Order now. total results. A Historiography of Roger Sherman Loomis a Medieval Scholar ( words, 7 pages) A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ROGER SHERMAN LOOMIS The tales of the Arthurian legend are some of the most popular from medieval times, and Therefore, historiography can be described as “the history of history.” What this means in practice is an exploration of a specific topic, and how historians have explained events or people over time, i.e. how their explanations have changed due to their own worldview 1/30/ · Historiography is the history of the history of a particular topic. Most of these examples are much larger and more extensive in scope than I am expecting of you. Most are, in fact, historiographical essays assessing the state of a field, such as family history, or a big topic, such as Reconstruction
How to Write a Historiography: Step-By-Step Guide | Fresh Essays Blog
Types of Writing Assignments. Basic Considerations When Writing on History. Types of Sources. Critical Reading. Preparation and Writing. Basic Quoting Skills. Style and Historiography paper. In a nutshell, historiography paper, historiography is the history of history.
Rather than subjecting actual events - say, the Rape of Nanking - to historical analysis, the subject of historiography is the history of the history of the event: the way it has been written, the sometimes conflicting objectives pursued by those writing on it over time, and the way in which such factors shape our understanding of the actual event at stake, and of the nature of history itself.
A historiographic essay thus asks you to explore several sometimes contradictory sources on one event. An annotated bibliography might come in handy as you attempt to locate such sources; you should also consult the footnotes and bibliographies of any text historiography paper read on a certain event, as they will lead you to other texts on the same event; if your research is web-based, historiography paper, follow links - always bearing in mind the pitfalls of the Internet - and if you are researching in the library, check out the books on nearby shelves: you'll be surprised by how often this yields sources you may otherwise never have found.
For an example of an essay on multiple perspectives on the same event for our purposes, the Rape of Nanking, an event also examined in the context of Book Reviewsclick here, historiography paper.
The purpose of an historiographic essay is threefold: historiography paper. to allow you to view an historical event or issue from multiple perspectives by engaging multiple sources; 2. to display your mastery over those sources and over the event or issue itself; and 3. to develop your critical reading skills as you seek to answer why your sources disagree, and what their disagreement tells you about the event or issue and the very nature of history itself. Specific skills honed by such an exercise include your ability to discern bias or prejudice and to evaluate contradictory historiography paper and claims.
As you will have to quote from your sources in order to make your point, historiography paper, you will also have to display basic quoting skills. The very nature of an essay on multiple sources also requires a Works Cited page, historiography paper, of course, on which, see Bibliography. You will begin a historiographic essay with a thesis that presents the issue or event at stake, then introduces your sources and articulates, historiography paper, in brief, their authors' perspectives and their main points of dis agreement.
As you do so, ask and answer why you think the authors of your various sources disagree, historiography paper. Is their disagreement a product of personal or professional rivalry, ideological incompatibility, national affiliation? These questions go to the heart historiography paper historiography. In your conclusionfinally, historiography paper, you will briefly summarize your findings and, historiography paper, more importantly, assess the credibility of your various sources, and specify which one s you find to be most compelling, and why.
In final conclusion you might articulate in brief the insights you have gained into the event or historiography paper at stake, the sources you have used, and the nature of history itself. Let us assume that the subject of your historiographic essay is the Rape of Nanking, an event discussed in some detail in the Book Reviews section. There, historiography paper, we examine the event as it is described and analyzed by Iris Chang in her bestselling book The Rape of Nanking.
To this we now add several other sources, all of which are listed historiography paper the Works Cited section at the end of this pageand cited in the text immediately following, which exemplifies, in brief, some of the basic strategies of a historiographic essay. The interested reader will find another brief exercise in historiographical inquiry - this one on the disputed relationship between the Catholic Church and fascism during the s - in the Research Paper section of this site, under "Conducting Research for 'The Austrian Catholic Church and the Anschluss': Catholicism and fascism.
Home Types of Writing Assignments Overview Narrative History Response Papers Creative Approaches Annotated Bibliographies Book Reviews Historiographic Essays Research Papers. Overview Cause and Effect Chronology Establishing a Broader Context Don't s Common Fallacies. Overview Time Management Note-Taking Tips Developing a Thesis Organization Formulating a Conclusion.
Overview Drafts and Revisions Historiography paper Stylistic Errors Resources. Historiographic Essays. THESIS: The so-called Rape of Nanking ofa six-week massacre of Chinese civilians in the city of Nanking perpetrated by the invading Japanese army, was presented historiography paper a largely uninitiated American mass audience by Iris Chang in her best-selling book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II Chang's vivid book spawned international interest and a number of responses from fellow historians worldwide.
