How to be a student of history?
June 6, 2020 6:08 PM Subscribe
I love history. The more I read, the more things seem to fit together. But I'm sure that I either misremember or forget a lot of stuff. So, like taking on any new hobby, I'd like to get acquainted with the basic tools of being a historian, and learn where people go for new discoveries and news. But... I don't even know the right words to search.
I love to consume history. I am subscribed to 4 history podcasts (99PI, Revolutions, Through line, and the Pessimists' Archive), read books about the history of politics and society (like "Why we're polarized" and "We are the ones we've been waiting for"), the history of my city, the history of science and basically anything Bill Bryson or Niel Stephenson write.
And, I absolutely love reading blog posts like "Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages" or "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry"
I've learned the most from Mike Duncan's The History of Rome, and Revolutions podcasts. I find that when I learn new stories, I can kind of fit them into the framework I've learned from his shows. Same with learning about the Dixiecrats - now I fit my understanding of the 20th century into that framework.
I want to learn how to do this better. Are there commonly accepted frameworks to understand history? Do historians use some sort of software to track timelines and interactions of people and culture? Is there a language of historians, that make it useful to discuss topics in detail? Is there a short list of "if you really want to understand history, you have to understand the history of xyz"?
So please, lavish me with your advice, tips, beginner skills, pointers, overviews, and suggestions!
I love to consume history. I am subscribed to 4 history podcasts (99PI, Revolutions, Through line, and the Pessimists' Archive), read books about the history of politics and society (like "Why we're polarized" and "We are the ones we've been waiting for"), the history of my city, the history of science and basically anything Bill Bryson or Niel Stephenson write.
And, I absolutely love reading blog posts like "Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages" or "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry"
I've learned the most from Mike Duncan's The History of Rome, and Revolutions podcasts. I find that when I learn new stories, I can kind of fit them into the framework I've learned from his shows. Same with learning about the Dixiecrats - now I fit my understanding of the 20th century into that framework.
I want to learn how to do this better. Are there commonly accepted frameworks to understand history? Do historians use some sort of software to track timelines and interactions of people and culture? Is there a language of historians, that make it useful to discuss topics in detail? Is there a short list of "if you really want to understand history, you have to understand the history of xyz"?
So please, lavish me with your advice, tips, beginner skills, pointers, overviews, and suggestions!
Yes, historiography is a good term here. I think the Wikipedia article on historiography would be a good overview and starting place. I’d also encourage you to look at the pages on Whig historiography, Marxist historiography, and revisionist historiography for overviews on a few notable frameworks for understanding and discussing history.
You may also be interested in something like this Coursera class on Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims - there’s an honors track about “The Historian’s Craft” that might be a nice intro, especially within the context of a wider history course, since you can apply the tools to your learning right there. (I know nothing about the course, I just searched Coursera for “historiography” and this one looks promising.)
posted by bananacabana at 10:43 PM on June 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
You may also be interested in something like this Coursera class on Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims - there’s an honors track about “The Historian’s Craft” that might be a nice intro, especially within the context of a wider history course, since you can apply the tools to your learning right there. (I know nothing about the course, I just searched Coursera for “historiography” and this one looks promising.)
posted by bananacabana at 10:43 PM on June 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Historiography is indeed the thing, and while very important some of it is very dry, just to warn you.
If you're just starting to really think about history, I would reccomend Guy Halsall's short blog post, Professor Grumpy's Historical Manifesto (MeFi post about it from 2012). It gives you the openings in to the "why" of history (even if you end up disagreeing with him). If you take nothing else away from it, remember:
the question we are always asking is not ‘is this bastard lying to me, but why is this lying bastard lying to me?’
One of the things you said in your post stands out to me:
I find that when I learn new stories, I can kind of fit them into the framework I've learned from his shows.
I think that really excellent history (generally books and articles, but other media as well) is that which makes you pick up that framework and examine it anew. Everyone has a framework - and it's made up not just of knowledge, but assumptions, extrapolations, prejudice and a whole bunch of other stuff. Learning about history is not just adding new knowledge, but questioning old certainties and finding out that you were totally wrong about some things.
