This engaging session explores how historians have interpreted the past - and how those interpretations have changed over time. From Herodotus and Thucydides to Marx, Ranke, and postmodern thinkers, we’ll trace the evolution of history as a discipline: from chronicles of kings and wars to cultural histories, feminist perspectives, and challenges to “objective truth.” We’ll examine the major shifts that shaped historical inquiry - Enlightenment rationalism, the rise of nationalism, the influence of ideology, and the recent questioning of Western and masculine narratives. What counts as a historical fact? How do historians decide which “fish to catch,” as E.H. Carr put it, from the vast ocean of time? Along the way, we’ll consider the contemporary “history wars” and the growing awareness that every historian writes from within their own time and culture. Ultimately, this course invites you to reflect on what history is for: not just a record of the past, but an ongoing conversation between past and present, evidence and imagination.
- E H Carr, What is History?, Oxford University Press 1961
- Daniel Woolf, A Global History of History, Cambridge University Press, 2011
- Podcast: Context with Brad Harris
- What is Interpretation in History?: Defining history and historiography. How interpretation shapes every historical narrative.
- From Myth to Method: Early storytelling traditions, ancient chronicles, and classical historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides.
- Faith, Reason, and Empire: Medieval and Islamic historiography; Enlightenment rationalism and the rise of history as moral judgment.
- The Age of Evidence: The nineteenth-century professionalisation of history — Ranke, Gibbon, Marx, and the emergence of “scientific” history.
Revolutions in Perspective: Twentieth-century challenges to objectivity — social, cultural, feminist, and postcolonial approaches.
- Postmodernism and the “History Wars”: E.H. Carr, Lyotard, and contemporary debates about bias, relativism, and “fake history.”
- The Historian as Interpreter: Can we know the past “as it really was,” or only as we perceive it? What makes historical understanding meaningful today?
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Explain how historical interpretation has evolved across periods and cultures.
- Identify major thinkers and movements that shaped historiography.
- Distinguish between factual narrative and interpretive approach in history.
- Recognise the influence of ideology, culture, and perspective on historical writing.
- Reflect critically on what it means to “know” the past."
