The Study of Studying History
When a history book appears on a bookstore shelf, it can provide the student of the particular topic volumes of valuable information. Citations, bibliography, footnotes or end notes can provide far more detail than the text of the book alone. A more astute student of the topic may recognize the author's personal interpretation of the significance of the events contained in the book. Actually, there is a legitimate reason for this.
When a historian chooses a topic on which he wishes to write, it is usually to either explore the topic, analyze it, or prove or disprove accepted theories and beliefs on the topic. However, the properly trained historian will view everything he researches, compiles, analyzes, and writes, through the lens of Historiography.
Historiography is the study of the study of history, as well as historians who wrote it. There are philosophies integral to historiography, based on a strong grasp of chronology, which is a chain of events in history, and the order in which they occurred. From the standpoint of Chronology, the historian develops a theory of Cause and Effect. In this, however, the historian is faced now with two basic philosophies from which to approach the project.
Philosophy of history, states the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, utilizes the best theories in the core areas of philosophy like metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics to address questions about the nature of the past and how we come to know it: whether the past proceeds in a random way or is guided by some principle of order, how best to explain or describe the events and objects of the past, how historical events can be considered causally efficacious on one another, and how to adjudicate testimony and evidence. Second, as is the case with the other area-studies, philosophy of history investigates problems that are unique to its subject matter.
History examines not what things are so much as how they came to be, the Encyclopedia explains. History focuses on the unique rather than the general. Its movers are most often people who act for a variety of inner motives rather than purely physical forces. Its objects are no longer observable directly, but must be mediated by evidence. These problems and many more that are specific to the past have been studied and debated for as long as philosophy itself has existed.
To deepen his understanding of the evidences the historian studies, establishing a broader context becomes an important task to him. This is because through his training and education, the historian has learned that events do not occur in a vacuum. The historical topic is subject to the immediate dynamic of cause and effect, states Writing on History.com. By broadening the context, the historian can recognize and explore larger relationships between events. Historical research almost demands broadening contexts. Here is an example to sum up all of what we have discussed up to this point, based on events that led to the creation of the Lake Superior Copper Mining District:
In 1839, Cyrus Mendenhall organized a commercial fishing company on Lake Superior to compete with the American Fur Company, which had started commercial fishing on the Lake five years before, and went broke. But why did Mendenhall do that, already knowing the market condition of commercial fish? It leads us right back to the assertion made in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
" Its (history's)movers are most often people who act for a variety of inner motives rather than purely physical forces. Its objects are no longer observable directly, but must be mediated by evidence. These problems and many more that are specific to the past have been studied and debated for as long as philosophy itself has existed."
It becomes necessary to examine other available documents to attempt to gain an understanding of what motivated Mendenhall to invest in a company that required building two ships, warehouses, trading posts, etc., before he even dropped a net in the water. We look into Mendenhall's background. It turns out, he made his money in coal mines and transportation in Ohio. He read Dr. Douglass Houghton's 1841 geological report on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, particularly on the presence of hydrous copper on the eastern arm of Copper Harbor. In May, 1842, we find Mendenhall becoming the first American businessman to sail a cargo vessel into Copper Harbor. He was, he claimed, looking for a location to establish a fishing station. And who was a passenger on his schooner? Daniel Bushnell, the Indian Sub-Agent at La Pointe, where the treaty to purchase the copper lands from the Ojibway was set to take place that October. And, the man who was to negotiate the treaty was Robert Stuart, former agent of the American Fur Company on Mackinac Island, who was, in 1841, made the Indian Agent of Mackinac.
So, this brings us back to the topic historiography, which the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states: "History examines not what things are so much as how they came to be."
Historiography views, as a rule, history through the lens of philosophies, one of which is the theory of Linear Progression, which is used quite extensively in Narrative History. Linear Progression theorizes that historical events occurred in a chronological order of events. For example: 1) Mendenhall read a geological report on copper in Upper Michigan; 2) He builds two ships and organizes a fishing company as a pretense for looking for copper; 3) He located copper in Copper Harbor; 3) We next find him present at the 1842 treaty of La Pointe as a witness to the talks, as well as registering a multi-thousand-dollar debt against the Ojibway, who were the subject of the treaty.
Another approach is the cyclical theory of progression, which states events do not advance, but tend rather to progress in a circle, to end at the point of which they began. For Example: 1)The treaty of La Pointe was but a reenactment of the treaty of 1837 which obtained the right of whites to engage in timber harvest (a natural resource), on Indian lands not owned by the United States; 2) The treaty of La Pointe was just one more action of taking copper (a natural resource) from Indian land, after 200 years of fur trading (a natural resource) had left Indian lands with no food on which the Ojibway could subsist. In either philosophical approach, we quickly understand that the development of a copper district in and of itself, is history in a vacuum. It requires a broader context to become a coherent history of how things were, what happened, and how things came to be as they are.
