Mind of the historian
COVID-19 has changed the world entirely and historians have compared this with all the pandemics that occurred in history.
Historical evidence indicates many pandemics have changed the discourse of history, be it a plague, smallpox, cholera, influenza, malaria, leprosy, tuberculosis.
Scholars look at the historians to present the causes, impact and remedies of pandemics adopted in history, but the article explores the “history of history” or “art of the writing history/historical writing” or “the study of how history is written” or the process of writing history or the study of that process that is called as historiography.
This includes the finding of historical methodology and scholarly debate of the past on the particular issue or event.
For example, different schools of historiography will give a different version of an explanation of historical pandemics and their ramifications.
In order to understand historiography, you can refer to my earlier articles published in The Fiji Times about the questions: What is history or its object, method or value?
Historical facts and their importance. Objectivity and subjectivity of history writing. Causation, historical determination, chance in history. But this article is devoted to the issue of historiography.
What is historiography? Historiographer is a historian
All historical sources are incomplete, or these facts are not brought into history only by the historian when they choose them to present, thus they cannot be objective (true to the truest sense because it comes from the mind of the historian).
The study, comparison and assessment of historians views of an issue or event of the past are the part of the historiography.
This enables the comparison of different perspectives raised by varied schools on the similar event\s and helps us understand how different historians have used different sources, facts, historical methodology and theoretical perspectives to evaluate a particular theme/event/issue.
Historians’ study interests also vary over time and new historiography is added into the causation or giving causes to the past events by using new approaches.
The historiography does not study the events of the past in a direct sense or the historical facts, but it researches the changing interpretation of those events as put forward by diverse historians based on the best possible available facts that can is accurate, authentic and reliable.
Historian attempts to put forward an interpretation of an event\theme that is absolutely incontestable, but the truth is that it is always challenged, questioned or rejected by other schools of thoughts that become the part of the historiography.
Arthur Marwick describe historiography as writing of history is the history of the historical thought, it is not the theory or practice of history.
In the study of the past, readers do not study past events, but the changing interpretation of those events through the works of particular historians. E H Carr, What is History? (1964) stated: “The facts of history never come to us ‘pure’ since they do not and cannot exist in a pure form. They are always refracted through the mind of the recorder. It follows that when we take up a work of history, our first concern should not be with the facts which it contains, but with the historian who wrote it”.
Danger of history writing and dangerous historians
Anon in the work What does it mean to study history? stated, “historians are dangerous people; they are capable of upsetting everything”.
Historian understanding becomes vital if they interpret incorrectly, then the history can become distorted and even harmful. In history writing, the historian is the master of the judge to choose which historical source need to be brought to the forefront or which one to ignore. John H Arnold. ‘History.
A Very Short Introduction.’ (2000) stated “…at times historians get things wrong. They do, of course: historians, like everyone else, can misread, misremember, misinterpret, or misunderstand things.
But in a wider sense, historians always get things wrong. We do this first because we cannot ever get it totally right. Every historical account has gaps, problems, contradictions, areas of uncertainty.
We also get it wrong because we cannot always agree with each other; we need to get it wrong in our own ways (although, as we shall see, we sometimes form different groups in how we interpret things).
However, whilst getting it wrong, historians always attempt to get it right.” Thus the historian makes an attempt to be closer to the truth by interpretation of the available facts and avoid fabrication of facts.
Because facts do not speak for themselves and historians are the only medium to put forward those facts and interpretation in a sequence to give causes to an event.
Therefore history can be seen in the sense of argument, but these arguments and interpretations to form the part of the historiography.
The historiography of the event can be objective when it agrees to available historical facts.
The issues of the past are complex, chaotic and unorganised where historians make sense from the facts and collections of these arguments form the part of the historiography.
Every theme of historical value has historiography, the explanations or interpretations given by historians may be a diverse or single point.
Thus general history books attempt to cover the historiographical survey to help the readers to comprehend the positioning of the former research and writing on the same theme.
Conclusion: Historiography of pandemic
Thus, historiography is a collection of historical writings on a particular theme, such as causes, course and impact of pandemics of the past.
Many lessons are learnt from the past mistakes that can be improved in the current scenario when the entire world is combating the COVID-19.
There may be a wide range of debates on the interpretation of past pandemics, arguments, counter-arguments, with different historical schools with their own understanding.
Thus, historiography put forward all the historical debates over a particular theme, from where the current historian research it in a larger context.
It forms the prerequisite of every legitimate research, where the researcher is aware of the past history and historiographical debate that can help to conduct further research.
The proper presentation of historiography is necessary for every research as it shows a connection between all prime works on the theme, as done by a historian in the context of their historicism.
This eventually helps the researcher to position themselves to accept, reject or provide different dimensions of history writing that shall form the part of historiography if accepted by historians.