what is history

WHY DO WE QUESTION?I NEVER JUDGE THE ABILITY OF MY STUDENTS WITH THE ACCURACY OF THE ANSWERS THEY PRODUCE FOR MY QUESTIONS BUT WITH THE QUESTIONS THEY PUT FORWARD……

DR. S. RADHAKRISHNAN

?WHAT IS HISTORY

The George Macaulay Trevelyan lectures delivered in the University

of Cambridge January – March 1961

By

EDWARD HALLETT CARR

Fellow of Trinity College

GROUP ‘D’

SOCIETY, INDIVIDUAL AND HISTORY

Society and the individual are inseparable: they are necessary and complementary to each other, not opposites.

Donne says ‘No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.’

Anthropologists say that primitive man is less individual and more completely moulded by his society than civilized man.

The development of society and the development of the individual go hand in hand,and condition each other.

Civilized man, like primitive man is moulded by society just as effectively as society is moulded by him.

The cult of individualism is one of the most pervasive of modern historical myths. Individualism was the basis of the great nineteenth-century philosophy of utilitarianism.

A social revolution brings about new social groups to positions of power.


The historian,then,is an individual human being.Like other individuals,he is also a social phenomenon,both the product and the concious or unconcious spokesperson of the society to which he belongs :it is this capacity he approaches the facts of the historical past.

Great history is written precisely when the historian’s vision of the past is illuminated by insights into the problems of the present.


THE HISTORIAN AND HIS FACTS

It was from Germany, the country which was to do so much to upset, the comfortable reign of 19th century liberalism, that the first challenge came in the 1880s and 1890s to the doctrine of the primacy and autonomy of the facts in history

[pg no. 14-15]


The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend partly on chance but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in.. and what tackle he chooses to use – these two factors being of course determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants.

[pg. no. 18]

The past which a historian studies is not a dead past, but a past which in some sense is still living in the present and that the main work of the historian is not to record, but to evaluate; for, if he does not evaluate, how can he know what is worth recording

[pg. no. 16, 15]


The historian is necessarily selective. The fact that we reached in this room few minutes ago after taking our lunch is just as much a fact about the past as the fact that India got freedom in 1947. But it will most probably be ignored by historians


And so, history can be defined as a continuous process of interaction between the historians and his facts and unending dialogue between the present and the past

Interpretation is the life blood of history.

[pg. no. 24, 22]


HISTORY, SCIENCE AND MORALITY

Examining fundamental distinction between science and history:

1.History deals exclusively with the unique, science with the general

2.History teaches lessons through generalization

3.History is unable to predict

4.History is necessarily subjective

5.History involves issues of religion and morality

What is GOD to a historian?

The hypotheses used by the historian is remarkably similar to that of the hypotheses used by the scientist

Some of the hypotheses in history are:

1.Division of history into periods2.Division of history into geographical sectors

HISTORY, SCIENCE AND MORALITY

A GLANCE AT HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS

1857 Revolt vs. Mutiny Nude portrayals – Ravi Verma –

M.F. Hushain – Exile

What is the cause of Robinson’s Death?

Jones, returning from a party at which he has consumed more than his usual ration of alcohol, in a car whose brakes turn out to have been defective, at a blind corner where visibility is notoriously poor, knocks down and kills Robinson, who was crossing the road to buy cigarettes at the shop on the corner.

[pg. no. 98]

Rational vs. Accidental Causes

CAUSATION IN HISTORY


History - marshalling the events of the past in an orderly sequence of cause and effect

The causes determine historian’s interpretation of the historical process, and his interpretation determines his selection and marshalling of the causes

The fact is that all human actions are both free and determined, according to the point of view from which one considers them

The world of the historian, like the world of the scientist, is not a photographic copy of the real worldBut rather a working model which enables him more or less effectively to understand it and to master it

Historians do not assume that events are inevitable before they have taken place



History begins with the handling down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations.

THE WIDENING HORIZON

Now, it has become possible for the first time even to imagine a whole world consisting of people who have in the fullest sense entered into history and become the concern. No longer of the colonial administrator or of the anthropologist, but of the historian

This is a revolution in our conception of history. Till 18th century, history was a prerogative of the elites

[pg. no. 144]

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

Like Marx and all other philosophers….Carr also seem to be

in a hurry………… hurry to conclude.. and in doing so what he misses out most probably is that every socio-economic reality is a dynamic activity…………. and so is

history.

How far is it possible for the observer to keep him/herself away from the observed ???

The unending debate on subjectivity vs. objectivity !!!

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

THINK OF IT !!

How many times we question our questions before forwarding it in front of a person powered by the state……………

Just as the kings came out of our oblivion, the state may emerge with our silence !!!

The Group “D” Team

PUNYASIL RAJNA MEHRA

RAVI RANJAN RIKA GUITE

RITU RAJ RUPESH SHERSHTA

SACHIN DHAR SAKSHI LAMBA

SANGEETHA SARITHA

SATYA PRIYA SHAHBAZ

SHAIJU CHACKO