Historical Research Methods

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that history can be seen as a narrative of events, known as the historicist approach, a chronological record of events, known as the teleological approach, or as an analysis of events. The author points out that the product depends upon the method and sources used by the analyst; moreover, the product depends upon the analysts themselves. The paper stresses that ancient history is bound to be rewritten as historians integrate various studies within the reinterpretation of history itself.

From the Paper:

"If one will allow, for a moment, that humanity is immersed in linear thinking, the conclusions reached by Howell and Prevenier seem illogical. If one event leads to the next and so on throughout life and history, how is it that yesterday's historians would be lost? The authors point out that, "even the most neutral-seeming periodizations often embed a kind of linear thinking". If one examines the question more closely one will understand that the teleological view of history is more than linear thinking and not contradictory to Howell and Prevenier's conclusion. Aristotle's view "is to see the universe as striving towards its own final cause. Just as the acorn is impelled to become the oak, so there is a design. . ." A teleological view of history leads one to believe that all things are moving toward a completion of some kind, a natural end."

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