"History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of ages to come".

Who among the following has so defined history?

This question was previously asked in
UGC NET Paper-2: History 2nd Dec 2019 Shift 1
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  1. Carl Becker
  2. G.P. Gooch
  3. Henry Pirenne
  4. J.B. Bury

Answer (Detailed Solution Below)

Option 2 : G.P. Gooch
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UGC NET Paper 1: Held on 21st August 2024 Shift 1
50 Qs. 100 Marks 60 Mins

Detailed Solution

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Correct answer is: G.P. Gooch

The 19th century father of history, Leopold von Ranke, originally quoted “History has as its task the task of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of coming ages… [The aim of my work] is only to show how things really were.”

However, this was later revised by G.P. Gooch in his book—History and Historians in the Ninth Century, Second Edition [London: Lowe & Brydone, Ltd., 1952], p. 74 which reads in the previous section: “[The aim of my work] is only to show how things really were.”

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