The Practical Historical Approach:A Review of the Principles and Methods of Fact-First History

This article defines and defends"the practical historical approach",a long-established approach to history which prizes the critical treatment of sources and,above all else,the presentation and assessment of accurate information about the past.This approach appreciates the value of historical fact in its own right,not just when it furnishes an opportunity to build theories or to prove points.The article does not aim to make a theoretical case for empiricist history,arguing instead that the old philosophy-driven debates about empiricism have little bearing on the practice of historical research and writing.It prefers to make a practical defence of certain critical methods and habits of thought which are now sometimes dismissed as old-fashioned.It draws on a series of historians'handbooks dating from 1889 to 1980,in which the methods and principles of the practical approach were worked out and refined,and it identifies the main principles and techniques of this approach,many of which derive from the German“scientific"historical tradition,and which furnish historians with a powerful apparatus for critically analyzing sources.The article also has a polemical angle,arguing that the practical historical approach could profitably be taught more consciously inuniversities.