History
Difficulties

History is not easy. It takes time, it takes thought, it takes an open mind presserved over decades. Some events are beyond recovery, and others may require evidence drawn from far afield for their discovery or interpretation. But apart from this, there are difficulties that are not merely personal, but are imposed from the larger culture, general tendencies which may affect the work of every historian. Absent a general change of which there is no present sign, they require resistence to current popular ways of seeing things. This section offers some examples of these more systemic difficulties.

Here are cases, not mentioned by Ranke, where courage - courage against the tide - may be called for by the practicing historian.

Difficulties

• The Antiquity Frenzy
• The Anyway Club
• The Attack on History
• Dating
• Discipline
• The Feudalism Question
• The Present
• Stanley Fish
• Two

6 Feb 2006 / Contact The Project / Exit to Method Index Page