A historian is a scholar who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. Some historians are recognized by publications or training and experience.Herman, A. M. (1998). Occupational outlook handbook: 1998–99 edition. Indianapolis: JIST Works. Page 525. "Historian" became a professional occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany. The professionalization process spread to Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Russia, Scandinavia, Greece, Romania, and Latin America, with each adapting the German model with local modifications.
Objectivity Among historians Ancient historians In the 19th century, scholars used to study ancient Greek and Roman historians to see how generally reliable they were. In recent decades, however, scholars have focused more on the constructions, genres, and meanings that ancient historians sought to convey to their audiences. History is always written with contemporary concerns and ancient historians wrote their histories in response to the needs of their times. Out of thousands of Greek and Roman historians, only the tiniest fraction's works survive and it is out of this small pool that ancient historians and ancient historiography are analyzed today. Modern historians of the ancient world have to deal with diverse types of evidence, which are debated more today than in the 19th century due to innovations in the field.
Ancient historians were very different from modern historians in terms of goals, documentation, sources, and methods. For instance, chronological systems were not widely used, their sources were often absorbed (traceability of such sources usually disappeared), and the goal of an ancient work was often to create political or military paradigms. It was only after the emergence of Christianity that philosophies of history grew in prominence due to the destiny of man from the Christian account. Epics such as Homer's works were used by historians and considered history even by Thucydides. Ancient orators like Cicero stated that their historiographical narrative was divided into 3 divisions: history, argument, and fable.
Modern historians In the 19th-century historical studies became professionalized at universities and research centers along with a belief that history was a type of science.Georg G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, 1-4. However, in the 20th century historians incorporated social science dimensions like politics, economy, and culture in their historiography, including postmodernism. Since the 1980s there has been a special interest in the memories and commemoration of past events.David Glassberg, "Public history and the study of memory." The Public Historian 18.2 (1996): 7–23 online .
History by its nature is prone to continuous debate, and historians tend to be divided. There is no past that is commonly agreed upon, since there are competing histories (e.g., of elites, non-elites, men, women, races, etc.). It is widely accepted that "strict objectivity is epistemologically unattainable for historians". Historians rarely articulate their conception of objectivity or discuss it in detail. And like in other professions, historians rarely analyze themselves or their activity. In practice, "specific canons of historical proof are neither widely observed nor generally agreed upon" among professional historians. Though objectivity is often seen as the goal of those who work on history, in practice there is no convergence on anything in particular. Historical scholarship is never value free since historian's writings are impacted by the frameworks of their times. Some scholars of history have observed that there are no particular standards for historical fields such as religion, art, science, democracy, and social justice as these are by their nature 'essentially contested' fields, such that they require diverse tools particular to each field beforehand in order to interpret topics from those fields.
There are three commonly held reasons why avoiding bias is not seen as possible in historical practice: a historian's interest inevitably influences their judgement (what information to use and omit, how to present the information, etc.); the sources used by historians for their history all have bias, and historians are products of their culture, concepts, and beliefs. Racial and cultural biases can play major roles in national histories, which often ignore or downplay the roles on other groups. Gender biases as well. Moral or worldview evaluations by historians are also seen partly inevitable, causing complications for historians and their historical writings. One way to deal with this is for historians to state their biases explicitly for their readers. In the modern era, newspapers (which have a bias of their own) impacts historical accounts made by historians. Wikipedia also contributes to difficulties for historians.
Historian and philosopher Aviezer Tucker has argued that consensus on historiographic beliefs in uncoerced, heterogeneous, and notably sized group of scholars is indicative of good knowledge in history, similar to other fields such as the sciences where despite differences, they come to some points of broad agreement. Dissenters from consensus historiographic beliefs tend to be homogenous and share common biases, for example, holocausts deniers tend to be Nazi sympathizers.
