The Big Names
This 5th-century BC Greek historian is widely known as the "father of history," a title first bestowed by Cicero
Who is Herodotus?
This historiographical school analyses the past through the lens of class struggle, economics, and material production
What is the Marxist School?
These are the facts, sources, or information used by a historian to support an interpretation of the past
What is evidence?
This type of history connects events chronologically to read like a "story" with a plot line, heroes, and villains
What is Narrative history?
The name given to the intense public and academic debates over the interpretation of frontier conflict and massacres in Australia
What are the History Wars?
This 19th-century German historian famously argued that the purpose of history is to show "wie es eigentlich gewesen" or "as it actually was"
Who is Leopold von Ranke?
Founded by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, this school prioritises "total history" and long-term geographic and environmental factors over "history from above"
What is the Annales School?
Defined as "the history of history," this is the study of how history is written, by whom, and for what purpose
What is historiography?
A construction of history focused on the life, background, and career of a single influential individual
What is Biography?
In his book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, this author argues that many massacres were fabricated or grossly exaggerated by "New Left" historians
Who is Keith Windschuttle?
This Enlightenment historian authored The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, believing that trivial actions revealed more about a society's character than official discourse
Who is Edward Gibbon?
This school examines history from a gender perspective to uncover experiences that have been marginalised or "silenced" in traditional narratives
What is the Feminist School?
This term refers to the intentional or unintentional act of leaving specific material out of a historical account
What is omission?
Emerging in the 1960s, this field rejects "history from above" to focus on the shared experiences of ordinary people
What is Social history?
This term, coined by W.E.H. Stanner in 1968, refers to the systematic absence of Indigenous perspectives in Australian national history
What is "the Great Australian Silence"?
A leading 20th-century British Marxist historian who argued the English Revolution of 1640 was a "great social movement" comparable to the French Revolution
Who is Christopher Hill?
This 20th-century intellectual movement rejects the idea of objective truth and views historical accounts as subjective linguistic constructs
What is Postmodernism?
Unlike fictional stories, historical narratives are constrained by this "radical phenomenon" of surviving records from the past
What is a trace? (or archival trace)
This type of history is more concerned with people's changing attitudes and ideas, often relying on artifacts like art and radio recordings
What is Cultural history?
This 1960s intellectual clash pitted a traditionalist who believed in "objective truth" against a historian who viewed history as a "continuous process of interaction" between the historian and his facts
What is the Carr-Elton debate?
This ancient historian believed history was "philosophy teaching by example" and provided practical guidance for political and military leaders
Who is Polybius?
Inspired by historians like Ranajit Guha, this approach seeks to give a voice to marginalised, oppressed, and "non-Western" groups whose lives often left few written records
What are Subaltern Studies?
Victoria Browne argues that historical pasts are constituted through this dynamic "backwards-forwards" oscillation between the present and the past
What is a two-way temporality?
This small-scale approach, pioneered by historians like Carlo Ginzburg, focuses on individual subjects or small communities to illuminate broader trends
What is Microhistory?
This historian argued that Australians knew more about their soldiers' overseas exploits than they did about the violent conflicts between settlers and Indigenous people at home
Who is Henry Reynolds?