Custom essays on Historiography and Critical Historical Thinking

The historical science studies the historical development of the world but many historians living in different regions of the world and in different time have developed their own vision of history. By now, a huge number of theories have emerged to define basic principles and rules of the historical development of the world. At the same time, till today, there is no ideal universal theory that could explain history and historical development absolutely objectively and adequately. Nevertheless, it is possible to dwell upon some approaches to and views on history which explain historical development, open new perspectives on history and contribute to the development of objective, critical historical thinking.
Basically, the history plays an important part in the life of human society. At the same time, often the views on one and the same even may differ consistently and historians may offer different explanations to one and the same event. Moreover, views of historians may vary even on the larger concepts such as regional and local history, which is highly dependent on the perspective from which the history is depicted or studied. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the regional and local history of England and pay a particular attention to the development of cities and formation of communities and identities in a historical perspective. In fact, the development of society is susceptible to changes and historians contribute to the documentation of such changes and transformation. They give a valuable material for the future generations that help better understand the history, but, at the same time, it is very important to avoid biases and subjectivity while conducting a historical study.
The emergence of history as a science dates back to the time of antiquity and even earlier when people had started to trace their origin and study their past even at the primitive level. At the beginning, historiography could not be viewed as a science in the contemporary sense. Instead, first manifestations or attempts to create historical narrations were attempts of people to convey stories about their past, at first in the oral form and later in the written form. These first, earliest narrations were not really historical narrations but they were rather myths and legends. For instance, many myths and legends of ancient Greeks as well as Romans mirror the past of these people. Even though these early historical narrations lack accuracy, they are still very important because they laid foundation to history as a science. In this respect, it is hardly possible to ignore works of such an outstanding historian of ancient Greece as Herodotus. As the matter of fact, it is due to efforts of early historians, history has started to transform into a true science.
At the same time, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the early historiography was quite simple, if not to say primitive, and historical works represented the mix of legends, subjective interpretation of facts by historians, and the desire to stress superiority of historians’ countrymen over other peoples. In the course of time historiography evolved and changed. In this respect, it should be said that the development of history as a science was accompanied by the growth of attention of historians to different levels of social life. Basically, history was often viewed as a chronological description of certain historical events in certain area. However, along with the progress of human society and history as a science, the attention of historians to the life of communities and to regional and local history grew more and more significant. In fact, it is possible to estimate that historians attempted to depict the development of human society on several levels.
The development of historiography was and still is often focused on the development of certain region, cultural group, or civilization. Moreover, historiography is vulnerable to the impact of the dominant cultural group. Basically the history may be viewed in terms of the local community, a city, for instance, of a region, a country, a part or even the entire world. However, there is another important element which may b crucial in the understanding of history, this is an ordinary individual. What is meant here is the fact that an individual is probably the key figure in the history since it is through the formation of an individual’s identity the formation of such concepts as community, country or region occurs. To put it more precisely, the analysis of works of many specialist makes it possible to estimate that it is through the individual’s identity the formation of larger social entities occurs. In fact, it is hardly possible to speak about any kind of community, if people, which are supposed to belong to this community, do not have a common cultural identity. The latter, in its turn is shaped by the common identity of each individual. To put it more precisely, each individual’s identity is shaped on the basis of a set of values, social and moral norms, religious beliefs, and other concepts that exist in the community, but people, living in this community should share these values, views and beliefs in order to be a community, or a social group of people sharing the same cultural identity. Naturally, in such a context, the development of the common identity is impossible if people have different beliefs, views and norms, which distinguish them consistently from each other, though it does not mean that the formation of the community leads to the formation of the common identity that oppress any diversity within the community.
At this point, it is possible to speak about the historical periodization and its dependence on the cultural background of historians (Zerubavel, 1998, 322). What is meant here is the fact that historiography was vulnerable to the impact of the cultural background in terms of the cultural values, norms and standards of historians. As a result, historians attempted to interpret history on the ground of their own cultural norms and values. Naturally, such interpretation of historical facts is very subjective because the interpretation of history should be beyond cultural background of historians. The negative effects of such subjective view on history and historical development can be traced in the study of pre-Columbian history. To put it more precisely, European historians extrapolated their own vision of history and human society on the history and social structure and relations of Native American societies. However, they could not understand the Native American culture, norms and standards according to which local people lived. In addition, such a subjective view on history led to the cultural, economic and political oppression of Native Americans as well as other people, whom Europeans colonized in the course of time. This trend became particularly strong in the epoch of imperialism. Moreover, this trend persists till present days and acquires various forms, such as the cultural imperialism of the US.