eg the start of a Fckin ummm significant event then is it not true?


rararrrararararararararar plz explain Lol make me laugh...i am pretty sure it means something stupid

i think this deserves a thread of its own if no one answers
I think the fundamental problem with believing we can come to the 'truth' about history is that through our own interpretation, regardless of whether we want to or not, we add our own layer of meaning and thus rid any chance of deciphering 'truth' from a source. And, then you have to consider who wrote that source, and the limited vision they had to decipher an event or person or whatever.

"History, is based on a true story" I think is implicit of the idea that the correlation of truth is impossible, but it is through historical interpretations and reconstructions that we can gain an idea about what happened, from many different perspectives, just like a story book. A good book changes perspective, and so does history. A good book will always have specific events that from any view points are true.
Take, say, the day of your birth. We KNOW that happened. How ever, reconstructions will vary. Your mothers perspective of the day will be different to your fathers and his will be different to the midwifes.. etc. Through the combination of all these perspectives we get a metanarrative of the day of your birth.

Thats what I got anyways.
*shrug*
 

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