HIST2001B Historiography (Introduction)

Practical Assignment 1: Historical Analysis

HUI Chung Chak (1155192063)

Introduction

This article consists of two sections. The first section introduces what Arthur Marwick1
considers the subject of history is through his article, the Fundamental of History. The
second section explains what historiography is and why it is important to comprehend how to
study history.

What Arthur Marwick considers the subject of history to be

History, according to Arthur Marwick in his article “the Fundamental of History”, is “the bodies
of knowledge about the past produced by historians, together with everything that is involved
in the production, communication of, and teaching about that knowledge.”2 He further
elaborated that “the history we are mainly concerned with is ‘the historian‘s attempt to
reconstruct and interpret the past’, not ‘the past’ itself 3.

In the article, Arthur Marwick pointed out that necessity, subjective question, source of
material, witting and unwitting testimony and strategy are the key factors for historical study.
These factors can be grouped into knowledge, evidence and language which Arthur Marwick
considers to be the three fundamentals of doing history.4

1
Arthur Marwick (1936-2006) was a major social historian and a Professor of history at the Open
University from its inception until his retirement in 2001. The brief biography of Arthur Marwick was
posted at Higher Education webpage of the Guardian’s website at:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/oct/07/guardianobituaries.highereducation. (Access on 21
October 2022) .
2
Arthur Marwick: 〈The Fundamentals of History by Arthur Marwick〉，
https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html (Access on 21 October
2022). Part 1.
3
Arthur Marwick: 〈The Fundamentals of History by Arthur Marwick〉，
https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html (Access on 21 October
2022). Part 5.
4
Arthur Marwick has further elaborated his view point on methodology of the study of history in his
other works, such as The Nature of History (later recasted and re-written as The New Nature of
History: Knowledge, Evidence, Language, Basingstoke: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001) and What
History Is And Why It Is Important? (Bletchley: Open University Press, C.1970).
The use of history is closely related to the necessity for history. Arthur Marwick pointed out
that ‘History as knowledge is a social necessity’5. It constructs our sense of identity. The
past, present and future are collinear and interlocking. Understanding of past events and
circumstances can provide an opportunity for approaching complicated issues, grasping the
present or even predicting the future. Knowing what happened in the past, we are able to
construct our identity and orientation. It is not an overstatement to say that without knowing
the history of one’s country, one could not distinguish the differences between one and
another.

Also history as knowledge sharpens our analyzing, evaluating and interpreting skills. History
is the historian‘s interpretation of the past. Therefore, hardly can historical writings
(secondary sources) be completely objective and often there are biases. Therefore, we
should approach it skeptically. When we are studying history, we must be equipped with the
skills of analyzing the sources before taking in its knowledge. A historian should also be
equipped with the skills of distinguishing historical writings which consist only of hypotheses
or opinions and those which consist of evidence and elaboration. Sources which consist only
of opinions are usually not trustable. Why is evidence and sources so important in historical
writings? The answer is simple, they are the only way historians reconstruct the past.

Historical writing is a source-based enterprise. Or in Marwick’s words “the only way we can
have knowledge of the past is through studying the relics and traces left by past society”6.
Primary sources contain historical facts; sources construct history. In sources, we can find
evidence or clues of how people in the past lived. Historians then convert these raw
materials into history. Yet, we must face the truth that primary sources also contained
prejudices and errors as they weren’t made to serve the interest of historians; they were
made to serve the interest of people of that time. Therefore, when we are studying these
sources, we must be aware of the unwitting testimony other than the witting testimony. In
Marwick’s eyes, these unwitting testimonies are the most valuable evidence. To find out
these unwitting testimonies, we must scrutinize the sources closely and elaborate on what it
has to offer.

Along with the strategy, it is important to develop a structure to deliver knowledge about what
happened, what interactions there were, and how things had changed through time. When
historians are doing history they should express their findings in plain language, unlike
writing poetry or novels which often use rhetorical language. Arthur Marick pointed out that it
is essential to be ‘clear and effective communication, well structured, and written in precise
and explicit language.7’ Logical ideas should be presented with the three central elements in
5
Arthur Marwick: 〈The Fundamentals of History by Arthur Marwick〉，
https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html (Access on 21 October
2022). Part 2.
6
Arthur Marwick: 〈The Fundamentals of History by Arthur Marwick〉，
https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html (Access on 21 October
2022). Part 7.

7
Arthur Marwick: 〈The Fundamentals of History by Arthur Marwick〉，
https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html (Access on 21 October
2022). Part 11.
historical writing - explanation, analysis and description. Through these three elements,
historians should be able to present their ideas clearly.

As suggested by Arthur Marwick, the study of history is essential to society and its
knowledge helps to construct identity. It is regarded as a scholarly discipline, based on
thorough analysis of the source, written by language with the utmost precision.

Conclusion

Arthur Marwick considers history as the attempt to reconstruct and interpret the ‘past’, not
‘the past’ itself. It is reconstructed through the mixture of bodies of knowledge about the past
produced by historians. Therefore, history can hardly be objective. In fact, it is often used ‘as
a vehicle for expressing their own political commitment’. When we are writing history
ourselves, we should treat it scholarly. After studying primary sources and finding out the
unwitting testimony within the sources, we then use simple language to construct the past.
This is what Arthur Marwick considers history to be.

What is historiography

Historians had given various definitions on historiography. To Arthur Marwick, it is the

systematic study of historians’ interpretation of the past8. To Zachary Schrag, it is literally the
writing of history9. To Carl Becker, it is little more than the notation of the historical works10.
No doubt, Historiography is considered to be the method of studying and writing history. It is
how people learn about ‘the past’.

