Article: Memories & dreams by R white & P russell
History plays a crucial part in our understanding of ourselves, our society and our future and is thus a powerful ideological weapon, constantly being reworked.
But academic historians have become more uncertain about this role. they have shied away from producing a readily identifiable and politically manipulate (adaptable) 'truth'; they have insisted on the openness of history; they have abdicated their own claim to be upholders of national narratives; they have felt uneasy about the sweeping generalisation and the easy myth-making so sought after by any community. we are left with somthing of a vacuum where once historians spoke authoritatively. there is still demand for someone or something to fill the old role of history, the metanarrative (national history) of the past from which the nation draws colourful moral lessons. if historians have been unwilling to meet this demand, others have been only too eager. the meaning of the past is everyone's concern. inevitably, the nation's narratives are still being produced but increasingly by the press, by television mini-series, by advertisements, by politicians, by self-appointed polemicists (people who argue a cause). many of them do it very well. but it remains a history that is imposed on us, if not from above then from people with an axe to grind, a point to score, a product to sell.
With reference to the source material and other sources, evaluate how approaches to history have changed over time.
SECTION 2
"Historiography examines how history has been written, often by researching the historian"
Assess the importance of historians in the debates relating to your chosen case study.