5 Key Elements of Good Historical Practice

In this short post, I would like to pick up where I left off in my last post on Primary and Secondary Sources, and talk about 5 key elements of good historical practice.

Before we do that though, we need to talk about the difference between the past and history.

Those terms are used interchangeably these days, but they do mean different things. What’s the difference? The past is everything that has ever happened to humans in a chronological timeline. It’s the facts. It’s the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘where’. History, on the other hand, is the way we interpret those facts. It’s the story we tell ourselves to make sense of what happened. Its the explanation. It’s the ‘why’ and ‘how’. It’s important to note that the past doesn’t change, but history does change because the way we interpret the past changes. When you have a group of scholars who interpret the past in the same way, you have a historical school of thought. And the way that the scholars from these historical schools of thought write about the past is called historiography.

In the last post, we talked about how we know what happened in the past, that is, where we get those facts. Historical practice, then, is the way we study and analyse and organise and interpret those facts, to make history.

Here are 5 key elements of good historical practice.

1. Historical Literacy

Historical literacy is having knowledge about the past, in context, chronologically. That is, having an understanding of the succession of events in a chronological timeline so you know where to place things. This comes through good historical education. It’s not about memorising facts and dates. That’s a sure way to put people off history. It’s about understanding the grand sweep of history as a whole, not on focusing on individual facts and dates. It’s about understanding the human element of it, which we can all connect to. I’ll come back to this shortly.

2. Curiosity

Good historical practice is question-driven. When I begin a history research project, I begin by listing as many questions about the topic that I can think of, focusing on the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘how’. Then I dig into the sources and search for answers. Analyse the sources. Evaluate them. (I’ll explain what this means in the next post). When you’ve accumulated enough information and data, review it and more questions will likely rise to the surface. Then go back to the sources and seek for more answers. Good historical scholarship begins with questions. It does not begin with questions you’ve already answered or preconceived ideas. Good historical scholarship is okay with questions. Its okay with being challenged. And its okay with not having all the answers.

3. Imagination

This is where the human element, that I mentioned before, comes in. History is human. It’s about people. Ask yourself, what was it like for the people who lived this? Put yourself in their shoes. Historical re-enactments and re-creations like Sovereign Hill here in Victoria are great for this. Imagine what it would have been like. ‘Listen’ to the people and ‘hear’ their stories. Consider their perspectives. This helps you to develop empathy and humility. You’re seeing how things were from the perspective of the people at the time, and you also begin to see your place in history. We must approach the past on its own terms and not judge it unfairly by our own modern standards and viewpoints that exist long after their time and which they knew nothing about.

4 & 5. Truth & Academic Integrity

For the sake of time and space, I’m going to combine these two, and I plan to extrapolate on number 5 in the next post.

The goal of good historical practice must always be the truth about the past as far as we can understand it. Historical accuracy is key. The other day, someone on Threads brought up something the French philosopher Voltaire said, “History is a pack of lies agreed upon.” I said that I beg to differ, and he said that he had a set of facts to prove it. I replied by asking, “How do you know that that set of facts are not lies?” There’s been no reply. Historical truth is by nature objective and is there for us to discover. How do we discover that truth? I will attempt to explain that in the next post.

Lastly, we must be committed to methods of good historical practice and academic integrity. Always.

In conclusion, good historical practice includes understanding the past chronologically in it’s historical context and becoming knowledgeable through historical education, being curious about the past and asking good questions, understanding the human element and imagining what it would have been like for people, and pursuing historical truth and academic integrity always.

This methodology is not just for historians and scholars. Anyone can learn these skills. Anyone can do this. And that includes YOU! One thing I love about historical practice is that it teaches us critical thinking skills, a skill that is key to life in our modern world. I plan to go into this a bit more in the next post. So much historical education these days consists of reading books and watching videos. Ingesting content is good but it is not enough. Don’t leave your brain at the door! Think critically about what you’re reading and hearing because not all history, not even from historians, is good history. When you engage with history, you’ll find your curiosity and excitement about it explode! I find my passion for it just grows!

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References

I have drawn from the below source and found their content extremely helpful and aligned with my own.

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