write about problems faced by historians
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Answer:
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Explanation:
The major challenges to historical research revolve around the problems of sources, knowledge, explanation, objectivity, choice of subject, and the peculiar problems of contemporary history. Sources The problem of sources is a serious challenge to the historian in the task of reconstructing the past.
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Answer:
Both primary and secondary sources contain pitfalls that can trap and blind the historian in his pursuit of historical accuracy. The veracity of the particular source, the motives behind the source and the origins of the evidence are all concerns for the historian. In conjunction with these problems can be the temptation to subsume personal and contemporary reports and evidence for the purposes of a grander and more wide-ranging historical narrative.
Hew Strachan believes that hindsight can disfigure and reduce the essence of history. Hindsight refers to ‘the ability to understand an event or situation only after it has happened’ [i] 1and Strachan believes that this can imbue the historian with an arrogant view of those who did not see the bigger picture or understand the deeper motives behind historical events. Does this have some truth and if so can it distort history to such a degree that it almost erases the individual struggle or achievement? Or does this problem exist merely within a wider spectrum of historical concerns? History must be about balance so is a merging of both the personal and the panoramic possible?
Strachan writes that hindsight distorts history through fostering arrogance. In his book’ The First World War’ he talks of ‘the fact that just because other ideas and ideologies seem foreign to us, this does not deny their charge for those who went to war in 1914’ [ii] so therefore this muting of the past does not push us to understand it merely obfuscates the truth. Yet what is history, but an attempt to see the grander picture and how ideas fit into individual histories and testimonies.
The primary sources that are around for historical examination bring with them not just their face value but an attempt to recreate the conceits and facets behind them. In 1946 Ellen Hammer wrote in an article on America’s relations with the Vichy government that ‘throughout the war information filtered into neutral capitals but only on the spot sources could report with any authority’ [iii] , but just how problematic are these on the spot accounts?