| | |  | This is the Conversation Forum for How To "Do" History, or, Various Historical Methods
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| | | Subject: A850330 - How To Do History
Posted May 29, 2003 by  xyroth
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  | | I thinks a couple of the sections need refining.
both the teleological and the revisionist sections are not as clear as they should be. in particular, the revisionist section does not make it very clear that revisionist historians try and deny that any of the inconvenient history actually happened. (as seen with white supremecists and the holocaust).
also, the comparative section is a little on the dismissive side. as long as you are comparing similar things, you can get usefull inforamtion from the comparative approach. in fact it is essential to any interdisciplinary approach to history.
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| | | Subject: A850330 - How To Do History
Posted May 30, 2003 by xyroth
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| | it does appear tht what you are talking about re: revisionist history is different from what I describe, but unfortunately there is also a use for the term "revisionist history" which absolutely fits with what I described (ie rewriting unhelpfull or inconvenient bits of history out of the history books).
I think you need to go away and check if they are the same thing in different clothes, or if they are completely different.
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| | | Subject: A850330 - How To Do History
Posted May 30, 2003 by Montana Redhead (now with letters)
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| | professional revisionist historians are those that try to apply current standards to historical events. Such as trying to understand ancient greek ore medieval monastic same sex behavior as homosexual behavior, when it wasn't, since the idea of a sexual identity in the way *we* understand it didn't really emerge until the late 19th century.
Another example is when a revisionist writes (as one did)that a white man beating a black slave in Georgia in 1845 was participating in the creation of racism. No, he wasn't. He was beating his slave. Now, is that something that should be done? No, slavery was a deplorable event, but the fact is, that white man was not creating racism, not in HIS mind, anyway.
The "historians" who try to say the Holocaust never happened aren't historians, because no true historian could ever deny the mountain of evidence in front of him or her. Those types are nothing more than rabble-rousers, and what they do isn't history, it's crap.
Of course, I'm showing my bias, by assuming that there is some sort of objective reality that has been experienced by historical groups and individuals. The job of the historian, in my view, is to reconstruct, as closely as possible, that reality.
Which would explain why I'm not an American historian, since Americanists tend to want to view the world through particular lens, such as Marx, or gender.
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