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22
historiography also refers to the theory and history of historical writing. Of all the
fields of serious study and literary effort, history may be the hardest to define
precisely, because the attempt to uncover past events and formulate an intelligible
account of them necessarily involves the use and influence of many auxiliary
disciplines and literary forms. The concern of all serious historians has been to
collect and record facts about the human past and often to discover new facts to
fill up as many gaps as possible in our historical knowledge.
Except for the special circumstance in which historians record events they
themselves have witnessed, historical facts can only be known through
intermediary sources. These include testimony from living witnesses; narrative
records, such as previous histories, memoirs, letters, and imaginative literature;
The legal and financial records of courts, legislatures, religious institutions, or
businesses; and the unwritten information derived from the physical remains of
past civilizations, such as architecture, arts and crafts, burial grounds, and
cultivated land. All these, and many more sources of information provide the
evidence from which the historian deciphers historical facts. The relation between
evidence and fact, however, is rarely simple and direct. The evidence may be
biased or mistaken, fragmentary, or nearly unintelligible after long periods of
linguistic change. Historians, therefore, have known that the information requires
careful attention and they have to assess their evidence with a critical eye. All
have tried to discover in the facts patterns of meaning addressed to the enduring
questions of human life.
Before the late 18
th
century, historiography or the writing of history did not
stand at the center of any civilization. History was almost never an important part
of regular education, and it never claimed to provide and interpretation of human
life as a whole. This was more appropriately the function of religion, of
philosophy, even perhaps of poetry and other imaginative literature. The
historian’s education was that of any cultivated man: careful reading of general
literature, followed by the study of rhetoric, the art of fluent and persuasive use of
language that dominated ancient higher education. The ideal historian would
22
historiography also refers to the theory and history of historical writing. Of all the
fields of serious study and literary effort, history may be the hardest to define
precisely, because the attempt to uncover past events and formulate an intelligible
account of them necessarily involves the use and influence of many auxiliary
disciplines and literary forms. The concern of all serious historians has been to
collect and record facts about the human past and often to discover new facts to
fill up as many gaps as possible in our historical knowledge.
Except for the special circumstance in which historians record events they
themselves have witnessed, historical facts can only be known through
intermediary sources. These include testimony from living witnesses; narrative
records, such as previous histories, memoirs, letters, and imaginative literature;
The legal and financial records of courts, legislatures, religious institutions, or
businesses; and the unwritten information derived from the physical remains of
past civilizations, such as architecture, arts and crafts, burial grounds, and
cultivated land. All these, and many more sources of information provide the
evidence from which the historian deciphers historical facts. The relation between
evidence and fact, however, is rarely simple and direct. The evidence may be
biased or mistaken, fragmentary, or nearly unintelligible after long periods of
linguistic change. Historians, therefore, have known that the information requires
careful attention and they have to assess their evidence with a critical eye. All
have tried to discover in the facts patterns of meaning addressed to the enduring
questions of human life.
Before the late 18th century, historiography or the writing of history did not
stand at the center of any civilization. History was almost never an important part
of regular education, and it never claimed to provide and interpretation of human
life as a whole. This was more appropriately the function of religion, of
philosophy, even perhaps of poetry and other imaginative literature. The
historian’s education was that of any cultivated man: careful reading of general
literature, followed by the study of rhetoric, the art of fluent and persuasive use of
language that dominated ancient higher education. The ideal historian would
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