[00:03.27]1999

[00:06.37](1)

[00:08.58]of history as there are historians,

[00:11.20]modern practice most closely conforms to one

[00:14.13]that sees history as the attempt to recreate

[00:17.35]and explain the significant events of the past.>

[00:20.78]Caught in the web of its own time and place,

[00:23.50]each generation of historians determines anew

[00:26.33]what is significant for it in the past.

[00:29.26]In this search the evidence found

[00:31.17]is always incomplete and scattered;

[00:33.40]it is also frequently partial or partisan.

[00:36.71]The irony of the historian's craft

[00:38.90]is that its practitioners

[00:40.42]always know that their efforts

[00:42.24]are but contributions to an unending process.

[00:45.77](2)

[00:47.59]has arisen less through external challenge

[00:50.10]to the validity of history as an intellectual discipline

[00:53.94]and more from internal quarrels among historians themselves.>

[00:58.07]While history once revered

[00:59.61]its affinity to literature and philosophy,

[01:02.96]the emerging social sciences

[01:04.67]seemed to afford greater opportunities

[01:06.98]for asking new questions

[01:08.69]and providing rewarding approaches

[01:10.41]to an understanding of the past.

[01:13.14]Social science methodologies

[01:14.75]had to be adapted to a discipline governed

[01:17.67]by the primacy of historical sources

[01:20.32]rather than the imperatives of the contemporary world.

[01:23.96](3)

[01:25.06]traditional historical methods were augmented

[01:27.58]by additional methodologies designed to interpret

[01:30.71]the new forms of evidence in the historical study.>

[01:34.09]Methodology is a term that remains inherently ambiguous

[01:37.72]in the historical profession.

[01:39.83](4)

[01:41.04]whether methodology refers to

[01:42.75]the concepts peculiar to historical work in general

[01:46.38]or to the research techniques appropriate

[01:48.60]to the various branches of historical inquiry.>

[01:51.93]Historians, especially those so blinded

[01:54.45]by their research interests

[01:56.16]that they have been accused of "tunnel method,"

[01:59.18]frequently fall victim to the "technicist fallacy."

[02:02.82]Also common in the natural sciences,

[02:05.62]the technicist fallacy mistakenly identifies

[02:08.04]the discipline as a whole

[02:10.06]with certain parts of its technical implementation.

[02:13.18](5)

[02:15.90]who view history as only the external

[02:18.22]and internal criticism of sources,

[02:20.84]and to social science historians

[02:22.75]who equate their activity with specific techniques.>