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History AEA Discussion Group

Does what it says on the tin!

Upon Fillette's suggestion, we thought it would be good to have a group for the History AEA like other subjects are doing.

So, if you're doing the AEA, post your thoughts. If you've done any historical reading, like Carr, Elton, etc, tell us what you thought of it.

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Reply 1

rkd

I've just finished Eric Hobsbawm's "On History" which was pretty good. It does get a bit hard to understand at points, but it's just a collection of 21 essays/lectures on topics like the link between history and politics, social history, the links between history and economics, Marxism and history, the Annales, narrative history, postmodernism, counterfactual history, history from below and how long you have to wait before you can write the history of an event. It only cost me a few pounds off Amazon Marketplace so I'd strongly recommend it.

Is anyone revising 'interesting' history to write about in the AEA? I'm doing the modernisation of Japan for my history personal study so I might use that, alongside mid-Tudor stuff and maybe origins of WW1.

OP: hopefully see you at Oxford this October!

Reply 2

lordcrusade9

meh i will stick with luther which i did for AS. Oxford historians? tut tut.
Cambridge Mathematicain here

the book you just mentioned sounds very interesting. I am an apologist of Elton, which is much opposed by many members of this forum. How about let us discuss a past AEA question?

"To what extent does the fact of historians can never be completely objective invalidate history as an academic discipline?"

I shall start by pointing out that the absolute objective position exists but it can never be reached does not imply the absolute objective position does not exist. the fact an historian cannot reach such position does not mean he cannot try to get to it. Bias itself can be eliminating (though never fully eliminated) by careful study of sources. The fact we cannot find all the truth does not imply no truth can be found or no truth exist so the historian's study is justified as he will uncover some of the truth of the past.

In many sense, history is more objective than most other disciplines, even sciences. Elton said that "Verifibility is the enemy of objective" which is true in the sense that historians cannot physically experiment with events of the past unlike a physicist who can drop a stone from tower, which removes the possibility of the historian to tamper with the object of his study unlike a physicist. today in quantum physics, according to the Heisenberg Uncertainly principle, even observing a quantum phenonmon itself changes the outcome of the phenomenon. so does Heisenberg's theory invalidate physics as a science? of course not.

the event of the past itself is the objective truth and it exist and it is historian's job to attempt to discover it. in any academic discipline, let it me be mathematics or physics, history or archeology, not all but some objective truth can be found and that is the purpose to study it, to attempt to find it though success can never be final.

Reply 3

allieRAWR!

My teacher wants me to do AEA, I'm in lower sixth so I guess the exam will be next year???

Not too sure about it though, the questions look pretty heavy.

How exactly does doing the AEA, both is you get a Merit or Distinction, help in terms of prospects?

Reply 4

Undiscovery

allieRAWR!

How exactly does doing the AEA, both is you get a Merit or Distinction, help in terms of prospects?

Other than Oxbridge and employment, personal satisfaction and enjoyment from extending your reading and requirements of A2.

Reply 5

sunburnt_note

I'm taking it!

Is it just me, or everytime you think about it do you range from "yeahhhh I can do that" to "I'm going to fail sooo badly..."?

Are people actually preparing formally for it? I mean, obviously I've done a lot of reading anyway and I'll be on top of my A level syllabus for the exams, but are you actually doing formal AEA practice?

Reply 6

Fillette

Hiya! Oh dear, took me a while to see this! I read Carr, I think he comes up with some interesting stuff, though maybe he's a little outdated now. Has anyone heard of a book "Europe's Inner Demons" by Norman Cohn? It's basic the history of christianity in Europe from the Roman times up to the 17th century, including historiography all of the witchtrials which took place. Fascinating stuff. I think my favourite historian at the moment is Susan Doran- she writes very well about Elizabeth I and I like the fact she gets away from the whole whigsVrevisionists quarrel, unless she absolutely has to!

