1. Historiography

2. History: studies the past by reconstructing it in the present.
Historiography: studies the historians who reconstruct the past. The emphasis is on the methodology that the historian uses.

3. Questions that historiography studies:
Who wrote the history, with what agenda and with what end purpose?
How does the age, nationality and ideology influence the historian?
Is the historian unbiased in his interpretation of primary and secondary sources?
Does the historian intentionally exclude certain sources?

4. Marxist Historiography

5. Georg Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher
Believed that history moved in stages
Thesis in conflict with antithesis = synthesis
(The dialectic)
A progressive view of conflict – Out of conflict comes higher stages of historical development and historical consciousness
German idealism
Karl Marx was a student of Hegel

7. Karl Marx ( )
Adapts Hegel’s model of conflict and applies it to political economics
Class conflict explains all of the events of history.
Class conflict should generate revolution to overthrow capitalists and governments
A utopian vision of a better world
The Communist Manifesto (1848)