The Historian's Toolbox: A Student's Guide to the Theory and Craft of History

by Williams; Robert C

• ISBN13: 9780765633262
• ISBN10: 0765633264
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Written in an engaging and entertaining style, this widely-used how-to guide introduces readers to the theory, craft, and methods of history and provides a series of tools to help them research and understand the past. Part I is a stimulating, philosophical introduction to the key elements of history--evidence, narrative, and judgment--that explores how the study and concepts of history have evolved over the centuries. Part II guides readers through the workshop of history. Unlocking the historian's toolbox, the chapters here describe the tricks of the trade, with concrete examples of how to do history. The tools include documents, primary and secondary sources, maps, arguments, bibliographies, chronologies, and many others. This section also covers professional ethics and controversial issues, such as plagiarism, historical hoaxes, and conspiracy theories. Part III addresses the relevance of the study of history in today's fast-paced world. The chapters here will resonate with a new generation of readers: on everyday history, oral history, material culture, public history, event analysis, and historical research on the Internet. This Part also includes two new chapters for this edition. GIS and CSI examines the use of geographic information systems and the science of forensics in discovering and seeing the patterns of the past. Too Much Information treats the issue of information overload, glut, fatigue, and anxiety, while giving the reader meaningful signals that can benefit the study and craft of history. A new epilogue for this edition argues for the persistence of history as a useful and critically important way to understand the world despite the information deluge.

Table of Contents

Illustrations and Tables	p. xi
History as Fun	p. xiii
The Craft of History
The Past	p. 3
Story	p. 7
History	p. 11
Metahistory	p. 20
Antihistory	p. 27
The Present	p. 33
The Future	p. 39
The Tools of History
Doing History: An Overview	p. 47
Choosing a Good Paper Topic	p. 47
Reading History	p. 48
Taking Notes	p. 51
How to Write a Good History Paper	p. 52
Sources and Evidence	p. 56
Primary and Secondary Sources	p. 56
Primary Source: The Wannsee Protocol (1942)	p. 57
Secondary Source: Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they say it? (2000)	p. 57
Summary	p. 59
Documents	p. 59
A Revolutionary War Ancestor's Pension Application (1832)	p. 59
Maps	p. 61
Sebastian Munster's Map of the Americas, c: 1540	p. 61
Artifacts	p. 64
Digging Ancient Moscow	p. 64
Images	p. 66
Sharpshooter's Home or Photographer's Studio?	p. 67
Cliometrics: Using Statistics to Prove a Point	p. 70
The Black Population of Colonial America	p. 70
Genetic Evidence	p. 72
Welsh and Basques, Relatively Speaking	p. 73
Thomas Jefferson and Sally HemingsùWhat's My Line?	p. 74
Credit and Acknowledgment	p. 79
Notes	p. 79
Bibliography	p. 81
Styling your Bibliography	p. 81
Types of Bibliographies	p. 82
A Selective, Annotated Bibliography	p. 82
Acknowledging Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism	p. 83
Professional Plagiarism: How Not to Do History	p. 86
Narrative and Explanation	p. 91
The Language of the Historian	p. 91
Paul Revere and the New England Village	p. 92
Chronology	p. 95
The Life of Margaret Fuller	p. 97
Narrative	p. 100
Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg	p. 100
Argument	p. 104
"'Little Women' Who Helped Make This Great War"	p. 105
Causation	p. 106
The Reasons Why	p. 108
Explaining the Mann Gulch Fire of August 5,1949	p. 109
Interpretation	p. 112
Reviewing History	p. 112
Bellesiles's Arming America	p. 113
Historical Revision	p. 116
The Denmark Vesey Slave Conspiracy (1822)	p. 116
Historiography	p. 119
World War II	p. 120
Women's History: The Leo Frank Case	p. 124
Speculation	p. 128
Historical Speculation	p. 128
Will the Real Martin Guerre Please Get an Identity?	p. 128
History as Fiction	p. 130
The Soldier Who Never was	p. 131
Conspiracies	p. 133
Who Really Really Killed Lincoln?	p. 133
Forgeries and Facsimiles	p. 136
Is a Document Genuine?	p. 136
Is a Collection of Documents Authentic?	p. 138
How Can Forgeries Influence History?	p. 138
Is a Newly Discovered Collection by a Well-Known Author Authentic?	p. 139
If it is a Forgery, Who is the Forger?	p. 139
Fiction as History	p. 141
Film as History: Fact or Fiction?	p. 143
Films Can Help the Historian Understand the Past	p. 144
Films Can Hinder Our Understanding of the Historical Past	p. 145
The Relevance of History
Everyday History	p. 151
Studying Ordinary People	p. 151
The Burgermeister's Daughter	p. 151
Everyone's a Historian	p. 153
Oral History	p. 156
The Perils of Memory	p. 156
Interviewees and Interviewers	p. 158
The WPA Slave Narratives	p. 159
Techniques of Oral History	p. 161
Material Culture	p. 164
Spirits in the Material World	p. 165
Richard Bushman and The Refinement of America	p. 165
Studying Material Culture	p. 167
Public History	p. 170
History Beyond the Ivory Tower	p. 170
History and the Public	p. 172
The Enola Gay Controversy	p. 172
Event Analysis	p. 177
History in Real Time	p. 177
The Iraq War: Munich, Mukden, or Mexico?	p. 178
New Tools: GIS and CSI	p. 182
Spatial History: Geographic Information Systems	p. 182
Killer App: Crime Scene Investigation Forensics	p. 184
History on the Internet	p. 187
Using the Internet: Promises and Pitfalls	p. 187
Wikipedia and "Wikiality"	p. 189
Blogging the Past (and Present)	p. 191
TMI: Too Much Information	p. 193
History as Information	p. 193
Hacking History: The Deluge of WikiLeaks	p. 196
Private Parts: The Intrusion of History	p. 199
Epilogue: The Persistence of History	p. 202
Glossary	p. 205
Selected Bibliography	p. 213
Index	p. 219
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