This is a series of articles where we will get introduced with some historians and philosophers. Article-1


1. E.H.Carr didn’t studied history academically nor he had any Ph.D. degree in history but his journey as a historian starts when he joined the ministry of information’s foreign division and worked as a clerk, he witnessed some historical events like Paris peace conference, treaty of Versailles etc. which has an impact on his career as a historian he took academic posts also. He observed Russian revolution which inspired him towards history his one more memory as an undergraduate student where he got influenced from one of his professor who argued that “Herodotus’s account of Persian wars in the 5th century BC was shaped by his attitude towards the Peloponnesian war”(Source-www.newstatesman.com).

Going through E.H.Carr’s views what I can interpret is that history is an interpretation of facts, a historian’s view towards looking any event, but a historians view also depends on the contemporary situations of his/her time. One more aspect of looking towards history is the interpretation of facts by a historian depends upon the background of the historian and the viewpoint of him/her looking towards the fact.

E.H.Carr’s what is history? Is a revealing and classic book which published in 1961, he states that history is about collecting facts and ideas and it got a face when a historian research and interpret the fact. Carr was not the pioneer of subjective historical history. He states that history is a continuous dialog between present and past. Thus, these are some themes which E.H.Carr deals with.

2. Karl Marx was an intellectual who was born in 1818. He is famous for his works on communism, which simply can be interpreted in economic sense as, all the wealth is possessed by upper class the feudal lords who suppress the poor and exploit their skill to earn profit, and thus, for Marx history is a series of class struggle between the owners of the capital i.e. the capitalists and workers i.e. the proletariat. He thought that these proletariat would increase in number with dissatisfactions with the class system and one day led a bloody revolution which will destroy the class system and the society will be classless. Marx’s theory led to many political influences as well like Vladimir Lenin and Mao Tse-Sung. Karl Marx with his perspective towards history pointed many loopholes in capitalism. He believes that capitalism is unstable, it is prone to crisis but what capitalists propose the crisis is last one. Marx thought capitalist crisis as crisis of abundance as crisis didn’t affect the rich and they have enough surplus that it can be distributed to everyone so that, everyone can have access to quality education and healthcare etc. so, Marx’s views about the capitalism and opposition for it results in high area of influence covering more than twenty countries.

His work Communist Manifesto gives an alternative to capitalism a future utopian society where no, private property exist, centralized control on everything like banking, education and industries so everyone can access it freely. Thus, Marx is an economist as what is described by Mark Blaug, a historian. But his theories can be interpreted in political, sociological, philosophical and historical terms as well.

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