Re Thinking History Jenkins Summary

In’ Re-thinking History’ (2003) Jenkins explores many different ideas surrounding history itself and asks the question, ‘What is history?’ The definition of history can mean many different things to people and this text helps the reader to begin to think about this question and how to approach this question. As well as this, ‘Re-thinking History’ is useful in helping the reader to gain a better understanding about the critical skills that you require in order to begin to make sense of the past using different methods. Jenkins challenges specific ideas and methods which have been used throughout history, as he believes that through discovering historical facts and displaying them as some sort of historical truth which is conveyed to an audience is an idea that is flawed. Whilst there are some valid and thought-provoking points made in this text which can be seen as useful in a wider context, some

In this book Jenkins portrays his views about analysing conventional historical methods. He believes that even if a trained historian uses these methods in a postmodern way, it will demonstrate to the historian that we can never achieve a truly accurate image of the past due to the fact that there is a gap between the past and history is an ontological one, which means one that in the very nature of things cannot be bridged. As well as this, it is not possible for the historian to gain a methodological impartiality which would mean that the information would be completely free from prejudice and bias, as it would be near impossible for historians to