Abstract
Historians try to understand aspects of former times and give them meaning. It is their job to interpret what happened, to explain how people lived in the past and to account for their beliefs, passions and hopes. Their reading is necessarily subjective, biased by their personal opinions and by the attitudes of mind and by the ways of thinking characteristic of their own epoch. Their only safeguard is the trace left by previous generations. The quest for sources, critical examinations of the documents, comparison and confrontation are the first steps of historical investigation. Records are never self-evident; historians must decipher them, then make inferences and, by reasoning, draw logical conclusions. But they can neither invent what is not attested, nor distort what they have found in archives or archaeological remains.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
del Amo, A. and Ferradas, M.L. (eds) (1996) Filmoteca Espanola, Catalogo General de la Guerra Civil (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra).
Connelly, M. (2004) We Can Take It! Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (Harlow: Pearson Education).
Messter, O. (1898) Special-Catalog No. 32 über Projektions-und Aufnahme-Apparate für lebende Photographie, Films, Graphophons (Berlin).
Torre, A. (2008) ‘Conversazione con Nicola Caracciolo’ in Le carte delle immagini (Rome: Ediesse).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2010 Luisa Cigognetti and Pierre Sorlin
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cigognetti, L., Sorlin, P. (2010). History on Television. In: Bell, E., Gray, A. (eds) Televising History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230277205_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230277205_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-30760-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-27720-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)