Legal cases During the Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt trial, the High Court of Justice relied on Richard Evan's witness report which mentioned "objective historian" in the same vein as the reasonable person, and reminiscent of the standard traditionally used in English law of "the man on the Clapham omnibus". This was necessary so that there would be a legal benchmark to compare and contrast the scholarship of an objective historian against the illegitimate methods employed by David Irving, as before the Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt trial, there was no legal precedent for what constituted an objective historian.
Justice Gray leant heavily on the research of one of the expert witnesses, Richard J. Evans, who compared illegitimate distortion of the historical record practiced by Holocaust deniers with established historical methodologies.
By summarizing Gray's judgment, in an article published in the Yale Law Journal, Wendie E. Schneider distils these seven points for what he meant by an objective historian:
Schneider uses the concept of the "objective historian" to suggest that this could be an aid in assessing what makes a historian suitable as expert witnesses under the Daubert standard in the United States. Schneider proposed this, because, in her opinion, Irving could not have passed the standard Daubert tests unless a court was given "a great deal of assistance from historians".
Schneider proposes that by testing a historian against the criteria of the "objective historian" then, even if a historian holds specific political views (and she gives an example of a well-qualified historian's testimony that was disregarded by a United States court because he was a member of a feminist group), providing the historian uses the "objective historian" standards, they are a "conscientious historian". It was Irving's failure as an "objective historian" not his right-wing views that caused him to lose his libel case, as a "conscientious historian" would not have "deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence" to support his political views.
History analysis
The process of historical analysis involves investigation and analysis of competing ideas, facts, and purported facts to create coherent narratives that explain "what happened" and "why or how it happened". Modern historical analysis usually draws upon other social sciences, including economics, sociology, politics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics. While ancient writers do not normally share modern historical practices, their work remains valuable for its insights within the cultural context of the times. An important part of the contribution of many modern historians is the verification or dismissal of earlier historical accounts through reviewing newly discovered sources and recent scholarship or through parallel disciplines like archaeology.
Historiography
Ancient
Understanding the past appears to be a universal human need, and the telling of history has emerged independently in civilizations around the world. What constitutes history is a philosophical question (see philosophy of history). The earliest chronologies date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, though no historical writers in these early civilizations were known by name.
Systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, a development that became an important influence on the writing of history elsewhere around the Mediterranean region. The earliest known critical historical works were The Histories, composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484 – c. 425 BCE) who later became known as the "father of history" (Cicero). Herodotus attempted to distinguish between more and less reliable accounts and personally conducted research by travelling extensively, giving written accounts of various Mediterranean cultures. Although Herodotus' overall emphasis lay on the actions and characters of men, he also attributed an important role to divinity in the determination of historical events. Thucydides largely eliminated divine causality in his account of the war between Athens and Sparta, establishing a rationalistic element that set a precedent for subsequent Western historical writings. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, while his successor Xenophon ( – 355 BCE) introduced autobiographical elements and character studies in his Anabasis.
The Romans adopted the Greek tradition. While early Roman works were still written in Greek, the Origines, composed by the Roman statesman Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE), was written in Latin, in a conscious effort to counteract Greek cultural influence. Strabo (63 BCE – CE) was an important exponent of the Greco-Roman tradition of combining geography with history, presenting a descriptive history of peoples and places known to his era. Livy (59 BCE – 17 CE) records the rise of Rome from city-state to empire. His speculation about what would have happened if Alexander the Great had marched against Rome represents the first known instance of alternate history.
In Chinese historiography, the Classic of History is one of the Five Classics of Chinese classic texts and one of the earliest narratives of China. The Spring and Autumn Annals, the official chronicle of the State of Lu covering the period from 722 to 481 BCE, is among the earliest surviving Chinese historical texts arranged on annalistic principles. Sima Qian (around 100 BCE) was the first in China to lay the groundwork for professional historical writing. His written work was the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), a monumental lifelong achievement in literature. Its scope extends as far back as the 16th century BCE, and it includes many treatises on specific subjects and individual biographies of prominent people and also explores the lives and deeds of commoners, both contemporary and those of previous eras.