Historiography is an interesting field. Equal parts art
and science, it isn't generally inserted into the classical definitions of either
category, and as such, is often overlooked. Or worse, it's written off as being
mere history, much as it was throughout the medieval period. But it's more than
just history: not only is it reconstructing our human record, but it's writing
or recording history, as it happens.
It's the art of being able to observe and preserve what's going on around you
for future generations to reference and learn from. And that is an extremely
exciting prospect. But when did historiography go from the fledgling art that was
developed classical Greece
to the modern discipline it is today?
Historiography first saw its modern roots grow out of
German universities in the 1800s. Leopold von Ranke quite literally
revolutionized it with the seminars he put on, coupled with his critical
approach that focused on diplomacy and the political realm. Previous
historiographers, or those who dabbled in it as a hobby like French philosopher
Voltaire, had generally focused on the culture of the day and social issues, so
von Ranke's ideas were quite radical. To von Ranke's mind, history was a
science that had many qualities of an art, not the other way around. Sources
had to be solid, not mere ideas and speculations, and primary sources needed to
have vetted authenticity. Something he stressed in his works was to "write
history the way it was," ("Historiography", 2013) but he did his
own version of selective writing. Many historians before von Ranke had tended
to focus on how events were cyclical, citing the rise and fall of nations,
empires, rulers and other figures, but von Ranke wanted to break away from universal
history. Instead, he nationalized history, keeping with the popular views of
the day, and separated the history of one's own country, insomuch as to merely
emphasize that nation in regards to how and where it fits into the history of
the world. This would lead to a spin-off science as well, later known as
sociology, but at the time it was still considered a subset of historiography.
Von Ranke's ideas stayed relatively isolated in German for
many years, but they began to spread, slowly but surely. One of the people that
agreed with von Ranke was the 20th century French historian
Ferdinand Braudel, one of the leaders of the famed Annales School.
Braudel picked up on von Ranke's notion to turn historiography into an art-like
science, making it less subjective and requiring distinctly measureable
evidence, something that is still stressed to up and coming historians to this
day. He also wanted to broaden the historiographer's view, but not in the
traditional sense: he wanted expand the nationalist type of history as put
forward by von Ranke. Adding geographic relations, socio-economic aspects and
other topics, he stressed a longer look at history, not just the short,
event-focused style popular at the time. His fellow Frenchmen began to pick up
his ideas and expand on them even further, with historians like Michel Foucault
and Philippe Aries beginning to look at the historicity of seemingly mundane
everyday subjects like sex and death – two subjects French always seem to be
willing to talk about, no matter their profession. But this led to another
genre of history, sometimes known as 'microhistory', that was pursued by some
in Braudel's Annales
School. ("Religion
and Politics in 19th Century America",
1990)
At this point, the entire field began to open up, with
people able to study the history of anything and its relation to anyone. One of
those is 'musicology', or the historical study of music. Even though it had its
own roots laid down by the historians of the Enlightenment in the 17th
century, somewhat removed from historiography itself, it really began to
flourish and blossom in the 19th century. The pragmatic knowledge of
the music of the past was added to immensely, and the gradual growth of the
field rocketed into relative prominence, and merely added to the desire to
return to romanticism popular at the time. ("Acta Musicologica: Patterns
in the Historiography of 19th-Century Music", 1970)
In short, historiography is a field of growth. It is an
art just as much as it is a science, and the open, inquisitive, and determined
minds of anyone can revolutionize the field. Recording and reconstructing our
history is a vital part of a historians job, but all is moot if he or she is
not willing to take a chance and chase a theory.
References
Acta Musicologica: Patterns in the Historiography of
19th-Century Music. (1970). JSTOR.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/932271
Historiography. (2013). In Britannica Online
Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/267436/historiography
Religion and Politics in 19th Century America: Historiography as a
Teaching Resource. (1990, September). ERIC – World’s largest digital
library of education literature. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ415734&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ415734
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