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historiography

American  
[hi-stawr-ee-og-ruh-fee, -stohr-] / hɪˌstɔr iˈɒg rə fi, -ˌstoʊr- /

noun

historiographies plural
  1. the body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively.

  2. the body of techniques, theories, and principles of historical research and presentation; methods of historical scholarship.

  3. the narrative presentation of history based on a critical examination, evaluation, and selection of material from primary and secondary sources and subject to scholarly criteria.

  4. an official history.

    medieval historiographies.


historiography British  
/ ˌhɪstɔːrɪˈɒɡrəfɪ, hɪˌstɔːrɪəˈɡræfɪk /

noun

  1. the writing of history

  2. the study of the development of historical method, historical research, and writing

  3. any body of historical literature

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

Etymology

Origin of historiography

1560–70; < Middle French historiographie < Greek historiographía. See history, -o-, -graphy

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The awards foundation said Carrère d’Encausse was “one of the most brilliant, original and distinguished personalities of French historiography and contemporary European thought.”

From Seattle Times May 10, 2023

Good research requires both types of sources and some attention to historiography, which is the study of how other historians have already interpreted and written about the past.

From Textbooks Apr. 19, 2023

The Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko is quoted expanding on the idea, arguing that “a leitmotif of Ukrainian literature, historiography, and philosophy is opposition to the centralized idea of state and universe.”

From Washington Post Nov. 29, 2022

It’s a delayed, almost breathless sense of urgency that is easily forgiven considering the strength of Mitchell’s commitment to a detailed and embodied historiography.

From Los Angeles Times Oct. 27, 2022

Chapters 2, 15, 16 and 17 deal with historiography, methodology and philosophy.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

It began, like all historiographies, with the work of non-historians, the sermons, poems, speeches and memoirs by Black writers of the revolutionary period and beyond.

From New York Times Nov. 9, 2021

Undergrads have a tough enough time with the basics of Nabokov; whether the multiple historiographies of some butterfly archive in Iceland has bearing upon the materiality of Otherness will go over their heads.

From Slate Nov. 19, 2014

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