ANALYSIS AND NEWS
KEEPING HISTORY REAL THROUGH RESEARCH
Critical thinking is essential if we are to make the correct use of resources
when publishing scholarly literature, writes Jessica Lagan
C
ambridge Archive Editions is a UK-based publisher of historical document collections, mainly researched from governmental archives. We consult widely in all possible file classes to create as varied a research product as possible, including top secret papers. We publish these primary source documents in facsimile in order to keep the veracity of the original. Without examination of primary historical sources, our understanding of history can become obscure. Secondary sources will always move us away from fresh personal judgement of the events under review, even while they may be opening up our imagination to a new perspective. History, it is said, is written by the ‘winners’ and so we must always bring our critical faculties to bear upon all sources of information. Obviously these collections of British Government documents are not without their bias and strategic concerns; we expect that. However, from the late 1700s the British Empire established consulates wherever possible: Turkey, China, Japan, and in Russia, all in an effort to extend trade and kept contemporaneous records wherever it made treaties or engaged in governing local populations. The broad range of countries covered – and the tremendous detail – create a unique opportunity to examine past events closely.
The converse is true of course; records of the Belgian Congo will not be in the British archives, so we are restricted to areas of powerful British influence. The US archives, which are enormous, reflect the preoccupations of a young country and have foreign records starting from later in the modern period; the first Embassy in Nagoya, Japan, opened in 1912.
www.researchinformation.info @researchinfo
Collections of British Government documents are not without their bias and strategic concerns
Political implications History itself is grounded in politics and governance. Students of history often get directly involved in the political process, in government or political organisations, or the law, and national or global non-governmental agencies like the United Nations. The Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) states: ‘The central requirements for our future leaders in these fields are to: l Understand the historical trajectory of government around the world;
l Understand economics and the general workings of the economy;
l Become informed and critical consumers of information;
l Develop analytical rigour and the ability to criticise and reason logically; and
l Be able to apply these skills to many contemporary and historical schools of thought, and to questions concerning how we acquire knowledge or how we make operational recommendations.’ It is the responsibility of all policy makers to try and bring some historical perspective to bear upon current events. It is the intention of Cambridge Archive Editions Publishing to provide some of the historical data upon which these understandings can be based. In this
following extract, from 1917, we can see how historical events mirror the preoccupations of the present day as the British focus on the Gulf as a preferred power base to Afghanistan. Extract from Islam: Political Impact 1908–1972, Volume 2, Memorandum by Captain N. Bray, March 1917: ‘A note on the
‘History, it is said, is written by the ‘winners’ and so we must always bring our critical faculties to bear’
Mohammedan question, its bearing on events in India and Arabia, the future of the Great Islamic revival now that Turkey ceases to be a power on which the hopes of the Moslem world were placed.
‘At the present moment agitation is intense in all Mohammedan countries…the reports of agents and others confirm…the extreme vitality of the [Pan-Islamic] movement . … It is ... essential that the country to whom Mohammedans look should not be Afghanistan. We should therefore create a State more convenient for ourselves, to whom the attention of Islam should be turned. We
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016 Research Information 15
Everett Historical/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36