Interpretive history: A narrative view of the 8th New York Volunteer Cavalry, 1861--1863.

摘要

This project investigates the middle ground between radical postmodernism and the traditional historical approach to writing history. The study investigates the meanings of interpretative history. This approach to history combines primary resource material, post-primary resources, narrative imagination and historical interpretation. In particular, using the example of a history of the 8th New York Volunteer Cavalry, the study demonstrates an application of interpretative history.;Historiographical themes described are uniformity, truth, post-primary resources, counterfactuals, revisionist history, narrative, linguistics, deconvergence, ethnomethodology, metanarrative, intervention of present upon the past, the role of the reader/hearer, and the value of imagination in the historical process. These themes, described in the first part of the project, are applied to or demonstrated in the Civil War narrative.;The main body of the thesis demonstrates interpretative history as it is applies to the 8th New York Volunteer Cavalry between 1861 and 1863. Primary and post-primary resources are presented in their entirety. Commentary and secondary resource material are presented only in the imaginary point of view of the hybrid character Henry Bull (an actual member of the Cavalry) and the author. Each kind of resource material is presented in its own type style to help the reader understand and experience the historiographical process.;Interpretative history, developed and demonstrated as it is in the Civil War narrative, provides the reader the option of reading the work as primary resource, post-primary resource, or as historical novel, depending on which type style the reader chooses to read. In its entirety, the thesis is instructive, honest in presentation, and imaginative.