Historiography (1): Introducing Historiography
I have often found that students struggle with historiography. Some find it tedious. Some find it overly complex. Others don't see its relevance. I completely understand. As historians, we love to get into the subject, to read primary documents and to examine the material culture of the past. Reading about other historians' interpretations and unpacking decades-long debates in the pages of professional journals is often less than exciting.
Nevertheless, historiography is essential to the historian's craft, so it is worthwhile spending some time understanding what it is as field of inquiry, how historians use historiography in their work, and what historiographical techniques might be valuable to the practicing historian.
This post is the first in a series on historiography. To get started, I am sharing an episode from my podcast, Practicing History:
This episode introduces the term “historiography” and its centrality to historical practice.
In future posts, I will provide overviews of historiography as a field of study, some examples of how historians approach historiography in their work, and some tools and techniques that might be useful to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels.