A Personal Refelection on Jordanova's History
A Personal Refelection on Jordanova's History
Ludmilla Jordanova's History in Practice touches on some of same issues that are seen in most books dealing with the nature and practice of history, but deals with them in distinctive and original ways. Her three goals of the book are to provide an up-to-date overview of important issues in the discipline, to locate history in the context of other related disciplines, and to "sketch in what historians actually do and how and why they do it." Basically it is a mediation on history's place in and contributions to the intellectual life of our new century. For this reason the postscript and the opinions of Jordanova on the discipline of history are very clear-cut making it very easy to agree with the opinions brought fourth.
For instance, I find it very interesting when Jordanova talks about how most historians write and study history because there is this “ spirit of passionate enthusiasm for the study of the past”. Jordanova talks about a sympathetic identification along with myopia that comes along from the intimate involvement with one’s object of study. This is what makes the discipline of history such a vast subject filled with so many different specialization’s and areas of interest. It is these diverse sources and approaches that makes history holistic, which is the underlying goal of the discipline. History allows one to go back into the past and answer the questions of where “we” came from. Where “we” represents each historian that is making studies about his/her heritage. Since historians are interested in their own past it is very important for other historians to be aware of generalizations.
Generalizations and bias’ are to be accepted when scholars reveal their personal visions. But it is also made mention that in order to study an event one does not necessarily have to agree with it. Rather, Jordanova says, historians should, “responsibly, unsettle their audiences, provoking them to think harder and deeper about the human condition.” It is very important for historians to view things differently because this is what makes history so important it is the idea of discussion and interpretation. Those historians are able to research something and examine it from an internal interest while setting a base for other historians to critique and work from. Historians...