ABSTRACT
The earlier chapters of this book were essentially descriptive. They were intended to show how historians go about their work – their guiding assumptions, their handling of the evidence and their presentation of conclusions. The point has now been reached where some fundamental questions about the nature of historical enquiry can be posed: how securely based is our knowledge of the past? Can the facts of history be taken as given? What authority should be attached to attempts at historical explanation? Can historians be objective? Answers to these questions
have taken widely divergent forms and have occasioned intense debate, much of it fuelled by criticisms from outside the ranks of historians. The profession is deeply divided about the status of its ndings. At one extreme there are those such as G.R. Elton who maintained that humility in the face of the evidence and training in the technicalities of research have steadily enlarged the stock of certain historical knowledge; notwithstanding the arguments which the professionals take such delight in, history is a cumulative discipline.1 At the other extreme, Theodore Zeldin holds that all he (or any historian) can offer his readers is his personal vision of the past, and the materials out of which they in turn can fashion a personal vision that corresponds to their own aspirations and sympathies: ‘everyone has the right to nd his own perspective’.2 Although the weight of opinion among academic historians inclines towards Elton’s position, every viewpoint between the two extremes nds adherents within the profession. Historians are in a state of confusion about what exactly they are up to – a confusion not usually apparent in the condent manner with which they often pronounce on major problems of interpretation.
