The Importance of HISTORY as a Discipline of Study

Everything in the social world has a history. The academic discipline is divided into numerous subdivisions such as political history, social history, economic history, cultural history etc...which can make the topic quite daunting. Regardless, it is important to distinguish between two important aspects of the concept of history:

• History understood as things of the past: events, processes, conditions, persons. These are the objects of study of the historian.
• History understood as the methods, concepts and theories historians use when they study the past.

The word ‘history’ thus refers to both history as science and the object of this science. The object of the study of historians is past reality. What has happened in the past cannot be observed directly. The historian thus must re-construct a phenomenon, an event or a process of the past with the help of material evidence and/or written sources. ‘History’ thus is knowledge of the past, or rather the methods through which knowledge of the past can be obtained.

Studying the way historians study the past (investigating their methods, approaches, theories, choice of topics etc.) is called historiography. Studying the past historians endeavor to answer one or several of the following questions:

• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• How did it happen?
• Why did it happen?
• What consequences did it have?

Criticism of Sources:

As the reality historians want to understand and investigate no longer exists, he or she cannot, like for instance social scientists, sociologists and anthropologist, use methods such as interviews, surveys, participant observation and focus groups to obtain information on a topic under investigation. Historians must rely on material or written sources generated in and “handed down” from the past. The written sources from which historians obtain information are usually divided into primary and secondary sources. Common to both is that they do not provide direct access to the reality under study. They are “witnesses” or “evidence” of past reality, not that reality itself. This means that historians must devote much of their time scrutinizing sources, or to use the proper methodological term, doing criticism of sources. Basically ‘criticism of sources’ means asking questions like:

• What is a source?
• For what purpose was a source created?
• By whom was it created?
• When and where was it created?

Within the limits of an introductory lecture it is not possible to enter deeply into the methodological discussions concerning the study and use of sources. If you want to know more about “criticism of sources” you must consult relevant theoretical literature. However, here is a link to a website that provides useful information on the difference between primary and secondary sources and, in addition, gives instruction on how you can use and critically reflect on the use of different sources in studies of your own.

Perspectives on history

Historians have different perspectives on history, that is, different views on what factors are important in history. Some historians have an actor-oriented perspective, maintaining that individuals (for instance: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler) and their decisions and actions play a decisive role. Others have a structural-oriented perspective focusing on the role of social, economic, political and other impersonal factors in history. Historians may also take an ‘idealist’ approach viewing ideas, ideologies and other value systems as the main driving forces in history (for instance: the spread of the ideas of Enlightenment caused the French revolution; the nationalist resurgence in non-Russian union republics caused the breakup of the Soviet Union).

Some perspectives on history are deterministic, meaning that history is seen as developing towards a certain goal. For instance, in the Marxist view, history inevitably moves towards a future goal: the communist society. Nationalist interpretations of history also have a deterministic vein: history is shaped by the destiny of the nation.

There are many other views and interpretations of history. The main thing to remember is that the past we learn about trough the mediation of different historians is something ontologically different from the “real” past. Thus, it is a good idea to study different interpretations of the past and what kind of evidence (sources) the different interpretation are based upon.

Why study history?

There are many good reasons to study history. Studying history provides us with knowledge of the past. It also gives us understanding of how our own and other peoples societies have been created. What happened in the past has an influence on what happens today and the past has an influence on the future. Studying history provides us with understanding of how different peoples and societies have solved different types of problems and conflicts in different periods of times. History is often politicized and instrumentalized by different actors in actual political processes and power battles. Studying history helps us understand important aspects of contemporary conflict dynamics.