What is speculative history?
Speculative or alternate history is a field of historical inquiry that uses counterfactual speculation of historical events to reflect upon our present society and the social construct of memory. As Gavriel Rosenfeld states, speculative history narratives can shed light on the evolution of historical memory.
What is a speculative?
Speculative describes very risky and unproven ideas or chances. Speculative describes abstract ideas usually with high risk that often come with excitement and expectation too. A speculative investment could mean putting lots of cash into a business or real estate property hoping it will make money later.
What is factual history?
A historical fact is a fact about the past. Much information regarding the past has been lost. Many cultures have a rich oral history, but lack written documents. Oral accounts, or “story telling,” suffer from an inherent loss of information.
What is counter history literature?
Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a form of historiography that attempts to answer “what if” questions known as counterfactuals. It has produced a literary genre which is variously called alternate history, speculative history, or hypothetical history.
Is counterfactual history useful?
Therefore, through providing historical evidence counterfactual claims are plausible and are useful as they provide a deeper understanding of the significance of causation and the role of human agency on historical outcomes.
What is historical analysis?
Historical analysis is a method of the examination of evidence in coming to an understanding of the past. It is particularly applied to evidence contained in documents, although it can be applied to all artefacts. The historian is, first, seeking to gain some certainty as to the facts of the past.
What are the 4 historical thinking skills?
The Four Historical Thinking SkillsCrafting Historical Arguments from Historical Evidence. Historical thinking involves the ability to define and frame a question about the past and to address that question through the construction of an argument. Chronological Reasoning. Comparison and Contextualization. Historical Interpretation and Synthesis.
What makes a history source reliable?
To produce sound historical research, we need reliable primary sources. Records created at the same time as an event, or as close as possible to it, usually have a greater chance of being accurate than records created years later, especially by someone without firsthand knowledge of the event.
What is the most reliable source of history?
Diaries and government papers are often considered the most reliable of documents. They are often the source of traditional historical research. The main value of these sources is that the people producing them know they can say or write what they like honestly, without concern for the views of others.
Can we trust history?
You can’t trust the history book unless you have a trustworthy source. The truth is always relied upon the source. In order to rely on a source one must check the inclinations and the source’s history .
How do historians test authenticity?
If it’s a more recent document we can analyze the paper (or parchment), ink, handwriting, and grammar/vocabulary to determine whether it appears to have been written when it claims to be, and whether it matches other documents (in handwriting, writing style, vocabulary, etc) from the same author (if any such survive).
How do you research history?
Historical research involves the following steps:Identify an idea, topic or research question.Conduct a background literature review.Refine the research idea and questions.Determine that historical methods will be the method used.Identify and locate primary and secondary data sources.