Comparing History and Historiography - Essay Example

Likewise, historiography is a complex part of history course that many students struggle to understand and lack confidence in discussing. This essay will aim to elucidate what history and historiography are, analyze differences between the two terms and discuss why it is essential to have an understanding of them. Definition of terms History can be defined as the study of past events and the originality, compilation, organization, and arrangement of information about these events. Additionally, history can be termed as the intellectual discipline that utilizes narratives to scrutinize and inspect a series of historical events, and aim at establishing the patterns of cause and the effect that verify them.

Precisely, history is the study of past events whereby the authors and scholars of history are referred to historians (Stunkel, 2011). On the other hand, historiography can be defined as the study of how historians and other scholars construe the past primarily as a study of their writing. In addition, it can also refer to the different ways of understanding or interpreting historical events, groups or leaders, and also understanding the reasons why there is the existence of different interpretations and theories.

Candidly, historiography is an intriguing field of discussions and arguments regarding preceding and present illustrations of the past (Jayapalan, 2002). Differences between History and Historiography The differences between history and historiography are numerous and miniature starting from the meaning of the words themselves to other ways in which the subjects are applied in the academic sphere and beyond. From the definition, history is the exploration of past events while historiography is the examining of how history is studied and transmitted.

As a matter of fact, the discipline of history is not going anywhere (Watts, 1997). On the other hand, the decisive perspective of historiography is becoming more vital to the field of history through offering latest conclusion regarding the past events and people’s relationship to them. While historiography is a sub-discipline of history, history is a discipline itself, with other sub-disciplines such as chronological theories, social and cultural history, amongst others such as political and economic history, and historical anthropology.

"History" is an academic discipline nevertheless it is also a frequently used the word that does not fundamentally represent academia. "History" can be used colloquially to mean any approved period of time or stories associated with it. On the other hand, "historiography" came into existence in1979, and was introduced by Stanford University professor and scholar Lawrence Stone. As a result, "Historiography" cannot be applied conversationally. As much as historiography is a sub-discipline of history, they both fall into diverse form of discipline due to their methodology.

History is classified under humanities because of its emphasis on philosophy, art, literature and other fields that are not sciences, whereas historiography is classified under social sciences because of its social scientific approach to history. Furthermore, history is a narrative when considering its nature and character, whereby it is portrayed history as sequential, chronological and logical storytelling. On the other hand, historiography is a "new history" which focuses on analysis and not on narratives, and it is "structural history" since it emphasizes more on the state of humanity than on the accurate, objective conditions.

Therefore, historiography emphasizes on the "how," of the past whereas history on the "what." Hence, historiography is extremely focused and wide (Gustafson, n.d). Importance of understanding history and histo