So, you see, the finished, published product of a historian has behind it far, far more than research, compilation, and writing, to produce a good, thorough history of any topic. It is a multidisciplinary effort requiring thorough knowledge, not only of history and historiography, but also sociology, anthropology, government, economics, geography, and Western Civilization as its foundation.
When a historian chooses a topic on which he wishes to write, it is usually to either explore the topic, analyze it, or prove or disprove accepted theories and beliefs on the topic. However, the properly trained historian will view everything he researches, compiles, analyzes, and writes, through the lens of Historiography.
Historiography is the study of the study of history, as well as historians who wrote it. There are philosophies integral to historiography, based on a strong grasp of chronology, which is a chain of events in history, and the order in which they occurred. From the standpoint of Chronology, the historian develops a theory of Cause and Effect. In this, however, the historian is faced now with two basic philosophies from which to approach the project.
Philosophy of history, states the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, utilizes the best theories in the core areas of philosophy like metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics to address questions about the nature of the past and how we come to know it: whether the past proceeds in a random way or is guided by some principle of order, how best to explain or describe the events and objects of the past, how historical events can be considered causally efficacious on one another, and how to adjudicate testimony and evidence. Second, as is the case with the other area-studies, philosophy of history investigates problems that are unique to its subject matter.
History examines not what things are so much as how they came to be, the Encyclopedia explains. History focuses on the unique rather than the general. Its movers are most often people who act for a variety of inner motives rather than purely physical forces. Its objects are no longer observable directly, but must be mediated by evidence. These problems and many more that are specific to the past have been studied and debated for as long as philosophy itself has existed.
To deepen his understanding of the evidences the historian studies, establishing a broader context becomes an important task to him. This is because through his training and education, the historian has learned that events do not occur in a vacuum. The historical topic is subject to the immediate dynamic of cause and effect, states Writing on History.com. By broadening the context, the historian can recognize and explore larger relationships between events. Historical research almost demands broadening contexts. Here is an example to sum up all of what we have discussed up to this point, based on events that led to the creation of the Lake Superior Copper Mining District:
In 1839, Cyrus Mendenhall organized a commercial fishing company on Lake Superior to compete with the American Fur Company, which had started commercial fishing on the Lake five years before, and went broke. But why did Mendenhall do that, already knowing the market condition of commercial fish? It leads us right back to the assertion made in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
" Its (history's)movers are most often people who act for a variety of inner motives rather than purely physical forces. Its objects are no longer observable directly, but must be mediated by evidence. These problems and many more that are specific to the past have been studied and debated for as long as philosophy itself has existed."
It becomes necessary to examine other available documents to attempt to gain an understanding of what motivated Mendenhall to invest in a company that required building two ships, warehouses, trading posts, etc., before he even dropped a net in the water. We look into Mendenhall's background. It turns out, he made his money in coal mines and transportation in Ohio. He read Dr. Douglass Houghton's 1841 geological report on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, particularly on the presence of hydrous copper on the eastern arm of Copper Harbor. In May, 1842, we find Mendenhall becoming the first American businessman to sail a cargo vessel into Copper Harbor. He was, he claimed, looking for a location to establish a fishing station. And who was a passenger on his schooner? Daniel Bushnell, the Indian Sub-Agent at La Pointe, where the treaty to purchase the copper lands from the Ojibway was set to take place that October. And, the man who was to negotiate the treaty was Robert Stuart, former agent of the American Fur Company on Mackinac Island, who was, in 1841, made the Indian Agent of Mackinac.
So, this brings us back to the topic historiography, which the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states: "History examines not what things are so much as how they came to be."
Historiography views, as a rule, history through the lens of philosophies, one of which is the theory of Linear Progression, which is used quite extensively in Narrative History. Linear Progression theorizes that historical events occurred in a chronological order of events. For example: 1) Mendenhall read a geological report on copper in Upper Michigan; 2) He builds two ships and organizes a fishing company as a pretense for looking for copper; 3) He located copper in Copper Harbor; 3) We next find him present at the 1842 treaty of La Pointe as a witness to the talks, as well as registering a multi-thousand-dollar debt against the Ojibway, who were the subject of the treaty.
Another approach is the cyclical theory of progression, which states events do not advance, but tend rather to progress in a circle, to end at the point of which they began. For Example: 1)The treaty of La Pointe was but a reenactment of the treaty of 1837 which obtained the right of whites to engage in timber harvest (a natural resource), on Indian lands not owned by the United States; 2) The treaty of La Pointe was just one more action of taking copper (a natural resource) from Indian land, after 200 years of fur trading (a natural resource) had left Indian lands with no food on which the Ojibway could subsist. In either philosophical approach, we quickly understand that the development of a copper district in and of itself, is history in a vacuum. It requires a broader context to become a coherent history of how things were, what happened, and how things came to be as they are.
So, you see, the finished, published product of a historian has behind it far, far more than research, compilation, and writing, to produce a good, thorough history of any topic. It is a multidisciplinary effort requiring thorough knowledge, not only of history and historiography, but also sociology, anthropology, government, economics, geography, and Western Civilization as its foundation.
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