 |
How Historiology defines History
This is the text of a book review, which analyses four
new books on Approaches to History as an academic subject
- a field which is becoming known as 'Historiology' in
contrast to the better-known term 'Historiography', which
refers to the study of past historians' writings.
|
|
|
"We are all One in the Eyes
of the Lord": Christopher Hill and the Historical
Meanings of Radical Religion
This historiographical essay draws upon personal memories
of discussions with the eminent Marxist historian Christopher
Hill to reassesses his philosophy of history. His fundamental
belief was in the equality of all humans, derived from
his personal response to his Methodist upbringing. As
a student at Oxford in the early 1930s, he transmuted
his egalitarianism into a life-long commitment to Marxism
and to studying History 'from below', as a means of understanding
oppression and people's struggles for liberation. Hence
his commitment was to a humanist and liberal rather than
a Stalinist Marxism, while, over time, the specifically
Marxist elements and terminology in his analysis notably
faded.
This item can be paired with 1985
Interview with Christopher Hill by Penelope J. Corfield,
available via London University's Institute of Historical
Research. Also relevant for those interested in Historians
and Marxism is the matching 1992
Interview with E.P. Thompson by Penelope J. Corfield,
also available via London University's Institute of Historical
Research. |
|
|
History and the Challenge of
Gender History
This essay provides a critical assessment of debates
within and about gender history. The hype that claimed
that women's history would subvert the discipline of history
and introduce a new 'herstory' was wildly overdone. But
women's history has indeed enriched the subject and has,
importantly, mutated into a broader gender history, which
offers scope for the history of men/masculinity as well
as of women/femininity. It is an inclusive development
which is fostering a holistic history. And these innovations
can be welcomed, without entailing an intellectual appeal
to a supposedly warm 'female' intuition, or depending
upon a postmodernist onslaught upon an allegedly dying
'male' rationality.
|
|
|