Before further elaborating what historiography is, we should first comprehend what history is.
According to E.H Carr, history is a continuous process of integration between the historian
and his facts, an unending dialogue between the past and the present11. How a historian
views his sources and reconstructs the past is actually affected by the present he is in. In
other words, historians view the past through the eyes of the present. Therefore, historians

8
Arthur Marwick: The nature of History, (London: MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD, 1989, 3rd ed),
page 398
9
Zachary M. Schrag: The Princeton Guide to Historical Research, (New Jersey, Princeton University
Press, 2021), page 90
10
Carl L. Becter: Detachment and the writing of history, (Cornell University Press, 1958), page 66
11
E.H.Carr: What is history?, (London: University of Cambridge & Penguin Books, 1961), page 26
in different eras can have different opinions towards the past. All history can be treated as
‘contemporary history’12 .

With that being said, Historiography is a mixture of different historian’s views. In a sense, it is
a phase of intellectual history, records of men in different time known and believed about the
past13. Men in different times tend to use different angles to study and write history. That is
why it derives into different kinds of historiography such as global history14, integral history15,
Marxism16or even public history17. Often, historians use theories and analytical tool such as
periodization18 to support their findings19.

Yet, only by using analytical tools to write history is not enough. Historiography is a source-
based enterprise and the knowledge of it comes from evidence of the past. Without sources
to support it, historiography can only be treated as stories but not history20. Sources provide
in themselves uninvestigated answers of the past. Therefore, Historians tend to reconstruct
the past through studying these primary sources. At the same time, a historian should bear
12
B.Croce: History as the story of Liberty, (London: G. Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1941), page19
13
Carl L. Becter: Detachment and the writing of history, ( Ithaca: Cornell University, 1958), page 68
14
A preliminary and rather broad definition of global history might describe it as a form of historical
analysis in which phenomena, events, and processes are placed in global contexts. There is
disagreement, however, on how that result is best achieved. Numerous other approaches—ranging
from comparative and transnational history to world and big history, to postcolonial studies and the
history of globalization—currently compete for scholarly attention. Just like global history, they en-
deavour to come to terms with the connectivities of the past, see Sebastian Conrad, What Is Global
History?, (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2016), page 5-6

15
History which integrates together cultural, social, economic and political aspects, see Arthur
Marwick: The nature of History, (London: MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD, 1989, 3rd ed), page 398
16
An approach to understand history adopted by orthodox Karl Marx stresses on stages of history,
class struggle and classless society.
17
The National Council on Public History (NCPH) suggested that public history is "a movement,
methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history; its
practitioners embrace a mission to make their special insights accessible and useful to the
public.", see Rober Welible, Defining Public History: Is it possible? Is it necessary? published
on the website of the American Historical Association at:
https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/about-page
(Access on 22 October 2022)
18
Arthur Marwick’s article “the Fundamental of History” has at least two versions. In the original
version accessible at the internet, it was spotted that a paragraph “Periodisation” was placed
between “History and the past” and “Primary and secondary source”,
https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Whatishistory/marwick1.html (Access on 15 October
2022). Arthur Marwick suggests that periodisation is “simply an analytical tool of historians” and it
makes sense for economic history, but may not well make sense for social or political history.
19
Arthur Marwick: The Fundamental of History
,https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59038f2c440243a0d4b45f4c/t/593a0e43414fb53585777ef7/1
496976963721/The+Fundamentals+of+History+Author+Professor+Arthur+Marwick.pdf ( Access on
15 October 2022)
20
Carl L. Becter: Detachment and the writing of history, (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1958), page 66
the notion of 'Accuracy is a duty not a virtue’. he should not mess up the information
obtained through the source.

After comprehending what Historiography is, it is not hard to comprehend why

Historiography is essential to study history. It helps to showcase how the past is developed,
grasp the cause, effect of historical incidents and the correlation with other important
incidents. As mentioned above, The past, present and future are collinear and interlocking.
Understanding of past events and circumstances can provide an opportunity for approaching
complicated issues, grasping the present or even predicting the future. We should also bear
in mind that history is not a living creature, it can not repeat itself. It is an intellectual
discipline which historians produce. The main point of history is about changing. And through
Historiography, we are more aware of it. That is why Historiography is considered important
to comprehend how to study history.

Another reason why Historiography is considered important to comprehend how to study

history is it trains our critical thinking and analytical skills. Often, Historiography consists of
bias. It is due to historian’s‘ selective system of cognitive orientations to reality’21. When
historians are writing history, they have a fixed view point and want his readers to believe it.
Therefore, they will only select historical facts which are subjected to their viewpoint. A mass
of other facts, which are found to be contrary, may not be brought upon by the historian and
are lost beyond recall. We can come to a conclusion that the historiography we are studying
is preselected and predetermined by people who are imbuing a particular viewpoint.

More importantly, the sources (evidence) historians selected to present their views may be
biased or mistaken after long periods of cultural or linguistic transmute. It is nearly
impossible to exactly reconstruct the past. It is of utmost importance that we bear critical
thinking and analytical skills when understanding the past. Not only just taking in knowledge,
but also accessing it with a critical eye and to interpret, evaluate and analyze the past in an
informed manner. Or as in E.H Carr’s words’ When you read a work of history, always listen
out for the buzzing’22.

Conclusion

Historiography is the writing of history. It is the mixture of different historian’s views towards
history. It is a source-based enterprise and the knowledge of it comes from evidence of the
past. Sources are the key to constructing historiography. Through studying Historiography,
one can reconstruct records of human activities to achieve a more profound understanding
of the past, and more importantly, train our critical thinking skills which can prevent one from
falling into the pit holes of history.

21
T. Parsons and E.Shils: Towards a General Theory of Action,(Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
1951), page 167
22
E.H.Carr: What is history?,(University of Cambridge & Penguin Books, 1961), page 19