Approaches in History

The purpose of this course is to guide students of undergraduate courses in History about different schools of thought and perceptions on the subject.

Various philosophies, narratives, hermeneutics and approaches to history and history-writing allow young scholars to read many different points of views which would help their own understanding of the subject. History and its narratives have been influenced by multiple ideologies over the years. There are some scholars who follow a strictly Marxian/Sociological interpretation of an event like Irfan Habib, Eric Hobsbawm etc. Concepts such as ‘historical time’; ‘yugas’, explored by eminent scholars like Romila Thapar, provides a base for reading history. Humanist historiography by historians during the renaissance provides an understanding of the Occident (the West, largely Europe) and the origin of enlightenment and its subsequent impact on historiography, the most famous being the formation of the lesser Orient ( the East, India, China, Japan and the Middle-East) and the idea of ‘Oriental Despotism’. Historiographies like the Cartesian, Indo-Muslim, School of Annales, Manaquib or Fazail are examples of numerous ideological notions to study history. The medium of archaeology, numismatics, palaeontology, anthropology etc. which enable a practical study to play a vital role in having an enriched understanding of the course.

This paper is not taught separately in the syllabus but ‘Approaches in History’, is a collection of documents and readings that we the team of Readings on History, hope will help students better understand the course.