History & Histography Glen Cunningham

History is the study of the human past as it is described in the written documents left by human beings.The past, with all its decisions completed, its participants dead and its history told, is what the general public perceives as the immutable bedrock on which we historians and archaeologists stand. But as purveyors of the past, we recognize that the bedrock is really quicksand, that bits of the story are yet untold, and that what has been told comes tainted by the conditions of what we are today Historiography refers to both the study of the methodology of historians and the development of"history"as a discipline, and also to a body of historical workon a particular subject. The importance of historiography or the writing of history as a factor promoting either peace or conflict is a line of study much in currency today. Modern historians aim to reconstruct a record of human activities and to achieve a more profound understanding of them. This conception of their task is quite recent, dating from the development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries of'scientific" history and the simultaneous rise of history as an academic profession. Before the late 18th century, historiography did not stand at the centre of any civilization. History was almost never an important part of regular education, and it never claimed to provide an interpretation of human life as a whole. This larger ambition was more appropriate to religion, philosophy, and perhaps poetry and other imaginative literature. The book is written in a simple and lucid style so as to meet the requirements of the students and the common readers.