Talk:Historiography

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Beginning of article on Historiography. --Anthony.Sebastian 18:52, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

Historiography is fully covered at History, so I don't see much point in a separate article. The definition used here is not at all standard. Richard Jensen 19:13, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

Professor Jensen: I will not proceed further with developing this article. Wrote it to try to get a firm grip on the meaning(s) of the term 'historiography', on the distinctions among the senses of the term. I thought it might help readers who, like myself, do not really appreciate those distinctions, which distinctions I do not find explicitly described in History.

Will you point out where this description goes "not at all standard"?

I have also given some thought about a short piece on 'doxography', mostly definitional, not presently mentioned in CZ. Do you have thoughts about that? -Anthony.Sebastian 23:01, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

to Anthony-I'm sorry if I sounded gruff. :) As for Doxography it's a very good topic (it's a term used only in the history of philosophy). see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. We use "historiography" to refer to studies about a historian like Herodotus or Arthur Schlesinger, or to approaches to history such as history of science. (Thus we can say, "Peter Green has a new historiographical approach to the problem of how the Greek historians, especially Herodotus, wrote the history of the Persian war." see his recent essay in the "New York Review" May 15, 2008) (that's a real article!) Hope this helps. :) Richard Jensen 06:45, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Historiography is an important concept, and needs to be covered. I don't know if it's worthy of a separate article, or if the material in History covers it adequately, but I can't imagine an encyclopaedia where a link to Historiography shows up red. If the material in History covers it adequately, it needs to be corralled into a section so a section redirect to it can be placed here. J. Noel Chiappa 07:35, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

the opening lede of the History article says "This article discusses historiography, the writing of history by scholars and specialists." Note that in the article and its accompanying subpage, we are in the process of including all the major topics and major historians (and schools of historiography like the Annales School), and often links to their books or relevant websites. The article links and points users to many major history articles like France, history, Poland, history etc. Richard Jensen 10:15, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Your example (below) shows that there is indeed a difference between history (studying of the past) and historiography (studying the studying of the past). Yes, the two are closely related, and someone who does one will profit from doing the other (to gain better insight into the doing of the first), but they are different... J. Noel Chiappa 21:05, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Suggested changes

I am not knowledgable enough to write the article, but I would suggest changes as follows: rejigging the introduction section so that it gets to the crucial definition quickly, and either removing the extended and strangely formatted quite from the footnote or incorporating it into the prose. --Tom Morris 04:04, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Second sentence

Anthony, I still think that "When a historian of fervent curiosity bases the writing of history in particular on critical analysis of historical source material and provides a narrative synthesis that receives the attention of scholars, that person may be referred to, more technically, and with more distinction, as a historiographer (etymologically, a 'grapher' in words of what one has learned through inquiry)." is just a grotesquely bad sentence. "fervent curiosity" doesn't seem to have any bearing at all on the basic question of writing history. "History" or some variation of it is used four times. And the parenthesis makes a long and awkward sentence even longer and more awkward. Since I don't really know what you're driving at here, I don't want to take a spade to what may actually be an ethereal souffle, as I think someone once wrote about criticizing P.G. Wodehouse.... Cheers! Hayford Peirce 18:30, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

when a person writes chronicles [day by day listing of events], with no storytelling and no analysis, she's a chronicler. When you have analysis and narrative she's a historian. When the topic is about OTHER historians, she's a historiographer. So the authors of this article are called historiographers. Herodotus is called a historian. The index to the New York Times is called a chronicle. Richard Jensen 18:50, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Love that example; defines all three in a nutshell. J. Noel Chiappa 21:05, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

I understand all that -- I just don't know how to rewrite this convoluted sentence. Hayford Peirce 18:55, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Professor Jensen's new lead-in

Professor Jensen: Thank you for correcting the aberrancy of my thinking. A clarifying, assertive and precise definition. --Anthony.Sebastian 19:45, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Definition

The definition currently reads:

The writing of history based on critical analysis of historical source material.

This strike me as wrong, based on the description above ("When the topic is about OTHER historians, she's a historiographer"). Historiographers don't write about history, they write about other historians. So I'd suggest something like:

The study of methods and techniques for studying and writing history

or something like that. J. Noel Chiappa 21:05, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Never mind. I see it's already been redone... J. Noel Chiappa 22:05, 19 May 2008 (CDT)