The history has as an aim the study of the man, of his achievements, manners and ideas.

Field of the history

See the detailed article: History of the history

“The history, it is what make the historians” announces to us Antoine Prost in opening of its Twelve lessons on the history . All is known as here in a few words, of the abandonment of the combat of back for affubler the word history of a “H” capital letter with the hegemonic will of the modern historian keeps for whom nothing, or almost, must escape its field from study.

The historian indeed initially exclusively dealt with political Histoire, practitioner then gradually the religious Histoire, the military Histoire and the diplomatic Histoire, still centered on the events. Under the influence of the Positivism, the history had even become the research of the causality of these events.

The historical schools of the XXe century, mainly Frenchwomen, broke these old diagrams. The historian, the such ancient philosopher, is then reached of a intellectual “bulimia” opening the doors of the economic and social Histoire to him (École of Annals). Privileging the “long life” at time court of the “event-driven history”, several historians, in the wake of the Yearly , propose to reconsider the field of the history: among them, one can quote Fernand Braudel, which “introduces social sciences in history” by having recourse to the Géographie, with the political economy and the Sociologie ().

True “niches” are set up then giving the aspect of a Histoire in crumbs , to quote here the title of the polemical work signed by François Dosse in 1987. Microhistoire, historical Demography without forgetting the return in strength of the local approaches admittedly offers a rather heterogeneous image of the history today.

The research and the histories production which result from it are sometimes astonishing and always rich person of lesson for the comprehension of our time. Let us quote here as example, the searchs for Alain Corbin on the odors at the XIXe century ( miasma and the jonquil ) or on the advent of the leisures (1850-1960) .

The widening of the field of the history also relates to the sources: the writing is not any more one insuperable barrier for the historian. This last must know to use the least index in order to supplement the “puzzle” of the past. To the oldest specialities, centered on the writing like the Paléographie, are added a multitude of “auxiliary sciences of the history”, that the historian must practice according to his needs. This last does not remain about it less one historian with work when it practices these disciplines. One will quote here the spectacular projections related to the air Archéologie since one half-century, initially in Picardy then in the rest of the world. In the same way, for the most recent periods, the historian calls from now on upon the other media in addition to the writing: audio or video recordings.

Today, only the study of the first Hominides still escapes university work of historians: only the Collège de France ensures this teaching; this part of prehistory thus is not automatically integrated yet under name of “history”.

On the other hand, the pulpits of proto- history and pre history exist within the French Université, and the famous test “except program” of the Agrégation of history includes/understands questions carrying about the Préhistoire: the historian “colonized” this territory, in particular under the direction of André Leroi-Gourhan, prehistorian French emblematic. Besides this last recalls in “Making history” that differentiation between the archeologist and the prehistorian took place at the XIXe century for questions of approaches of the discipline.

In short, to give an account of the field now widened of the history, it is possible to quote Henri-Irenee Marrou which, as of 1954, indicated in historical knowledge : “any information source is a document whose spirit of the historian can draw something for knowledge from the human past. ”

Methodology

See the detailed article: historical Methodology

Historical methodology is the knowledge of the methods which are used to work out the history and the whole of conventions framing the work of the historian. This true historical discipline, taught in first year of DEUG of History in the university course French, is based mainly on two sources: university conventions and conclusions of the debate historiographic.

The role of the historian

By definition, a historian “revises” the history, i.e. it must clarify certain remote regions of the past. One should not confuse the “professor of history” which transmits a historical knowledge and the “historian” who writes the history while being based on research even if, because of the close links between the world of the teaching and that of research since the beginning of the XIXe century, the historian also practices teaching in academic world in many countries. Having of right access to all the opened files, it is based on its research to deliver its results, even if it means to break certain stereotypes. This function essential with the comprehension of the past is sometimes badly allowed and the historians often pain to transmit their knowledge effectively.

Released of the political constraints which weighed a long time on the profession, namely the attachment with a capacity of which he was often also the chronicler, the historian acquires an important responsibility. The business of the negationnist S Lyon be born is an academic case: guard should be taken not to confuse the terms “Révisionniste” (any historian is, by nature, revisionist) and “negationnist”, this last correspondent with the negation of a historical obviousness (the gas chambers of the Nazis are an established fact and those which call into question this historical obviousness make guilty of negationnism, which excludes them, in fact, of the trade of historian and the place in the camp of the swindlers of the Knowledge). The negationnists are juridically responsible for the contents of their writings and thus, condemnable, particularly in France. Contrary, this “severity” shocks with the the United States where an quasi-unlimited design of freedom of expression authorizes any publication. This design leads at the very least, in this case, with an absence of parapets other than the consensual acceptance of a historical thesis subjected to the Débat.

Historians protested against the mémorielles Lois like the French Loi of February 23rd, 2005: they fear that a confusion between memory and history does not involve a instrumentalisation of this discipline and the return of an official story.

Some famous historians

See the detailed articles: famous Historians and contemporary Historians

In addition to Hérodote and Thucydide, the father of the traditional history, it is advisable here to quote the three figureheads of the school of Annals: Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel. Other large modern historians are Moses Finley and Jean Bottéro for the old story, Henri-Irenee Marrou and Peter Brown for the late Antiquité, Georges Duby and Jacques Le Goff among medievists, François Bluche and Pierre Chaunu for the modern history, Pierre Nora, Robert O. Paxton and François Furet for the modern history.

