What is a Historian?

[AussieMick]

In my opinion, a historian is someone who considers the facts of past events and proposes reasons for why they happened. I'd agree that a historian shouldn't in, his/her work, consider the morality of the events. Indeed imposing our current morality on those who lived hundreds of years before us is egotistical, nonsensical and pointless.

I think it useful to identify those that we regard as "good" historians and discuss 'why' they qualify as such. AJP Taylor (I've mentioned before) is a historian that I admire. Oxford refused to renew his term as lecturer in the aftermath of the controversy occasioned by his The Origins of the Second World War.

Eva, might like to consider (if she hasnt already) Taylor's "Bismarck: The Man and Statesman". I am afraid that he is often quite 'racist' towards Germany ... but then he is just as brutal towards the English as a nation.

I've just noted that he wrote an introduction to Ten Days That Shook The World. But it was rejected by the UK Communist Party (which had copyright) because they thought it 'anti-Soviet' (he mentioned Trotsky favorably).
Another relevant point from Wikipedia .... "a number of the other Oxford dons had felt that Taylor's profile in journalism was "demeaning" to the historian's craft and had lobbied against him."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._P._Taylor

Another historian that is high on my list is Barbara Tuchman. But I've gone on enough.