Western historians generally agreed with Chang's insistence historiography paper the event - long a mere footnote in the popular historiography of World War II - deserved larger notice, but some criticized her for displaying personal bias as well as historical inaccuracies and methodological weaknesses of various sorts.
The historiography paper from a number of Japanese scholars was overwhelmingly negative, historiography paper. They denied her account of a post-war Japanese "cover up," yet at the same time also, to varying degrees, historiography paper, denied that the event had even occurred.
EXAMPLE 1 : Tanaka Masaaki, historiography paper, for example, author of the website "What Really Happened at Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth," refers to Chang's work as one of "lies, hyperbole, historiography paper, propaganda. by the United States, Great Britian, or France, historiography paper.
ANALYSIS: Much of Masaaki's criticism smacks of precisely the kind of revisionism Chang critiques in her book, and is easily exposed as such, historiography paper. The fact that Chinese communist party records make no mention of the event, historiography paper, for example, is hardly surprising, as the Chinese communists were at this time in disarray, operating largely underground in the Nanking area, historiography paper.
Not until did the communists begin their rule over China and begin keeping official records: why then should we expect there to exist records dating back to ?
Nor should the silence of the League of Nations, the United States, Great Britain and France come as any surprise, historiography paper. In the same year that France and Britain stood by as Nazi Germany re-militarized the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles; and that the United States and the League of Nation stood by as Franco and Mussolini continued in their campaigns against the rightful governments of Spain and Ethiopia, why would we expect the United States or the League of Nations historiography paper have registered any protest over events halfway around the world?
EXAMPLE 2 : Other arguments by Masaaki are more compelling. For example, he notes of one of the many disturbing photographs in Chang's book - a famous one, apparently showing a Chinese prisoner of war about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer brandishing a sword - that its "fakery is easy to detect if you look at the shadow cast by the man at the center [the officer] and that cast by [a lower-ranking] soldier to his right.
The photograph does indeed seem to be a composite, and while stopping short of supporting Masaaki's claim that "not a single one of [Chang's photographs] bears witness to a 'Nanking Massacre'," even American historian Robert Entenmann concedes that several of the photos in Historiography paper book are indeed "fakes, forgeries and composites," including one also historiography paper out by Masaaki "of a row of severed heads," which, according to Entenmann, in fact depicts "bandits executed by Chinese police in rather than victims of the Nanking Massacre" Masaaki, Entenmann.
COUNTER-ARGUMENT: Faked though some of Chang's twelve pages of photos might be - perhaps even all of them, as Masaaki suggests - the fact that there exist literally hundreds of photographs of the Nanking Massacre, historiography paper, many of them "souvenir photos" taken by Japanese soldiers themselves, strains the credibility historiography paper his larger point and even more so the point made by his stridently anti-Chang colleagues Takemoto Tadao and Ohara Yasuo.
In their The Alleged 'Nanking Massacre': Japan's Rebuttal to China's Forged Claimsthese writers state that "none of these photos are dated, historiography paper, and the names of places and photographers are not stated, historiography paper.
In other words, there exist [no] photos that are rigidly authentic, and definitely, these photos can not be used as evidence of [the] 'Nanking Massacre'" Tadao and Yasuo In fact, several hundred photographs have been published historiography paper one volume - The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographshistoriography paper, by Shi Young and James Yin, many of them showing female rape victims with legs spread and genitalia exposed - graphic historiography paper it is hard to conceive of as staged.
Such pictures, while not settling the matter beyond dispute, historiography paper, offer powerful testimony that speaks for itself. EXAMPLE 3 : Notwithstanding the many graphic photographs that exist, historiography paper, it is precisely the accusation of widespread rape - most likely because of its abhorrent nature - that Chang's Japanese critics wish to deny. daily [during the six week period of the Massacre].
This number is absolutely not trustworthy," they conclude, citing instead the number of only official complaints of rape actually registered during this period Of course, they historiography paper parsing numbers here. The fact is, whether there were three hundred rapes, thirty thousand, more, or less, historiography paper, rape perpetrated by an occupying force against a civilian population and that such was the case is amply documented in Chang and virtually all extant sources on Nanking, including the Japanese sources, historiography paper, although they, of course, acknowledge only is a crime of war.
But that it is an individual crime of war, rather than a collective, government-sponsored crime against humanity such as the Holocaust is precisely the point for the Japanese historians: "[Holocaust] killings historiography paper indeed Those acts of crimes [were] the responsibility of each individual soldier" Following this line of reasoning, the Japanese government is absolved of any blame for the rapes that did occur in Nanking, the exact number of which remains unknown, historiography paper.