I'm not dissing frameworks themselves - it's how we think. Most universities structure history courses by having a survey course to start with, to give an overview of the time/place before going into deeper dives. Those deeper dives will often problematise a lot of that survey course, but it is really helpful to have something to hang the detail round. For example, any proper discussion of the First Crusade involves talking about the Papacy, the Byzantines, Normans, Fatamids and Seljuks just for starters - knowing metaphorically where everyone is on the board is needed before you can go deeper. But no-one (or very few people) has enough time or brain to have that for the whole world and the whole of history, so you tend to have mental outlines which cover certain times and places which fit into your underlying framework of how you think about history. There isn't a secret One True Timeline or anything which will give you the key to all of history - it's a question of zooming in and out to get the different resolutions. Sorry, this paragraph has gone all over the place, but I hope it makes a vague sort of sense.
Is there a language of historians, that make it useful to discuss topics in detail?
Outside of the really big fameworks (see bananacabana's comment), I think this tends to be area and period specific. One thing that I would suggest is a basic knowledge of archaeology and some of the more common archaeological terms is useful, especially for times/places where there are few or no written records. I read and liked an older edition of Renfrew and Bahn's Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice, but there are loads of intro textbooks which will see you right.
Is there a short list of "if you really want to understand history, you have to understand the history of xyz"?
I would distrust any list which claims this, as I would presume only a blinkered cis white dude would have the arrogance to make such a claim and it would reflect the blinkered cis white dude reading list of history.
posted by Vortisaur at 2:12 AM on June 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
If you're just starting to really think about history, I would reccomend Guy Halsall's short blog post, Professor Grumpy's Historical Manifesto (MeFi post about it from 2012). It gives you the openings in to the "why" of history (even if you end up disagreeing with him). If you take nothing else away from it, remember:
the question we are always asking is not ‘is this bastard lying to me, but why is this lying bastard lying to me?’
One of the things you said in your post stands out to me:
I find that when I learn new stories, I can kind of fit them into the framework I've learned from his shows.
I think that really excellent history (generally books and articles, but other media as well) is that which makes you pick up that framework and examine it anew. Everyone has a framework - and it's made up not just of knowledge, but assumptions, extrapolations, prejudice and a whole bunch of other stuff. Learning about history is not just adding new knowledge, but questioning old certainties and finding out that you were totally wrong about some things.
I'm not dissing frameworks themselves - it's how we think. Most universities structure history courses by having a survey course to start with, to give an overview of the time/place before going into deeper dives. Those deeper dives will often problematise a lot of that survey course, but it is really helpful to have something to hang the detail round. For example, any proper discussion of the First Crusade involves talking about the Papacy, the Byzantines, Normans, Fatamids and Seljuks just for starters - knowing metaphorically where everyone is on the board is needed before you can go deeper. But no-one (or very few people) has enough time or brain to have that for the whole world and the whole of history, so you tend to have mental outlines which cover certain times and places which fit into your underlying framework of how you think about history. There isn't a secret One True Timeline or anything which will give you the key to all of history - it's a question of zooming in and out to get the different resolutions. Sorry, this paragraph has gone all over the place, but I hope it makes a vague sort of sense.
Is there a language of historians, that make it useful to discuss topics in detail?
Outside of the really big fameworks (see bananacabana's comment), I think this tends to be area and period specific. One thing that I would suggest is a basic knowledge of archaeology and some of the more common archaeological terms is useful, especially for times/places where there are few or no written records. I read and liked an older edition of Renfrew and Bahn's Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice, but there are loads of intro textbooks which will see you right.
Is there a short list of "if you really want to understand history, you have to understand the history of xyz"?
I would distrust any list which claims this, as I would presume only a blinkered cis white dude would have the arrogance to make such a claim and it would reflect the blinkered cis white dude reading list of history.
posted by Vortisaur at 2:12 AM on June 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
Best answer: The basic introduction that I have used for non-major students taking a survey course in history - i.e., probably the only university-level history course they will ever take - is John Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction. Arnold is a medieval English historian, so many of his examples come from that place and time, but his scope is much broader. He does a great job of covering a lot of ground succinctly, including historical methods (how historians learn what happened in the past), schools of historical interpretation (e.g., cultural history, social history, political history, gender history), historical periodization, and the use of history in the present. He has a good list of further reading, too.