Reply 7

lordcrusade9

i thought we were going to have a discussion group about more historical questions than "i am taking it". sorry to be blunt "i'm taking it" really helps no one.

question to the girton historian, did you get pooled there :P

I seriously suggest practising past questions. The vast majority of candidates in my school failed because they did no reading on historiography itself and didnt do the past questions. (well the teacher doesnt really make us)

Carr is very traditional, like Elton. Elton despised Carr. I have not read Carr myself and I will do very soon but the idea of relativism of Carr does not appeal to me. Elton's view is somewhat idealist, but as an historian, it is certainly an ideal one should strive for.

Reply 8

sunburnt_note

Yes, I was pooled to Girton, originally applied to Trinity. I'm actually very glad about it though, because, although Trinity is lovely, I didn't realise what a cold reception I'd got there until I had an interview at Girton, where people were really lovely (and they gave me an en suite bathroom...at Trinity they gave me horrible accomodation lol!).

Anyway, this isn't really relevant to the topic either - as lordcrusade9 put it, it's not really helping anyone.

I've read Jenkins' Re-thinking History - short but sweet, though it's not really the type of thing I appreciate. Jenkins is very post-modernist, arguing that basically it's impossible for us to find objectivity and truth in history. The only point he did make that I found myself agreeing with was that he said, because all historical account are subjective, historians should make their position clear from the start. Certainly in relation to popular history, this should be standard, because much of the general population tend to just accept what they're told without thinking about what the author wants us to think.

Reply 9

gee_shakedown

I'm taking it, apparently we'll be getting prep lessons sometime soon.
The papers look a bit terrifying though tbh.
Apart from the reading materials already mentioned are there any other suggestions?

Reply 10

lordcrusade9

just read books and actually do the questions.

I agree with Lara (Sunburnt_Note) about Jenkins' own postion. He seems to suggest that Elton-Carr debate itself is not really debating the essence of the question and their debate was only marginal to the question of what is history? I have not finished Jenkin's long book, but so far he has not denied the fact that bias can be at least partially reduced by using a wider range of sources. The post-modernist view on history is a bit like quantum mechanics when you cannot find out the truth as you distorting the truth by studying it. However I do not think it is right in the sense that historian cannot experiment with historical truth physically. Moreover I think any discipline is completely invalidated if truth cannot be discovered (for example, I do not think studying medieval economy by naively adding up figures should be done because the figures are known to be very inaccurate. it has to be treated with advanced statistics techniques which would probably tell us that the possible error is very big no reliable conclusions can be drawn) History is an automous subject of its own right which is an indication of the fact truth in history can be discovered.

Reply 11

lazzyfuzzylou

I'm also taking it, after wearing my school down over the matter as they've never entered anyone for it before...

The book which opened my eyes to the whole world of historiography was definitely Evans's "In Defence of History". The man is a fantastic writer and my favourite historian, and whilst he can sit on the fence at times, I think most of his points are incisive. I specifically liked his views on Elton in that whilst he realises Elton's brand of objectivity IS an ideal, it shouldn't stop historians from attempting to work towards that ideal.

So that led me to read Elton's works, not just "The Practice of History" but also his fantastic book on Cromwell (admittedly, extracts only!) and then to balance myself a little I did read "What Is History" (Carr).

In terms of historical style I'm very slowly getting through "The Prince" by Machiavelli who writes very interestingly in a rather blunt style, at odds with Renaissance literature - trying to work out what that could imply! Also for anyone interested in styles of writing I'd recommend dipping into Gibbon's "Roman Empire" volumes.. fantastically written, if sometimes drifting away from any sort of historical analysis!

Reply 12

zoe1989

Have just finished "In Defence of History" and thought it was really helpful with defining/debating postmodernism as that was a topic I was unsure of beforehand.

Reply 13

lordcrusade9

enlighten us please.
I do not like the uncertainlly in postmodernism. many seems to defend it on the ground it is newer than the traditional view...

Reply 14

lazzyfuzzylou

Mm quite. I suppose I would define historical postmodernism as a narrow focus on re-assessing historical methods, though I'm still not quite happy with that definition..

