In historiography, we often cast a critical eye upon writings from the past and question the methods and influences upon the writer. Have contemporary historians done any "predictive historiography" about what historians of the future might think about the way history is done today?

by Odnahc

This question is motivated by the fact that I am reading a portion of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and I read up a bit on Gibbon too. However, I'm looking for general answers, not just in relation to this one work/author.

sunagainstgold

I am not sure anyone would call it "predictive historiography" so much as "historical method" and, well, plain old historiography.

In general, serious historians (serious != academic, not at all, mind you) today are very self-reflective about their own methods and viewpoints. And in particular, how those things affect both the history we tell and the topics we choose.

To give you an example, here's an earlier answer of mine about women's history versus the history of women versus feminist history. All of these are very much current schools of historical method--historiography--but have also been identified/consciously developed and analyzed.

Now. Does that mean all of our biases, agendas, viewpoints, collective experiences are apparent to us today? No, absolutely not. I suspect if you time-traveled to the 1980s and asked 1980s women's historians whether their work was trans-friendly/inclusive, they would say, "Huh?" For the most part, it wasn't, at least in medieval, but most of them couldn't see that at the time. In medieval, even today the ongoing stigmas against bisexuality and asexuality are becoming apparent--things that just were not visible a generation ago.

But good historical writers today at least try to be consciously aware of the methods they use.

Please let me know if this isn't clear/what you were really asking!