The Significance of the Document in Historiography

دراسة نظرية

Abstract

‌Historiography is a sensitive and important field in the nation-building process, through which researchers gather raw materials. The document is one of the sources which have a great impact at the ‌Historiography, and since it is a residing material among researchers and specialists, we find wide and methodological variations hovering round it, specifically in determining the documentary importance. The document isn't confined to the positivist theory of history, which relies on written documents only, however is going beyond the written to antiquities and remains, whether physical, written or even oral. From this point of view, we attempt to define and clarify the document, define its concept, indicate its types and the agreed and different opinions about it, in order to determine the extent of its impact at the Historiography, and how to deal with it. We identified the problem of the study by raising several questions, such as: What is the definition of a document and its types? And how do researchers deal with it? What is the location of the document in writing history? The method followed on this study is the analytical and critical method, drawing on Arabic and English sources and references.