How to critically evaluate and read biographies and memoirs for colonial history

Author / Creator

Gust, Onni, author

Available as

Online

Summary

Although usually centred around one often wealthy or powerful individual, biographies and memoirs can provide historians of colonialism with great insights into past societies and to change over ti...

Although usually centred around one often wealthy or powerful individual, biographies and memoirs can provide historians of colonialism with great insights into past societies and to change over time. This learning tool will introduce students to the use of contemporary biography and memoirs, including autobiography, for historical research into colonialism and imperial power. The learning tool will begin by asking what historians mean by 'biography and memoir' and briefly examine the uses that historians of empire have made of this genre. It then considers the changing nature of biographical writing across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, different types of biographies and the reasons that people wrote, published and read biographies. It goes on to examine how historians can approach biographies and memoirs, asking what they can reveal, but also what they might obscure for historians of empire. By critically reflecting on the uses and limitations of biographies, the learning tool aims to provide students with a methodology for selecting, approaching and reading this interesting and lively genre.

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