How to approach and analyse historiography

Historiography refers to different historians’ written interpretations of events and periods of history. In order to analyse different historians’ arguments, it is important to determine how far the historians are agreeing or disagreeing with each other, as well as to establish to what extent you agree with the historians’ arguments. The first way to approach this is to highlight and pick out some of the key claims made by the historians. Using your own knowledge of the event or period which the historians are writing about, how reliable are their claims – can their statements be backed up from what you already know or can they be countered? Here, you can compare your evidence with the evidence used by historians.Also, consider how comprehensive the historians’ arguments are: what information have they chosen to build their claims, and what have they left out. Again, your prior knowledge of the period will be able to indicate this and you can then determine what the limits of the historians’ arguments are. When quoting a historian, keep the quotations short and succinct and make sure they give a good indication of what the historian is arguing. You can also paraphrase what the historians have written as this shows how you have understood and interpreted what they have argued. In terms of comparing the historians’ arguments to one another, find common themes that they discuss and decide whether they are agreeing or disagreeing with each other. Think about to what extent the historians are agreeing – do the same two historians agree in some areas but not others? In your conclusion, sum up what each historian argues and decide who you agree with the most and why.