History like science?

If one regards science as only knowledge, then one can speak indeed about “historical science”, but if one speaks about exact scientificity (physical, chemistry…), arises a properly epistemological and methodological, but also metaphysical question. Science having for postulate the need and the history having for object the whole of the human actions which are the product of the free decisions of individuals, to make the science of the History would indeed be equivalent making a science of freedom, from where a deterministic paradox between freedom and need, underlined by this word of Paul Valéry which says history which it is “the science of the facts which are not repeated”.

Epistémologiquement, the historians define three great periods in their own discipline:

• traditional historiography (of the origins with XVIIIe) founds the history as thus disciplines of investigation ( histor in Latin means the eyewitness) into recent events (cf Hérodote, Tite-Live, Suétone) and nondiachronic. They are more contemporary chronicles. However, the term can appear excessive since one considers that there is already a principle of intelligibility (of comprehension), i.e. a search for something which establishes the link (e.g. Thucydide analyzes the Peloponnesian War like “a war of prestige”). It is not thus any more one work mythographic but well a work which sticks to the facts and where it is a question of giving an account of the factual correlations between the events.

• the Positivisme (1830-1920) of Auguste Count regards the history as rigorously scientific. Taking model on chemistry, Auguste Count, like Fustel de Coulanges, is asserted of a similar scientificity to the applied sciences. Langlois and Seignobos of the Ecole of the Charters thus sets up a method which makes it possible to give an account of the facts in an absolute way. It is a question of reconstituting the history of the nations and the great men through a historical analysis which includes/understands two stages: an external criticism (to establish the authenticity of the documents) and an internal criticism (to establish the veracity of the facts). The historian must thus constitute materials of his study by the exercise of his criticism. He gets busy to order them in a strict report/ratio of mechanical causality, putting side any possibility of final cause for this reason that historical science is a pure science without one having to seek finality there.

• the Ecole of Annals (of the name of the review founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch in the years 1930), finally, considers that the History is not the history of the nations nor of the great men but well the history of all that is human. The document is not thus only any more one writing, but also a site, an object, a word. One completely challenges the intention to constitute an objective science by affirming that the work of the historian is fully a work of interpretation: it is not a question to explain but well to include/understand, from where the absence of scientificity or objectivity, without to draw aside the principle of impartiality. Consequently, a plurality of prospects opens to the historians and gives rise to many variations (history of the workmen, women, company…). The historian itself is thus regarded as being historical (what the positivists had challenged) and the history rests then on a relativistic epistemology within which it is necessary to take account of the observer.

But between the traditional ones and the positivists, a stage is omitted by the historians and due, it is the birth of the concept of history in philosophy. We indeed saw that the scientificity of the history is properly metaphysical problems. Kant in its Idée of a universal history postulates that whereas with the animal, the only individual existence is sufficient to achieve all the potentialities of its species. In the case of the man, it is not enough to the existence of an individual to develop the whole of the human potentialities, one needs the existence of the mankind in its totality. However the final potentiality, the ultimate goal of the existence of the mankind, it is precisely freedom. The actions of the men are thus taken in a historical movement of progress of which the ultimate goal is the realization of freedom. Although the men themselves do not know anything of it, which animates them under the terms of a teleological need, it is well the achievement, the realization of this truth. It is what Kant calls the ethico-cosmopolitic destination or what Hegel in its movement of the Spirit of the East in the Occident hears: a “transhistoric substance”.

One thus sees well how the work of the historian has a properly cyclopean dimension; but as Kant will show it, just as the Cyclops, miss an eye with the historians, the eye of the prospect for one finality to the History for the mankind.

Auxiliary sciences of the history

The historian can be based on many “auxiliary sciences of the history”.

Specialities of the history

See the detailed article: History set of themes

Publications in history

See the detailed articles: Edition in history

In addition to the edition of book of author, the historians communicate the result of their work in many periodic reviews which constitute as many invaluable tools to the historical research. These reviews, generally specialized in a topic, one time or emanating from a school, are seldom diffused out of a strictly university framework.

The Annales constitute one of the very rare exceptions to the rule: this emblematic review of the school of Annals profits from one will have world. General practitioners, the Annales cover the whole of the field of the historical studies.

More recently, research in history invested other fields by gaining the field of the electronic edition in particular (see in particular and).

Lastly, there exists a certain number of reviews of “popularization” which aim at communicating the state of historical knowledge to the general public. Two French-speaking titles, in particular, accommodate the university contributions of historians and deserve to be quoted: the monthly magazines the History (general practitioner) and Our History (religious history).

Teaching of the history

See the detailed articles: Teaching of the history and Aggregation of history

The famous assertion “Our ancestors the Gallic ones”, whose contents are regarded today as a fiction, is resulting from the teaching of the French history under the Third Republic.

This true introduction to the French history, present in certain school handbooks until worms the middle of the XXe century, gives an example of deformation which can undergo the taught History: the Republic, indeed, was especially to exceed the only Christian framework (sacring of Clovis) marking out the French history resulting from the Ancien Mode. Such a sentence also offered for advantage of showing the example of a territory, the Gaulle, where cohabited many different people, with the image of the “French Empire” of then.

Today turned in derision, this stereotype had its importance in the construction not only of the French identity at the end of the XIXe century, but also in the training of the historians of the beginning of the XXe century; it poses the delicate problem of the contents of teaching in history.

See too

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