In Praise of the Go-Between | History Today - 0 views
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The close juxtaposition of these two ends of the historian’s spectrum has made me reflect on the nature of history as a discipline
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raw data historians dredge up from archives requires many filters and processes to become the finished product
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Extracting that raw data and conveying it in meaningful terms to an audience require very different skill-sets
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It is difficult to move from those lovely pieces of 16th-century parchment not only to making a story, but to making an argument that says something of import and says it in a way that the world can comprehend
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Those who think of history as much more of a soft, easily accessible discipline than, say, physics or chemistry should be warned that it is not as easy as it looks. There is a rift between the two ends of the spectrum, but it seems to me that the very business of being a historian lies in that space