Narrative Versus Analysis in History

Abstract

Over the last three decades, historians have often argued vigorously with each other about whether their aim should continue to be the traditional one of elaborating narrative accounts of selected developments or periods of the past; and their disputes have been loud enough to be heard well beyond the confines of their professional conclaves. The avant garde, opting for something newer and better than mere “story-telling”, which they generally call “analysis”, have sometimes gone so far as to question whether those who continue to narrate can be said really to convey significant knowledge of the past; and there has been talk of the demise of narrative as part of a “breakthrough” in historical method of an order comparable to the one which, now hallowed by the name of Ranke, occurred early in the nineteenth century and first encouraged historians to think of their inquiries as constituting a “science”. Lawrence Stone, not many years ago, was prepared to say at least that all the really important historical works of the post-war period have been analytical in character, and to praise them for so being.¹ More traditional historians like J.H. Hexter and Geoffrey Elton have responded with what are now often seen, at any rate so far as the relevant literature in English is concerned, as classical statements of the continuing credo of the narrative historian.²