Is there a name for the critical method of assessing historical narratives via the consultation of primary sources?

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Historians agree that historiographic reading of the documentary record of the past, may produce sustainable historical accounts.

They disagree on:

  • what constitutes the documentary record of the past.

  • what constitutes historiographic reading.

  • what a historical account is.

Historians do not agree that the past comprises facts. Nor do they agree that the number of sources is relevant. Persuasive source bases can be limited, and apparently large corpuses of texts can have biases that severely limit their usefulness. Nor do historians agree that the past has narrative form. They certainly disagree on the conceptual tools and frameworks that are valid when reading or relating the past.

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