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Author Topic: Historians/Quotes I Used for Section One  (Read 6134 times)  Share 

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kensie08

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Historians/Quotes I Used for Section One
« on: December 16, 2018, 08:43:03 pm »
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Hey guys, over the History Extension course, you will look at a whole heap of historians, from ancient right through to modern times, and gain a heap of info about their methodologies, purposes, perspectives and prejudices. However, for me personally, whilst it was great to have this extensive bank of historians, I seemed to often fall back on a few from a core group, who I found related to most questions, and who I could easily use to support my position when approaching the sources in exams. Now, I am by no means an expert or a moderator, but after a lot of hard work I did manage to do very well in this subject, and I thought I would pass on what I found helpful!  :)
So here are the historians, and the quotes, that I loved to pull out in the 'What is History' section.

John Vincent - postmodern position
1. "History is deeply male, history is essentially non-young. History is about the rich and famous, not the poor. History favours the articulate, not the silent."
2. "History is about assessing distortions, not copying out truths...distortion is built into the very nature of history."
3. "No evidence, no history, imperfect evidence, imperfect history."

Keith Jenkins - postmodern position
1. "History is arguably a verbal artefact, a narrative prose discourse in which the content is as much invented as found, and which is written by present minded, ideologically positioned workers."
2. "The past, appropriated by historians, is never the past itself, but the remaining accessible traces of it."

Eric Hobsbawn - marxist position
1. "What historians investigate is real. The point from which they must start, however far from it they may end, is the fundamental distinction between fact and fiction."

E.H. Carr - highly, highly recommend his book 'What is History' - I think Susie does too!
1. "facts are like fish swimming around in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean, and what the historian catches will depend largely on which part of the ocean he chooses to fish in, and what tackle he chooses to use."
2. “The historian without his facts is rootless and futile; the facts without their historian are dead and meaningless.”
3. “We view the past, and achieve our understanding of the past, only through the eyes of the present”
4. The idea of reciprocity between facts and historian to create meaning

Henry Steele Commanger
1. "it is interpretation which is most nearly individual."
2. "Interpretation involves the accumulation of facts, and their skilful organisation, even the most painstaking analysis doesn't guarantee a profound interpretation, that requires judgement, originality, imagination and art."

Keith Windschuttle - empricist position
1. "Archive documents have a reality and objectivity of their own. The names, numbers and expressions on the page do not change, no matter who is looking at them."
2. "Historians are not free to interpret evidence according to their theories of prejudices. The evidence itself will restrict the purposes for which it can be used."

Carl Becker
1. "The historian must judge the significance of the series of events from one single performance, since the records are incomplete and imperfect...thus into the imagined facts anf their meaning enters the personal equation."
2. "Our imagined picture of the actual event is always determined by our own present desires, purposes, prepossessions and prejudices."
3. "In this wat the present influences our idea of the past, our idea of the past influences the present."

Eric Foner - one of his articles was actually used as a source in a past hsc exam
1. "History always has and always will be regularly rewritten in response to new questions, new information, new methodologies and new political, social and cultural imperitives."
2. "That each generation can and must rewrite history does not mean that history is simply a series of myths and legends."

This list is by no means a complete one-stop shop, but hopefully it helps. Ultimately, in Section 1, it is best to draw upon historians who reinforce your personal position/personal voice on the question. I think that having a personal voice (your own opinion) and engaging consistently/extensively with the source you are given, are the two keys to gaining the most marks possible - so use your historians (and your anlysis of them) to help you achieve these things.
2018 HSC:
General Mathematics 100 (14th in state) | Biology 91 | Advanced English 95 | Extension 1 English 48 | Extension 2 English 39 | Ancient History 98 (10th in state) | History Extension 50 (2nd in state) |

ATAR: 99.65

darcyynic

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Re: Historians/Quotes I Used for Section One
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2018, 09:25:29 pm »
+10
YES! I love this so much. What a great resource?! Also, congratulations on your AMAZING results. You've done the humanities incredibly proud.

This is such a great idea and HEXT is really lacking in resources, so I also thought I'd contribute some of my own which I used frequently. :)

Some Historians and Schools of Thought I Used + Quotes

Spoiler

Some more quotes from Carr
  • "History would not be worth writing or reading if it had no meaning."
  • "We must study the historian, before we can study what he has done to the facts."
  • "The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context."

GR Elton
  • "The study of history, then, amounts to a search for the truth."
  • "The inability to know all the truth is not the same thing as total inability to know the truth."

Joan Wallach Scott – Feminist
  • "[Women's history] questions the relative priority given to 'his-story' as opposed to 'her-story,' exposing the hierarchy implicit in many historical accounts."
  • "[Women's history] challenges both the sufficiency of any history's claims to tell a whole story and the completeness and self-presence of history's subject – universal Man."

Some arguments for and against Historical Fiction
  • "Until we go back and retell our stories and put the shadows in we won't grow up as a society." (Kate Grenville – for)
  • "It takes the voice of fiction to get the feet walking in a new direction." (Kate Grenville – for)
  • "We're not allowed to just make it up." (Niall Ferguson – against)
  • "Historians are concerned with what men and women have actually done." (Inga Clendinnen – against)

Academic vs Popular History
  • "We also need histories that communicate with diverse audiences." (Ann Curthoys in her text 'Crossing Over' which advocates for a blend of popular and academic history)
  • "Academic history is produced in a sort of enclosed carousel." (Paul Ham)
  • "[Popular history's job is to] rescue history from the academy, which has done a terrific job in the last hundred years of murdering our history." (Ken Burns)

HSC Class of 2018: English Advanced, English Extension 1, English Extension 2, Modern History, Ancient History, History Extension, and German Continuers.

