A number of practicing historians often write history without any concern about theory.
This has always been one of the criticisms of social scientists against historians, as the latter fail to appreciate – or use – theory whenever they write their historical narratives.
In his book, History and Social Theory, Peter Burke argued that social theorists often look into the general scope, mostly without empirical evidence, while historians look more into the particular scope without relevance to the general.
In retrospect, and to some extent at present, historians and sociologists have come at par with each other as, according to Burke, historians see sociologists as “people who state the obvious in a barbarous and abstract jargon, lack of any sense of place and time, squeeze individuals without mercy into rigid categories, and, to cap it all, describe these activities as ‘scientific.’”
On the other hand, sociologists see historians as “amateurish, myopic fact-collectors without system or method” – or simply put, those who cannot analyze and give relevance to their data.
Suffice to say, from the contrasting arguments, it seems clear that historians are not often seen as “scientific” compared to sociologists. While sociologists are often criticized for being too “scientific.”
I would argue, however, that to make history relevant to the general public, historians – or should I say, public historians – have to try to make it entertaining, but factual; it should be scientific to an extent, but not too scientific or not too complicated, as it would turn off the general readers.
More importantly, as much as possible, history and sociology should be used together.
Looking back in the 19th century, historians have always had the penchant of writing political history – having or following a top-down approach – and have had an utter disregard for social history; they just did not see any use in it.
However, later in the 20th century – specifically in the 1930s, with the rise of the Annales school, Annalist historians [who were mostly from France] started to gain interest in social, cultural, and economic history.
One of those annalist historians, Fernand Braudel even claimed that “history and sociology should be particularly close because the practitioners of both disciplines try, or ought to try to see human experience as a whole.”
Social history further developed in the 1960s and 70s and these histories mostly focused on what is now known as history from below.
In the Philippines, it was Teodoro Agoncillo who started it by writing his prominent book, The Revolt of the Masses, which was about Bonifacio, the Katipunan, and the Philippine Revolution.
Inspired by Agoncillo, and even with the warnings from his American professors, who thought that Agoncillo did not write good history, Reynaldo Ileto carried on the torch and wrote his seminal work, Pasyon and Revolution, which looks into how the Filipino common people [or the masses] were influenced by, or gained some form of consciousness through, the lessons they learned from the Pasyon [the suffering and resurrection of Christ]. Ileto also argued that the Pasyon engendered the masses’ participation in the Philippine Revolution.
The book of Ileto was heavily praised by scholars interested in Philippine Studies, with Benedict Anderson stating that “Ileto’s masterly Pasyon and Revolution… is unquestionably the most profound and searching book on late nineteenth century Philippine history.”
Ileto’s work is a perfect example of using theory in history.
It is also a work that combines both history and sociology, both of which – I previously argued – must go hand in hand; with history providing useful sources of data for sociologists, and with sociology providing some framework for historians to interpret the past.
Ileto’s framework differed, at that time, with the traditional form of historical scholarship, which was focused on the role of the ilustrados (or educated elites) in the Philippine revolution.
In doing so, he had to look into non-traditional sources like the Pasyon and other religious and literary texts to write a history from below – to give a voice to the masses who, based on dominant trend of Philippine historical scholarship before his time, did not have a voice in history.
Alhough historians often overlook theory, it is still somehow beneficial to have a strong theoretical underpinning in the historical narratives that we write.
Theory helps us formulate more questions, and asking questions – rather than finding answers – is more important in the study of history.
The more questions we ask, the more things we can write about. But these questions must be anchored by theories.
In the end, I wholeheartedly agree with Peter Burke when he said that “without the combination of history and theory, we are unlikely to understand either the past or the present.”
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Author’s email: JJAbulado@norsu.edu.ph
