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What is the driving force behind my personal pursuit of a BA in history? I became a history major because I have always loved peering into the past through artifacts, written and oral traditions. After reading the assignment for this week from the perspective of historian Jeremy Popkin in his book From Herodotus To H-Net: The Story of Historiography, I have developed a new appreciation for historiography and what it means to actively study history from an academic perspective. It is possible to spend a lifetime loving history as a “sponge”; absorbing interesting facts, events and details from the past without ever critically evaluating the sources of the information. Historiography is more than just pursuing a love of history, it is a critically thought out dissection, examination and investigation into the validity of the historical sources that are available regarding an time period, era, or specific event. In fact if you are an individual that would rather view history through romanticized lenses, influenced by a media biased viewpoint of historical events; such as the portrayal of the sinking of the Titanic in the blockbuster Hollywood movie by the same name, then maybe historiography doesn’t seem engaging enough for you. My fellow classmate: @ 2016mgandara made a valid point in their blog post on disasters, which is that people are obsessed with historical events that they seemingly have little or no relation to http://courses.shroutdocs.org/hist300a-fall2016/archives/119. If that is the basis of your interest in history, then historiography may or may not be the field for you because the discipline spends a considerable amount of time questioning and analytically exploring the source of the commentary available on the history being explored. I can say with confidence that I attain to be more than just a mere lover of history. What about you?
Christi Terry