Comments on: History As It Was http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2009/06/16/history-as-it-was/ Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:26:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Timothy Burke http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2009/06/16/history-as-it-was/comment-page-1/#comment-6697 Timothy Burke Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:06:58 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=871#comment-6697 I think that's hugely variable depending on the period and place that someone's studying. Cultural and social historians working on modern Africa make extensive use of government records, for example. They have to. I think the people who mourn traditional military/political/diplomatic history are really complaining less about the use of particular archives and more about the way in which those archives then inform the rhetorical and substantive approach of history. Social historians using public or governmental records tend to read "across" or "through" those records for traces of something that they don't mean to say, what Marc Bloch called accidental witnessing. "Traditional" political history tends to take those archives as they are, working from their organizational structure and defined interests. I think that’s hugely variable depending on the period and place that someone’s studying. Cultural and social historians working on modern Africa make extensive use of government records, for example. They have to.

I think the people who mourn traditional military/political/diplomatic history are really complaining less about the use of particular archives and more about the way in which those archives then inform the rhetorical and substantive approach of history. Social historians using public or governmental records tend to read “across” or “through” those records for traces of something that they don’t mean to say, what Marc Bloch called accidental witnessing. “Traditional” political history tends to take those archives as they are, working from their organizational structure and defined interests.

]]> By: dmerkow http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2009/06/16/history-as-it-was/comment-page-1/#comment-6696 dmerkow Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:31:43 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=871#comment-6696 I do wonder if the move away from more traditional versions of military/political/diplomatic has meant that historians have decided to leave potentially valuable archives underutilized. There would seem to be a strong value to have historians crawling around in gov'tal archives. I think this is especially true of local and state histories which have declined as a location of political history. There is a lot of public value buried in those archives that historians won't getting around to look at, instead they really more on newspapers and the narratives constructed therein. I do wonder if the move away from more traditional versions of military/political/diplomatic has meant that historians have decided to leave potentially valuable archives underutilized. There would seem to be a strong value to have historians crawling around in gov’tal archives. I think this is especially true of local and state histories which have declined as a location of political history. There is a lot of public value buried in those archives that historians won’t getting around to look at, instead they really more on newspapers and the narratives constructed therein.

]]>