There are certain key terms that all historians use, like primary source, secondary source, monograph, and historiography. There are others that are used only within certain subfields of history. Sometimes they're used when writing for non-specialists: in my own specialty, history of science, many of us tend to avoid the term "scientist" to refer to students of nature before the 19th century, since the term wasn't coined in English until 1834 and came to displace other terms such as "natural philosopher," "savant," or "virtuoso," each of which had different connotations. Sometimes specialized terms are more a jargon used when talking to other specialists; many of us use the term "black box" to refer to a scientific procedure that has come to be standardized and routinized, so that people can use it without knowing the principles according to which we think it works.
Some historians use sophisticated databases to track their data. Others use simple note-taking software, or even pencil and paper notes. It would be impossible to have a commonly agreed on set of data and methods, for a few reasons. First, there's just too much data, and as Vortisaur wrote, most of it is irrelevant until a historian selects it and fits it into a particular interpretation of the past. Second, historians often disagree about whether particular fact claims are even supported by the sources, especially since historical sources were rarely written to send a message to the future (and if they were, it's important to be deeply skeptical of them!). That means that we need to be very careful in making inferences from them. Third, it's always possible that new data will lead us to revise our previous conclusions, even in some well studied areas of history, either because a new document is found that calls previous interpretations into question, or because new methods open up different ways to understand what we thought we already knew.
A final point: historical understanding proceeds through debate. "Revisionism" is not a school of history, but rather, a fundamental element in historical practice. Any interesting historical question will have a number of different interpretations, each responding to the previous views. That's why historical monographs often begin with a review of previous interpretations, and why we train graduate students in history by having them read, compare, and critique earlier interpretations before they start doing their own in depth research.
A corollary of that is that if you know only one historical interpretation, you don't really know the subject, just one person or school's view of the subject. Historians, too, are creatures of their place and time; to give one example, it's no coincidence that women's and gender history developed in the wake of second wave feminism. When you study history through other people's interpretations, you should always ask yourself: Who is the author? How were they trained, and why are they qualified to tell this story? Did they do their own research, or are they summarizing other people's work? (The latter is not necessarily a problem; synthesis is a very useful skill. But you should be aware of it.) Do they acknowledge other interpretations and offer a plausible reason to prefer their take on events, or do they tell only one story? (In a book with footnotes or endnotes, the notes are often where that kind of dialogue takes place.) Even in a work aimed at a general audience, like Carlos Eire's recent book *Reformations: The Early Modern World*, a good historian will at least acknowledge in general terms the controversial aspects of their interpretations.
posted by brianogilvie at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
There are certain key terms that all historians use, like primary source, secondary source, monograph, and historiography. There are others that are used only within certain subfields of history. Sometimes they're used when writing for non-specialists: in my own specialty, history of science, many of us tend to avoid the term "scientist" to refer to students of nature before the 19th century, since the term wasn't coined in English until 1834 and came to displace other terms such as "natural philosopher," "savant," or "virtuoso," each of which had different connotations. Sometimes specialized terms are more a jargon used when talking to other specialists; many of us use the term "black box" to refer to a scientific procedure that has come to be standardized and routinized, so that people can use it without knowing the principles according to which we think it works.
Some historians use sophisticated databases to track their data. Others use simple note-taking software, or even pencil and paper notes. It would be impossible to have a commonly agreed on set of data and methods, for a few reasons. First, there's just too much data, and as Vortisaur wrote, most of it is irrelevant until a historian selects it and fits it into a particular interpretation of the past. Second, historians often disagree about whether particular fact claims are even supported by the sources, especially since historical sources were rarely written to send a message to the future (and if they were, it's important to be deeply skeptical of them!). That means that we need to be very careful in making inferences from them. Third, it's always possible that new data will lead us to revise our previous conclusions, even in some well studied areas of history, either because a new document is found that calls previous interpretations into question, or because new methods open up different ways to understand what we thought we already knew.
A final point: historical understanding proceeds through debate. "Revisionism" is not a school of history, but rather, a fundamental element in historical practice. Any interesting historical question will have a number of different interpretations, each responding to the previous views. That's why historical monographs often begin with a review of previous interpretations, and why we train graduate students in history by having them read, compare, and critique earlier interpretations before they start doing their own in depth research.