2019: Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Politics and International Relations) (Dalyell Scholars) at USYD.

kensie08

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Re: Historians/Quotes I Used for Section One
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2018, 07:35:59 am »
+7
YES! I love this so much. What a great resource?! Also, congratulations on your AMAZING results. You've done the humanities incredibly proud.

This is such a great idea and HEXT is really lacking in resources, so I also thought I'd contribute some of my own which I used frequently. :)

Some Historians and Schools of Thought I Used + Quotes

Spoiler

Some more quotes from Carr
  • "History would not be worth writing or reading if it had no meaning."
  • "We must study the historian, before we can study what he has done to the facts."
  • "The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context."

GR Elton
  • "The study of history, then, amounts to a search for the truth."
  • "The inability to know all the truth is not the same thing as total inability to know the truth."

Joan Wallach Scott – Feminist
  • "[Women's history] questions the relative priority given to 'his-story' as opposed to 'her-story,' exposing the hierarchy implicit in many historical accounts."
  • "[Women's history] challenges both the sufficiency of any history's claims to tell a whole story and the completeness and self-presence of history's subject – universal Man."

Some arguments for and against Historical Fiction
  • "Until we go back and retell our stories and put the shadows in we won't grow up as a society." (Kate Grenville – for)
  • "It takes the voice of fiction to get the feet walking in a new direction." (Kate Grenville – for)
  • "We're not allowed to just make it up." (Niall Ferguson – against)
  • "Historians are concerned with what men and women have actually done." (Inga Clendinnen – against)

Academic vs Popular History
  • "We also need histories that communicate with diverse audiences." (Ann Curthoys in her text 'Crossing Over' which advocates for a blend of popular and academic history)
  • "Academic history is produced in a sort of enclosed carousel." (Paul Ham)
  • "[Popular history's job is to] rescue history from the academy, which has done a terrific job in the last hundred years of murdering our history." (Ken Burns)



Thank you so much!!

And YES! Thanks for contributing! Hopefully others join in too and we get a really useful collection for everyone :)
2018 HSC:
General Mathematics 100 (14th in state) | Biology 91 | Advanced English 95 | Extension 1 English 48 | Extension 2 English 39 | Ancient History 98 (10th in state) | History Extension 50 (2nd in state) |

ATAR: 99.65

katie,rinos

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Re: Historians/Quotes I Used for Section One
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2018, 10:33:05 am »
+7
This is such an amazing resource kensie08!!  ;D

Heres some of the quotes that I used last year:
Spoiler
Von Ranke
1. “To history has been given the function of judging the past, of instructing men for the profit of years …. it merely wants to show how essentially things happened”
2. “To the next generation, Von Ranke was not Von Rankean enough.”

Carr
1. “History includes interpretation”.
2. “Main work of a historian is not to record but to evaluate.”
3. “The duty of the historian to respect his facts is not exhausted by the obligation to see that his facts are accurate.”
4. “The historian is necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which is very hard to eradicate.”

Public History
1. “with public money comes public influence on historical interpretations” (Winter).
2. “public history is here to stay …. then the wisest course of action is to face not only it’s attractions but also its risks and pitfalls (Winter).

Foucault
1. “Historians gaze should be three dimensional.”
2. “History is not the tale of continuous development.”
3. “developments are not linear, straight, uncomplicated”
4. “History tells of the constant struggle between different powers which try to impose their own ‘will to truth’.”
Class of 2017 (Year 12): Advanced English, General Maths, Legal Studies, Music 1, Ancient History, History Extension, Hospitality
2018-2022: B Music/B Education (Secondary) [UNSW]

liladh

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Re: Historians/Quotes I Used for Section One
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2018, 03:21:56 pm »
+6
Love this!! In addition to darcyynic, kensie08 and katierinos' fab quotes, here are a few of my own: (plus congrats everyone on receiving results!! I'm so proud of everyone <3)

Spoiler
Simon Schama, British liberal historian
1. “Historians are forever left chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness...”

Geoffrey Elton (For another point of view on Elton, for all his esteem I argued that he is sexist and absolutist)
1."It is pernicious nonsense that men could not eliminate themselves from the search for truth..." - idea of absolute objectivity
2. Keith Jenkins argues that “Elton’s ideas are undermined by his failure to meet philosophical points”

Marc Bloch, Annalist historian - universal history and history from below
1.“Historical research will tolerate no autarchy ... for the only true history, which can advance only through mutual aid, is universal history.”
2.“History should not be trapped by documents... it must go beyond”
3.“If your neighbour on the left says 2x2=4, and the one the right says it is 5, do not conclude that the answer is 4 1⁄2.”

Language as inherently subjective, linguistic structuralism and semiotics (thanks to sudodds lecture!)
1."Meaning is no longer read in an immediate perception, the figure no longer speaks for itself; between the knowledge which animates it and the form into which it is transposed, a gap widens. It is free for the dream.” - Michel Foucault
2.“there is nothing outside the text” - Jacques Derrida

More arguments on history as fiction to add on to darcyynic's great quotes!!
1.“With the decline of academic history, novelists have taken over the historian’s role and fiction has become history” - Mark McKenna
2."The only way of grasping history...is by people’s entering it into their imagination, not by the world of facts, but by being there. Poetry may do so...but it’s mostly going to be fiction.” - Novelist David Malouf
3."novelists have been doing their best to bump historians off the track" - Inga Clendinnen
4. Hayden White's notion of "emplotment" - only when the facts are given a structure by the historian, do they make sense - idea of historical works as a narrative prose discourse



HSC 2018: English Advanced ✼ Ancient History (5th in the state) ✼ History Extension ✼ Society and Culture ✼ Visual Arts ✼ Japanese Continuers