Qualitative Research: An Introduction to Methods and Designs

The Why: Historical Interpretation and Analysis

Rather than just telling a story, although sometimes historians do some very good storytelling, historical research is grounded in the analysis and interpretation of the past (see Chapter Nine, Narrative Inquiry, for another perspective on stories in research). Analysis and interpretation move historical research from being a chronicle of events to providing a larger understanding of why things were as they were in the past. History tells you about the past and why the past was as it was. That is the subjective part of historical research. Certainly, picking topics, determining the scope and foci of a study, and analyzing documents are all subjective because they rely on the historian's decisions ...