ABSTRACT
In the welter of history today, this chapter presents three major approaches which are characterised as reconstructionism, constructionism and deconstructionism. The reconstructionist, or as it is sometimes called the contextualist, approach refers to the established consensus or ‘com-monsense’ empiricist tradition handed down from the nineteenth century. History cannot be written as if it were in some way entirely removed from the experience of the present, of one's everyday life or the dominant ideas within the broader intellectual community. Nor less is it able to avoid explanatory frameworks that must be to some greater or lesser extent culturally provided. History is also about the relationship between historian's texts and one's past and present social life as mediated through language-use. The deconstruction of history means no longer repressing the importance of writing history or, more radically, being willing to view the past as well as existence in the present as texts to be read.
