A Critique of Themes Preferred by Nigerian Historians
1980; Volume: 10; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0018-2540
Autores Tópico(s)Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria
ResumoTo do justice to the theme of our discussion will require considerable study and analysis of the themes not only of major books by Nigerian historians since the appearance of Trade and Politics in 1956, but also of several journal articles, booklets and pamphlets, contributions to symposia and even unpublished theses. Such a study I have obviously not undertaken and must emphasise that this is something that needs to be done. One of the issues that came out of the discussion yesterday was that we really ought to begin to read and to study one another's works, and that the Society has matured to the stage where serious study and evaluation of our own historical works is important if we are to identify gaps and areas that need to be further tackled. Some of these will come out, I hope, in some of our discussions this morning. Not having undertaken this kind of serious study and evaluation, I can only throw out a few ideas for our discussion based only on broad impressions and some of these may be out of date since I am myself a little out of touch with a fair amount of work that is being produced by historians in Nigeria. I am also limiting myself to a consideration of themes in Nigerian history, although it may also be interesting to discuss to what extent themes in African or even non-African history outside Nigeria are being avoided or preferred by Nigerian historians. We might begin by classifying the different historical writings that we will be evaluating into four broad classes: what I have called themes dealing with external stimulus and response; themes dealing with internal histories of peoples in the 1 9th and early 20th centuries; themes dealing with administrative and institutional structures; and, finally, themes based upon an ideological approach.
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