Although I can see it raises some valid points about contextualisation, and more obviously the whole 'what is truth?' fandango, I just think that it takes historical values and seems to invert them for no apparent reason, coming to no conclusion as a result - to my mind, it gets too caught up in the analysis/philosophy side of history to ever detail the results.

A case in point would be the trend for deconstruction - what is the point of attempting to decipher what the author of a source HASN'T said, when this could be absolutely ANYTHING, and in addition, there's a whole lot more to concentrate on ACTUALLY IN the source? And surely, in order to work out what has not been said, one needs to know SOMETHING of the context of the source - this can only be worked out from the content of other sources! As they say, nothing can come from nothing..

I do however see that it brings some very interesting questions to light about historical methods - I just think it takes these too far sometimes.

Reply 15

zoe1989

It states that whilst reducing everything to a literary level can be good in some respects (textual analysis of sources etc) there are many more factors involved and that actually when applied and put into practice the theories dont actually work etc.

I dont really agree with postmoderinsim though as it seems to state that history and fiction are the same thing. Although there is obviously a certain amount of the historians interpretations and imagination involved, I still think that there are limited conclusions and interpretations that can be drawn from a set amount of sources despite the fact that the historian will be looking at them subjectively with their own prejudices. Therefore it must be possible to gain some element of truth, which post modernists seem to dispute. :smile:

Reply 16

lordcrusade9

Exactly! Here is a statement made by David Irving

Hitler did not know about Holocaust, at least until ___ (a specific date)

For example, this statement is clearly a laughable statement, because it is absolutely ridiculous by any common sense to think that Hitler did not initiate the policy of terminating jews. Postmodernism seem to suggest even statement like the one above cannot be disproved. Indeed there was no written document up till date Irving stated, but if you take that literally like Irving did, this is the kind of the conclusion you reach.

The postmodernists claim that they do not existence of historical truth, but this is almost irrelevant in the sense they claim it can never be ruly discovered. While as Elton said quite clearly. Incapability to discover all the truth is not the same as incapability to discover any truth at all. The postmodernists are over sceptical. Elton would have said they are not proper historians and they betray the discipline they aim to study by labelling it a subject where you cannot discover truth.

Reply 17

rkd

In "The Practice of History" Elton basically argues that the postmodernists are essentially philosophers - if they were historians, and practiced history, they would see that (however theoretically flawed) those methods do work. It's almost like (and this is my own analogy, not his - pardonnez-moi if it sucks) how people who make chairs don't worry about the theory of knowledge and whether their chairs are really real; they make chairs, and they work.

On the other hand, Elton's argument is that historical methods do, in practice, bring us close to the real 'historical truth' - but I can't see how he knows what this real 'historical truth' is except through his methods, which the postmodernists are arguing are flawed anyway. It's a circular argument.

Reply 18

lazzyfuzzylou

lordcrusade9

Whilst I'm not disputing the fact that a) Irving is a complete fool and b) Hitler knew about the Holocaust, it's actually a matter of debate whether Hitler himself INITIATED the termination of the Jews - he obviously encouraged anti-semitism and definitely was the spark for the idea to get the Jews out of Germany, but whether Hitler had planned on extermination all along is disputable. Many historians would actually see the fact that several different methods were tried before the Holocaust was conceived, for example forcing the Jews to emigrate and the formation of the Madagscar plan (ie. resettling all the Jews there), as evidence that Hitler hadn't planned on mass killings at the start.

Reply 19

lordcrusade9

Yes, the intentionalist/structuralist argument. I did a competition essay on Hitler's policies. He had perhaps long term goals but never had any medium term plans to carry them out effectively but I do not believe that implies that Hilter did not know about the Holocaust when it first started. The extreme rightwinged structuralist run the risk of denying the Holocaust while the leftwinged denialist is laughable. "The USA and Zionist forged the Holocaust so the Jews can get some land in the Middle East"