..history is inherently an eclectic discipline and the skills it requires are correspondingly diverse. And therein lie its strengths. Eclecticism is sometimes treated as a dirty word. At the very least it sounds untidy - just so: if historians treat the past in too tidy a manner they lose a great deal.. It is precisely the ability to embrace complexities while making sense of them, and to think flexibly about diverse phenomena at distinct analytical levels, that characterises historians' purchase on the past.Ludmilla Jordanova
About This Quote
Rather than the past being a collection of facts, you can use it as a basis to think about your future. Or, if you’re a student, you can use it as a basis to become a historian. If you can take events and relate them and put them into context and turn them into something that makes sense and sticks with people then you can use that information and apply it to other events. It’s the skill of using an eclectic nature – of using all the different sources – to create a story that brings together all elements of the past and ties them up in some manner.
Source: History In Practice
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