Historiography

Historiography

Every piece of historical writing has, in the process of creation, come under the influence of the historians perspective and purpose. The extent to which these two influences affect the writing of history depends on the individual historian. "All history is the history of thought", as Collingwood states. Therefore, no two accounts of the same event, issue, or person can be entirely the same. The purpose of the historian is an element of historical writing that may alter dramatically the way they write. As Bullock states, the historian does not live in isolation, therefore “he is sensitive to the interests and problems that affect the society in which he lives." (Warren 1998)

These interests and problems can manipulate the purpose a historian has in writing his history and can therefore dramatically effect the manner in which they write.

The importance of the relationship between the topic being written about and the personal influences of the historian can perhaps best be summarised by Collingwood.

He states that, history is concerned neither with the past by itself nor with the historian's thoughts about it by itself, but with the two things in mutual relations.

From this comment made by Collingwood we can see that history, in its entirety, must contain both the information of the topic being written about and the interpretation of the individual historian. It is the requirement of the interpretation of the historian that reinforces Collingwood's earlier statement, that" all history is the history of thought." (Warren 1998)

A striking example of the way in which the purpose of the historian can manipulate what is written and the manner in which the historian writes, is that of Cornelius Tacitus. Tacitus was bred from a family who was destroyed by the emperor Domitian. It was this experience that fuelled Tacitus' desire to prove through his writing that rule by emperor is evil. This desire or purpose is reflected in his work. In the "˜Annals of Imperial Rome', Tacitus writes about the first five emperors of Rome. The problem he faced in writing about these men came in the form of the emperor Augustus, who failed to fit the evil mould required by Tacitus to prove his point. The manner in which Tacitus chose to overcome this problem can best be illustrated through his own words. (Akhtar 1997)

By evaluating the comments of Bernard Bailyn we begin to understand how it is not simply one thing that influences and/or determines the perspective we have. The element of hindsight allows us to perceive the wider picture. It lets us view things on a greater scale and therefore enables us to talk in terms of nations rather than towns or Global consequence rather than national effects.

This wider perspective that can be achieved by hindsight can be both positive, in that we can understand the global or national effects of something more easily, and negative in that there lacks the personal, individual element. An example of the way the time at which a person is writing can influence what they write ...