The term “analyzing history” needs a bit of clarification. If we are differentiating between “gathering history” and “drawing inferences and conclusions” from historical documents, then to be sure the primary sources (actual recorded laws, testimonies. etc.) are paramount, since all “facts” are imbedded in these records. But secondary sources, such as contemporaneous news reports, private written reactions, responses to public events, etc., take on much more significance if the historian is seeking to clarify or elaborate on the significance of a historical event, since such secondary documents are socially significant, giving a picture of how the primary occurrences were perceived in context at the time.
A historian today, then, has two related tasks: to verify and interpret the primary sources of history, and to infer conclusions based on the total historical record. The relative importance, then, depends on the task at hand for the historian (i.e. a biography, an elaboration on a historical event, a refutation of a popular myth, etc.)
No comments:
Post a Comment