Author
Assistant Professor, Allameh Tabatabaei University
Abstract
Much is written about various societies’ political history, but in the vast majority of cases this type of historiography does not include many conceptual or methodological discussions about political history. To further elaborate, in majority of books and articles, political history is something that is usually just assumed, without any in-depth discussions on this topic. Even in cases where political history is something that is mentioned, it is usually not discussed beyond a simple definition or a clarification. As a result, political history –as a sub discipline- is confronting critical epistemological and methodological problems. Moreover, shortcomings and ambiguities in context and methodical discussions have caused the muddling of barriers between political history and non-political history. Additionally, it is clear that the line between a discipline and a sub discipline is based on, and requires valid definitions on the subject. This paper attempts to define political history as an evolution of institutionalized political power in form of the government and connect its findings to various discussions. Furthermore shedding some light on these weaknesses, can provide valuable contributions to the field, and attract a catalyst for improvements.
Keywords
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