A corollary of that is that if you know only one historical interpretation, you don't really know the subject, just one person or school's view of the subject. Historians, too, are creatures of their place and time; to give one example, it's no coincidence that women's and gender history developed in the wake of second wave feminism. When you study history through other people's interpretations, you should always ask yourself: Who is the author? How were they trained, and why are they qualified to tell this story? Did they do their own research, or are they summarizing other people's work? (The latter is not necessarily a problem; synthesis is a very useful skill. But you should be aware of it.) Do they acknowledge other interpretations and offer a plausible reason to prefer their take on events, or do they tell only one story? (In a book with footnotes or endnotes, the notes are often where that kind of dialogue takes place.) Even in a work aimed at a general audience, like Carlos Eire's recent book *Reformations: The Early Modern World*, a good historian will at least acknowledge in general terms the controversial aspects of their interpretations.
posted by brianogilvie at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Yesterday i finished History: A Very Short Introduction, and it was exactly the type of overview I wanted! (I'm going to keep this series in mind next time I'm curious about a field!) I was particularly fascinated by his discussion of enlightenment-era Antiquarians who "collected together everything they could lay their hands on connected with whichever period in the past had taken their fancy." Thank you so very much for the reference!
Is there an easy-level history magazine or website that you recommend?
posted by rebent at 6:13 PM on June 23, 2020
Is there an easy-level history magazine or website that you recommend?
posted by rebent at 6:13 PM on June 23, 2020
History Today is probably the most widely-circulated. Whether that makes it the best... I don't particularly care for it, personally. A lot of times I find the writing to be aimed too much for a general reader. But that might be exactly what you're looking for.
A lot of history magazines are period-specific. If you like WWII or the American Civil War, hoo boy. Anything else is hit or miss. In the US, the selection tends toward our own history and the history of England and, to a lesser extent, France, with a dash of Ancient Rome. Germany, Russia, Italy, and other later-developing states are harder to find information about (this is true for non-specialist books as well - the non-Nazi-era German history bookshelf at Barnes and Noble is like two books, one of which is probably The Burgermeister's Daughter, and that's two more books than the non-Soviet Russian history shelf), and non-European history is pretty hard to find. (And when you do, it often has an unpleasant air of Othering).
National Geographic occasionally publishes special issues about historical topics. They're not meant to be scholarly, but as an introduction to a particular topic, I've found them to be pretty reasonable. My local grocery store always seems to have one or two on the newsstand.
It's not history-specific, but I've enjoyed Smithsonian Magazine. They include historical articles on a regular basis, along with a lot else. Pretty well-rounded, and readable.
Honestly, the best history website is probably Wikipedia. There are a lot of history nerd editors, and a lot of articles (especially on general topics) are well-written and well-organized. And because linking is so easy, the effort to dig deeper on a topic that interests you is minimal. Start at the History Portal and get lost.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:14 AM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
A lot of history magazines are period-specific. If you like WWII or the American Civil War, hoo boy. Anything else is hit or miss. In the US, the selection tends toward our own history and the history of England and, to a lesser extent, France, with a dash of Ancient Rome. Germany, Russia, Italy, and other later-developing states are harder to find information about (this is true for non-specialist books as well - the non-Nazi-era German history bookshelf at Barnes and Noble is like two books, one of which is probably The Burgermeister's Daughter, and that's two more books than the non-Soviet Russian history shelf), and non-European history is pretty hard to find. (And when you do, it often has an unpleasant air of Othering).
National Geographic occasionally publishes special issues about historical topics. They're not meant to be scholarly, but as an introduction to a particular topic, I've found them to be pretty reasonable. My local grocery store always seems to have one or two on the newsstand.
It's not history-specific, but I've enjoyed Smithsonian Magazine. They include historical articles on a regular basis, along with a lot else. Pretty well-rounded, and readable.
Honestly, the best history website is probably Wikipedia. There are a lot of history nerd editors, and a lot of articles (especially on general topics) are well-written and well-organized. And because linking is so easy, the effort to dig deeper on a topic that interests you is minimal. Start at the History Portal and get lost.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:14 AM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:54 PM on June 6, 2020 [8 favorites]