History 514



Humanities

Five Step Approach to Critical Analysis

of Historical Scholarship and Scholarly Works

  

1) Identifying the historical question

         --the historical question MUST begin with the interrogative "Why?"  

            e.g., "Why were the Medici overthrown in late fifteenth-century Renaissance

Florence?”

2) Locating and assessing the sources

         --available sources will determine to a large degree both the type of study

               produced as well as the methodology employed. 

         --there is a direct relationship between sources and methodology

3) Methodology is a two step process (a & b)

  a) establishing the parameters of the study

          --focus group or event to be studied

          --time period/length of study

          --place of study

      b) establishing analytical approach

          --linear/chronological study

--most often this approach will be presented in a “narrative” form.

          --topical study

                  --looks at several different topics/issues to provide evidence/arguments that

                       support thesis

                  --topics may range in scope from political, to social, to economic, to

                       military, to literary, to ideas, events, people, families, etc.  

                 

          --comparative study 

                 --comparative study of linear events or individual:  it was like this, and now

                      it is like this

                 --comparisons between different subjects, events separated by

                      time/place/ideas/

          --micro history

                 --focuses on an individual whose experiences & characteristics and life

episodes then stand as a representative of an entire group

                 --tends to be employed when studying individual from lower class or little

studied groups

--this individual/groups are obscure in history because of lack of direct primary

sources and material

--while this type of study may be “biographical” the key element is that it

focuses upon obscure or little known individuals or groups

          --macro history

                 --focuses on a broad group or set of events.  Macro history allows an historian

to say a lot about group behavior, values, life styles, and mentalitie, but very

little about individual experiences & exceptions, etc.                  

                 --tends to be used especially in social history

                 --relies upon statistical analysis; learn much about group, little about

individual

--evidence of macro history is presence of lots of tables & charts with statistics

& graphs & numbers

4) Type of historical approach used

         --political

         --social

         --economic

         --religious

         --cultural

         --women’s

         --military

         --biography

5) Establishing the thesis 

        --developed only after the historian has worked through the sources.    

        --the thesis must directly answer the historical question posed, i.e. the "Why"

            question asked above in #1, and must state “…because…”

        --the thesis is a declarative statement

              e.g.   "My research will show that the Medici were overthrown in

                         Renaissance Florence because of Piero de Medici’s political

                         blundering, combined with the popular, anti-Medicean preaching of

                         Savonarola.

 

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