This essay assesses the Chernobyl television series within the historiography of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. The History Extension course component questions “What are the purposes of history?” and “How has history been constructed, recorded and presented over time?” heavily guided this investigation. This historiographical inquiry explores the contention between “historical fiction” and traditional academic history.

This arguably began from the conception of “history”, between the two differing methodologies of the “fathers of history”, Herodotus (also known as “the father of lies”) and Thucydides, “the father of scientific history”. Evaluated against the backdrop of the growing popularity of docudrama television series, this essay emphasizes the growing relevance between traditional modes of history and a potential need to adapt for modern consumers.

Dramatisation and fictionalisation, two fundamental aspects for television for entertainment value are evaluated against historical validity. The assessment of modern mediums in expressing historical events to audiences and whether this can form part of the historiography of a major historical event is explored through the contrasting traditional (empirical) and postmodern perspectives.

The essay concludes that, if nothing else, because the Chernobyl television series has had a significant impact on historical consciousness, it therefore falls within the historiography of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

During the lead up to the 2020 US presidential election, arguments from Trump’s base on social media were becoming increasingly chaotic. Research revealed that the highly polarised viewpoints were quite common among Trump’s base, and thus a question needed to be formulated to explore the historiographical ramifications of the Trump movement.

Social media had become a medium for these viewpoints to be spread widely and rapidly. Initially the question focussed upon the political concept of populism, however more historiographical concepts needed to be explored in order to effectively craft a question, and thus the question was eventually revised to set up an exploration of historiographical ramifications of Trump, rather than simply historical ramifications.

“How has Trump’s presidency and use of social media affected the recording of events and social commentary?” This question allowed the ramifications to be explored through historiographical schools and concepts, as well as allowing an examination of the effects of wider demographic shifts caused by Trump’s Presidency on the recording of history. Post modernism as a school allowed Trump’s use of terms such as alternative facts and fake news to be explored, and the wider ramifications of such terms on the recording of events and social commentary.

Exploring fake news and alternative facts also brought in the concepts of historical revisionism and “negationism”, which were used to discuss potential negative ramifications of the use of social media on history. Political polarisation came to play a large role in answering the question. The effects of the rise of political polarisation under Trump’s Presidency were explored, with not just the effects on the discourse of individuals on social media, but also on published history, by contrasting Thomas Frank, a left-wing historian’s view on populism with Niall Ferguson’s views on it, a right wing historian.

Archaeology during the Third Reich is entrenched in the popular consciousness, less well established is how venerable this ethnocentric approach to archaeology was in Europe from the early 18th Century onward. Indeed, the origins of the ethnocentric ideology, which would play a role in the archaeological research of Germany’s various states from the Second to Third Reich, was already firmly planted in the academic literature of pre-Nazi Germany.

The French noble Comte de Boulainvilliers conceived of an early form of Aryan master race whilst his successors built on the concept, eventually emerging in the archaeologist Gustav Kossinna’s influential works. The theories of Kossinna were used as justification for expansionist aims as well as to gain common German national identity and laid the foundation for Nazi archaeological policy.

The impact of this period’s archaeological practice goes beyond the focus period of 1870-1945 and extends to the modern day. Immediate polarisation in Western Germany post-World War II due to the controversial practices of Third Reich prehistory archaeologists led to a diametrically opposed method of limited interpretation as opposed to wildly speculated, agenda driven conclusions.

Much of the work was debunked, discarded and ignored due to the effect on the German discipline’s reputation. In spite of this, modern genetic sequencing techniques as recent as 2015 and 2018 have resulted in disturbingly similar results and theories that parallel those of Gustav Kossinna. This has led to ongoing debate amongst historians as to the role of DNA analysis and the extent to which ethnicity is a factor when examining cultural diffusion and evaluating the origins and migrations of people.

The final assessment of this paper is a value judgement on reasons why this past, often outmoded, research from ethnocentric origins is worthy of further study regardless of how flawed the original author’s conclusions may have been.

This major work aimed to analyse the relationship between the historiography of Christianity in late antiquity and the censorship of pagan texts in the period. Examining the nature of the post-Constantinian Church’s suppression of its intellectual opponents, the essay sought to understand the effects of censorship on historians both modern and contemporary to the period. With this goal in mind the major work delved into a combination of ancient sources and modern scholarship which revealed that censorship had two major historiographical impacts.

First, through the censorship of anti-Christian texts, theological history, a form of historical practice focused of rectifying Christian belief, rose easily to prominence. This historical evolution saw historians more interested in evidencing the Christian god than the traditional aim to record and explain periods and events. Analysis of modern scholarship demonstrates the prevailing opinion that this was a step backwards for history towards dogma. Second, due to the destruction of pagan writings, pre-1990s scholarship on religious diversity in the late antique Roman Empire became oversaturated with unidimensional interpretations of paganism.

Without access to pagan sources, the modern historian developed a dependency on Christian texts which was reflected in their descriptions of the polytheistic religions of the era. The historian would often condemn paganism for being ‘morally bankrupt’, a notion derived uniquely from the Christian narrative, a notion which represents the key issue the historian faced: Without an array of sources originating from various groups, how may one accurately analyse the intellectual diversity of any given period. For close to two thousand years the historian succumbed to this issue and reported solely the Christian opinion without regard for possible bias. This moulded the contemporary understanding of paganism and what it represented. Censorship and destruction of evidence successfully propagated the Church’s notion that their religion was intrinsically superior.