History is....
To understand historical reading, or to write history, it helps to understand the discipline. R. G. Collingwood, a top scholar who held two chairs, philosophy and history at Oxford University, presented the following definition. It appeared in the book, The Idea of History (Oxford Univ., 1946). I have distilled the main points to help us become better historians of whatever topic is before us. (If you do not think of yourself as a historian, read on, and welcome aboard!)
History defined by R. G. Collingwood in The Idea of History
Collingwood's definition of history has been generally accepted in the field for the past generation, if any definition could be identified as 'generally accepted.' In a nutshell, he isolated four defining characteristics:
“... history should be
(a) a science, or an answering of questions;
(b) concerned with human actions in the past;
(c) pursued by interpretation of evidence; and
(d) for the sake of human self-knowledge.” (10-11).
Historians begin by wondering, not by knowing. Wonder creates questions, and these inquiries focus on the human past. Responses to questions about the human past come from interpreting primary sources -- the evidence. Like a lawyer who argues a case, historians present and explain evidence to produce a reasonable answer to questions. The answers may sometimes be the 'Truth,' sometimes not. But with care and integrity, the answers will move in the direction of accuracy and intellectual honesty, rather than toward propaganda or traditional authority. How? By open interpretation of evidence, fair exploration of opposed sides to the argument and an honest conclusion. In other words, a good historian combines the best of both prosecution and defense attorneys.
The task of the historian?
The “prime duty of the historian [is] a willingness to bestow infinite pains on discovering what actually happened....by interpreting facts” (55 & 56).
“What the critical historian has to do is to decide whether the persons whose testimony he is using were, on this or that occasion, judging correctly or erroneously. This decision must be made on the basis of his own experience. This experience tells him what kind of things can happen; and this is the canon by which he criticizes testimony.
The crux arises when our witness alleges a fact wholly without analogy in our own experience. Can we believe him or must we reject that part of his testimony?” (137).
To sum up: Some accounts from the past may well be outside our experience, as the Japanese Samurai Way of the Warrior is so beyond modern, western experience. Does this "foreign-ness" require we reject the assumptions and thinking of the Samurai and inject modern ideas, like superstition, political correctness or Freudian psychology? Collingwood disagreed, and instead provided a method:
The Solution
Historians require “active” [not passive] critical thinking. The method requires “re-thinking” what the source or person in history was thinking, a “re-enactment in the historian’s own mind” (215). A “historical imagination” reconstructs events (to 245), and this autonomous thinking may begin inside the historian but must be based on scrutiny of source-evidence. Yet this cannot be merely ‘scissors-and-paste’ history (to 282) but must be re-thought through various sources and scenarios. The historian must locate the most accurate basis and interpret the outcome, not just present the sources pasted together.
This is probably the most difficult part for historians today: to combine an open mind with wide and deep life-experience, shaped by a creative imagination. But.... Imagination? To what extent should imagination enter the explanation of historical events? To re-iterate Collingwood's answer: to the extent that an "experienced" imagination is qualified by a critical analysis of original sources. This means that the historian, while tied to the primary texts, deals with the Samurai by re-thinking the ideas that those sources contain, then presenting that world and world-view fairly. To present these medieval Japanese people without Buddhist reincarnation, warrior integrity, ritual suicide and male domination as significant parts of their history is to fail at interpreting what those sources had to offer.
What is really at issue for Collingwood is the integrity of history itself -- the need to present, as fully and accurately as possible, the true history of those people in the past as they saw themselves, not as the historian wants to present them. For example, modern political correctness presents (or distorts) history in order to support itself: so in its fictions, female warriors of a chivalrous sort emerge in medieval Japan and China; victimhood permeates the [infant-sacrificing!] Aztecs. None of this, of course, is true but it does entrench some people in cultural if not also political and pocketbook power.
Imaginative reconstruction by present-day historians is not free to distort, ignore or reject ideas in historical sources if the sources present evidence in a consistent, corroborated and plausible way. With all exuberance, yes, doubt that plausibility! Doubt and critique it by all means and with all reasonableness, but do so openly and after the original case is honestly and fairly presented. To distort or cover up history in order to make the remnants conform to some personal or currently-professional principle is to betray history for a modern, temporary goal. And it is, necessarily, to fail at understanding that history.
Conclusions & Observations
Historical research is a rational balance between critically sifting past source-evidence and an honest, present re-enactment. While history arises from questions that we currently have, and while we re-enact history in a vital and present way, the essence of history resides in the past. History is not merely an interpretation that is 'someone's perspective' but is an accurate re-creation of ideas currently thought through, or re-thought through, by us. But those ideas existed in the past, in people who thought them first and transmitted inklings of them to us in sources. These thoughts may never be perfectly re-created; conclusions may well vary; some of both the seen and unseen forces of history will remain illusive; but the fountain of history rises from the evidence from the past, not from personal perspective or current assumptions. Good historians need an experienced imagination in the present that resonates honestly with the past. For yet another reason, it will serve us well to know how to do history: As Dorothy Sayers once wrote, "If you learn how to tackle one subject -- any subject -- you've learnt how to tackle all subjects." [from Gaudy Night]
Summary
History begins with a question. It proceeds through research of the evidence filtered and critiqued by our own rationality and experience. The hoped-for result is an accurate re-enactment of the human past in the mind of the historian. The goal is to learn more about humanity. Therefore, as Collingwood wrote, "All history is the history of thought." (215 & 317)
