History Research Guide

Questions to establish source authenticity:

1. PROVENANCE
   - Where did this document come from?
   - What is the chain of custody?
   - Has it been reproduced, translated, or edited?

2. DATING
   - When was it created? (Internal evidence: dates, references to events)
   - Does the material form match the claimed period? (paper, ink, typeface)
   - Are there anachronisms in language or content?

3. AUTHORSHIP
   - Who created it? How do we know?
   - Is the attribution reliable? (Handwriting analysis, stylistic evidence)
   - Could it be pseudonymous or falsely attributed?

4. INTEGRITY
   - Is the document complete or fragmentary?
   - Has it been altered, censored, or interpolated?
   - Are there multiple versions? Which is closest to the original?

Internal Criticism (Reliability and Meaning)

Questions to interpret source content:

1. CONTEXT
   - What was happening when this was written?
   - What was the author's social position, education, ideology?
   - What genre conventions shaped the document?

2. INTENTION
   - Why was this created? (Inform, persuade, record, entertain)
   - Who was the intended audience?
   - What was the author trying to achieve?

3. RELIABILITY
   - Was the author in a position to know what they describe?
   - What biases might shape the account?
   - How does it compare with other sources on the same events?

4. SILENCES
   - What is NOT said? Who is absent from the account?
   - What topics does the source avoid or minimize?
   - What perspectives are excluded?

Archival Research

Preparing for the Archive

Pre-visit checklist:

1. FINDING AIDS
   - Search online catalogs and finding aids before visiting
   - Identify relevant record groups, series, and box numbers
   - Contact the archivist: they know the collection better than anyone

2. PRACTICAL PREPARATION
   - Check policies: photography allowed? Laptop permitted?
   - Bring: pencils (no pens), laptop, camera, white gloves, notebook
   - Register in advance (many archives require pre-registration)
   - Book a desk (popular archives fill up, especially in summer)

3. RESEARCH PLAN
   - Prioritize: You cannot read everything. What is essential?
   - Prepare a list of specific documents, people, dates to search for
   - Allow time for serendipity -- unexpected finds are common

4. DOCUMENTATION
   - Record full archival citations for every document:
     [Archive Name], [Collection Name], [Series], [Box], [Folder], [Item]
   - Photograph everything you might need (storage is cheap)
   - Take contextual notes alongside transcriptions

Major Digital Archives

Historiographical Frameworks

Schools of Historical Thought

Braudel's Three Temporalities

Time layers in historical analysis:

1. LONGUE DUREE (centuries)
   - Geography, climate, demographics
   - Slow structural change
   - Example: Mediterranean trade routes, 500 BCE - 1500 CE

2. CONJUNCTURES (decades)
   - Economic cycles, social trends, institutional change
   - Medium-term patterns
   - Example: Rise and fall of Atlantic slave trade, 1500-1888

3. EVENTS (days to years)
   - Political events, battles, treaties, revolutions
   - Surface history, "l'histoire evenementielle"
   - Example: Fall of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989

Research tip: Strong historical arguments often operate across
multiple temporalities simultaneously.

Digital Methods for Historians

Text Mining Historical Sources

# Example: Word frequency analysis across a corpus of historical documents
from collections import Counter
import re

def analyze_historical_corpus(texts: list, period_labels: list) -> dict:
    """
    Track keyword frequency across historical periods.
    Useful for tracing conceptual change (Begriffsgeschichte).
    """
    period_counts = {}
    for text, period in zip(texts, period_labels):
        words = re.findall(r'\b[a-z]+\b', text.lower())
        if period not in period_counts:
            period_counts[period] = Counter()
        period_counts[period].update(words)

    return period_counts

# Track usage of key concepts over time
def track_concept(period_counts: dict, concept_terms: list) -> dict:
    """Track normalized frequency of concept terms across periods."""
    results = {}
    for period, counts in sorted(period_counts.items()):
        total = sum(counts.values())
        concept_freq = sum(counts.get(term, 0) for term in concept_terms)
        results[period] = {
            "raw_count": concept_freq,
            "per_million": (concept_freq / total) * 1_000_000 if total > 0 else 0,
        }
    return results

# Example: Track "liberty" vs. "order" in political texts
# liberty_trend = track_concept(corpus, ["liberty", "freedom", "rights"])
# order_trend = track_concept(corpus, ["order", "authority", "stability"])

GIS for Historical Analysis

Applications of GIS in historical research:

- Mapping migration patterns (transatlantic slave trade routes)
- Spatial analysis of urban development (Paris renovation, 1853-1870)
- Battle reconstruction (troop movements, terrain analysis)
- Disease mapping (John Snow's cholera map, modernized)
- Trade network visualization (Silk Road, maritime routes)
- Land use change over time (enclosure, deforestation)

Tools: QGIS (free), ArcGIS, Google Earth Engine
Data: HGIS (Historical GIS), Natural Earth, GADM

Writing Historical Research

Article structure (American Historical Review style):

1. OPENING (1-2 pages)
   - Narrative opening or striking primary source quotation
   - Situate within historiographical debate
   - Thesis statement (explicit and arguable)

2. BODY (15-25 pages)
   - Organized chronologically OR thematically
   - Each section advances the argument
   - Primary source evidence drives every claim
   - Engage with counterarguments and alternative interpretations
   - Footnotes: full citations, also substantive discussion

3. CONCLUSION (1-2 pages)
   - Restate thesis in light of evidence presented
   - Broader implications for the field
   - Open questions for future research

Citation style: Chicago Manual of Style (notes-bibliography)

Best Practices

• Always return to the primary source. Secondary sources summarize; primary sources surprise.
• Triangulate. Use multiple independent sources to corroborate claims.
• Historicize your categories. "Democracy," "race," "the state" meant different things in different periods.
• Acknowledge what the sources cannot tell you. Silence is data.
• Read against the grain. Sources reveal not just what they intend but what they take for granted.
• Cite archival sources precisely. Other researchers must be able to find the same document.

References

• Bloch, M. (1953). The Historian's Craft. Vintage Books.
• Tosh, J. (2015). The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions. Routledge, 6th ed.
• Zotero -- Reference management with Chicago style support
• Internet Archive -- Universal access to human knowledge
• Programming Historian -- Digital methods tutorials for historians