The decision of whether or not to engage in the task of writing contemporary history remains one of the core issues of debate and controversy among historians. To most traditional historians, the term “contemporary history” is in itself a contradiction because “history” to them is what is past, that is, what is long past. The latest they could allow would be “modern history” because of the difficulty associated with defining or ascribing a time scope to contemporary history. Some of the issues raised include: How can it be maintained that there can be anything recognisable as contemporary history? How should the word “contemporary” be defined? What are its distinguishing features? What does this mean for how we think about contemporary history in the twenty-first century? How do we characterize the “contemporariness” of contemporary history today? (Readman, 2011). These traditional and conservative historians limit the scope of history to events that occurred outside living memory. Some critics of contemporary history would even go further and say that the consideration of the present can or must endanger sound historical writing. This article therefore focuses on the challenges faced by historians attempting to venture into the field of contemporary history.
The term ‘contemporary history’ is problematic and as a result, its conceptualisation remains highly contested. According to Barraclough, “contemporary” is a very elastic term with different meaning for different people. To him, contemporary history begins when the problems which are actual in the world today first take visible shape (Barraclough, 1966). To Krickler and Laquer (1972), contemporary history is essentially concerned with events which form the direct basis for decisions on problems of public importance in the present day or in the immediate future, as distinct from those which provide only a general historical background or have no concern with modern problems at all. Collingwood (1995) defines it as history of the recent past in a society which the historian regards as his own society, that is, of which he has personal experience that is, as a participant observer. In light of the above definitions, we cannot give any specific date as the start date of contemporary history. However, some of the major characteristics of contemporary history include present- mindedness and the use of interdisciplinary approach. For the purpose of this discourse, we define contemporary history as events within living memory that is, history remembered by most human beings alive extending to about a generation and our start date will be the 20th century in general and 1945 in particular. This is because there had been great global changes during the twentieth century in terms of political and economic systems and technology. Also, following the end of the Second World War in 1945, the world began to move in a different direction in terms of political, economic, ideological and technological terms. These changes indicated that we have moved into new era and therefore in many senses, the twentieth century is not a continuation of the nineteenth century (Durmaz, 2012).
Scholars scepticism towards contemporary history first originated in the move to professionalise the discipline in the 19th century. Those who engaged in its study were treated with contempt, and ridiculed as engaging in mere journalism and contemporary political writing as distinct from the study of history. The latter is characterised by a sense of detachment, by which the historian maintains some distance from the subject matter under investigation that lay in the distant past. From the traditionalist historian’s point of view, a historian who studies his own time cannot be objective and cannot approach a scientific approach successfully. Writing scholarly history according to these traditionalist historians could not be about one’s own experience and eye witness accounts but the methodological breakthrough was seen to be in the systematic examination of surviving written sources from the past. Their belief is that events as recent as fifty years ago should not be the study of historians (Readman, 2011).
The following include some of the reasons given by traditionalist historians on why contemporary history should not be the concern of historians. The first and the most standard of all the arguments is that there was an absence of the necessary distance in time necessary for an objective assessment of the recent past. Secondly, the contemporary historians can only be aware of consequences and the results of the events he has studied to a very limited degree that is, the short-term facts as he has an inadequate perspective. Thirdly, the materials have too many limitations because there is an official embargo on documents of between 30 and 50 years. Fourthly, the material is too extensive particularly on the world scale. Fifthly, critics of contemporary history also feared that contemporary history could be at best nothing more than a form of journalism because its concerns were so closely rooted to the present, such that there was no proper distance that the passage of time allowed, that historians were too close to and perhaps even too much part of the events to make proper historical judgements. Sixthly, as far as teaching was concerned, some claimed that 15 to 16 years old pupils were not interested in worldwide problems (Durmaz, 2012).
In the study and writing of contemporary history, there are several challenges that the historian must encounter, some of which include: problem of definition, problem of periodisation, problems of sources and the nature of evidence, lack of objectivity and problem of bias, the lack of perspective, the problem of indefinite scope, problem of relevance, among others. Contemporary history is also a dangerous subject to handle because it is full of explosive materials and most of the essential information will not be known until many years later. Furthermore, passion and partisanship can obscure objective judgement as anyone who attempts to write contemporary history in any more durable form than a current journalistic article is laying his head on the block for the executioner.
Despite these challenges, contemporary history is the most important history of all to handle. It is the events of our day which need to be studied and assessed, not only in current polemical treatment but with an attempt at understanding how they have arisen and where they are leading. For several reasons, historians have an obligation to be interested in the history of their time. First of all, as in the case of other professions, the historian has an obligation as member of society and as such must help people to understand not only what happened in the distant past, but also what has occurred during their own lifetimes. Today, there is a public demand for a better understanding of the recent past in order to understand what is happening in the world, and if historical knowledge has the ability to prepare people for the future in theory, knowledge of contemporary history might help prevent individuals or whole societies from making the same mistake twice. Secondly, if historians do not deal with contemporary history, this area would be left to the people who may provide false information on speculative knowledge about recent events. According to Bullock, “there is no more powerful force of propaganda in moving people to anger and indignation, in sting up political, racial and religious passions than false history” (Bullock, 1960).
The truth is that if we reject contemporary history as a serious academic discipline, we may be faced with a serious problem in the long run. As overwhelming as the challenges of contemporary history may seem, they are by no means insurmountable. Like in other form of historical writing, it is important for the contemporary historian to search diligently, analyse as impartially as humanly possible and be selective in his approach because of the large mass of documents available to him/her. The historian must behave like a true anthropologist-neutral, detached and impassionate, and should not let his/her personal interest take primacy over professional ethics. Furthermore, issues under consideration may be grouped into specialized fields instead of the conventional geographical and chronological groupings. The historian must also be sound intellectually and be learned not only in history but also in other fields of knowledge.
In essence, despite all the shortcomings, writing contemporary history is a valid exercise which has been given new emphases in recent historiographical thinking. While it may not have the same permanence as history written at a greater distance from the events portrayed, it can contribute much to our understanding of recent history and enable us to prepare more adequately for the future. The commitment and self-discernment of the historian are integral components of this type of historical exercise and these provide a moral basis for historical investigation with integrity. And now, more than ever, historians have a political and moral responsibility not to leave the realm of the most recent past and of unfolding events to journalists, bloggers, or worst of all, polemicists. As Braudel (1980) wrote, “…history is the study of society, and thus of the past and equally of the present, past and the present inseparable”. The present can help our understanding of the past only if the present itself is made comprehensible. In other words, the historian should not turn his back on the present and should not put a gap of fifty years between himself and his responsibilities.
References
Barraclough, G. 1966. An introduction to contemporary history. London: C.A. Watts & Co.
Braudel, F. 1980. On history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Bullock, A. 1960. Is it possible to write contemporary history? in M. Beloff. Ed. On the track of tyranny. London: Valentine & Mitchell.
Collingwood, R. G. 1995. The principles of history and their writings in philosophy of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Durmaz, S.2012. On the possibility of writing contemporary history. Sosyal Bilimler Enstitusu. Vol.2. No.1.
Krickler, B. and Laquer, W. 1972. A reader’s guide to contemporary history. London: Weinfeld and Nicolson.
Readman, S.K. 2011. Contemporary history in Europe: From mastering national pasts to the future of writing the world. Journal of Contemporary History. Vol.46, No.3.