On this issue, see Evaluating Contradictory Data and Claims. EXAMPLE 4 : More trenchant criticism historiography paper Chang than that offered by Japanese historians comes from historiography paper American academy. Robert Entenmann, for example, a China expert and senior faculty member in the History department at St. Olaf College, faults Chang on the very premise of her book. On this last count, it is worth noting that the specific wording of the question does not appear to address Nanking explicitly, and that the opinion poll's finding thus bears little relevance to the question at hand.
We might also be skeptical of Entenmann's generous appraisal of Japanese textbooks: on its role in World War II, Japan's high school textbooks in particular are subject to constant revision, historiography paper, much of it aimed at mitigating the government's role in wartime atrocities, as a New York Times article reminds us Onishi EXAMPLE 5 : Entenmann's more fundamental criticism of Chang's work and perspective, however, goes deeper.
As the granddaughter of former Nanking residents who barely escaped the city, she is guilty, historiography paper, he writes, of historiography paper fallen victim to "her own ethnic prejudice.
Her explanations are, to a large extent, based on unexamined [anti-Japanese] ethnic stereotypes. In fact, Entenmann points out, Hirohito's response is unknown, and Chang may be guilty here of "confus[ing] Japanese leaders' delight in the fall of the Chinese capital with exulting in the massacre that occurred afterward" Entenmann.
ANALYSIS: Such sleights of historiography paper which Entenmann himself indulges in, as his opinion poll example above shows are perhaps conscious on Chang's part, or perhaps a function of her not being a professional historian and therefore applying a less-than-rigorous methodology in historiography paper efforts to tell a good story, historiography paper.
She is after all, historiography paper, a popular rather than an academic historian, whom another bestselling historian, Historiography paper Ambrose, whose scholarship has also been faulted on several counts, once called "the best young historian we've got because she understands that to communicate history, you've got to tell the story in an interesting way" Ambrose qtd.
in Sullivan B6. In an effort to place the Rape of Nanking into historiography paper context, for example, she states that "[u]sing numbers killed historiography paper it "surpasses much of the worst barbarism of the ages, historiography paper.
and even the combined death toll of the two atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki" Chang 6. In The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiographyan anthology generally sympathetic to Chang's project if not to her methodologyhistoriography paper, George Washington University history and international affairs professor Daqing Yang, himself a native of Nanking, historiography paper, notes that "such a comparison [as Chang's] is methodologically sterile" and "morally misguided" Yang Historiography paper, it is precisely the sort of parsing of numbers for which Chang herself would most likely challenge the above-mentioned Japanese historians in their effort to deny the extent to which rape occurred at Nanking.
Despite these failings, Chang's book ultimately emerges as a more persuasive argument of what did in fact happen at Nanking than those offered by her Japanese detractors. The enduring controversy surrounding the event, however, and the specific criticism against Chang from even those who support her premise, point both to the endlessly debatable nature of history, and to the need for a more rigorous, analytical approach in its telling.
As Joshua Fogel notes in his introduction to The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography"The Massacre and related events must be lifted beyond the popular level to be studied with greater nuance and with a wider range of sources" Fogel 1, historiography paper. In such a project, historiography paper, the contradictory data and claims of Chang and her critics need not necessarily be mutually exclusive but, instead, might help establish a broader context within which the event can be understood more fully, historiography paper all sides.
Works cited Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II New York: BasicBooks, Entenmann, Robert. H-Net List for Asian History and Culture Accessed July 1, Yang, Daqin. Joshua Fogel. Berkeley: University of California Press,- Masaaki, Tanaka. Onishi, Norimitsu. Sullivan, historiography paper, Patricia.
Washington Posthistoriography paper, November 12,historiography paper, B6. Takemoto, Tadao and Ohara Yasuo. The Alleged 'Nanking Massacre': Japan's Rebuttal to China's Forged Claims.
Tokyo: Meisei-sha, Inc.
What is historiography?
, time: 5:48Historiographical essay examples | Hist's Blog
9/30/ · Words: Length: 14 Pages Document Type: Research Paper Paper #: Read Full Paper. More recently two schools of military history have developed that attempt to consider its object from a more eclectic, objective perspective, dubbed the 1/30/ · Historiography is the history of the history of a particular topic. Most of these examples are much larger and more extensive in scope than I am expecting of you. Most are, in fact, historiographical essays assessing the state of a field, such as family history, or a big topic, such as Reconstruction Therefore, historiography can be described as “the history of history.” What this means in practice is an exploration of a specific topic, and how historians have explained events or people over time, i.e. how their explanations have changed due to their own worldview
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