Practice question · Match the pairs
Match each conception of history to its strongest claim and its weakness.
- History as science
- History as art
- History as craft
- History as chronicle
- Disciplined skill with rules and refutable results
- Records everything, and therefore explains nothing
- Method and evidence, but its objects never repeat
- Narrative and judgment, but invention is forbidden
Hints
- Each conception overpromises or underdelivers in a different way.
- One answer accepts rules and standards without claiming certainty.
Show the answer
- History as science → Method and evidence, but its objects never repeat
- History as art → Narrative and judgment, but invention is forbidden
- History as craft → Disciplined skill with rules and refutable results
- History as chronicle → Records everything, and therefore explains nothing
Why
Science overpromises, art licenses too much, chronicle abdicates. Craft is the modest and accurate answer: rules, apprenticeship, standards, and work that can be shown wrong.
Practise What is History?
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
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