Historiography is the history of writing history. From Biblical times, through early Christianity, the Enlightenment, to Postmodernism, historians' points of view and motivation have shifted. Historiography addresses the issues and questions around disparate points of view,
such as: should historians stick to the facts or use their judgment; is history cyclical or linear; is history a science; does the "great man" or do historical forces drive history?

The group reads historians from Herodotus and Macaulay to Toynbee and Fukuyama as well as historiographers such as Collingwood and Carr. Each class deals with a specific issue and class members are expected to take sides and defend a point of view.

The course-pack that was the basis for the programs, contains writings by historians and essays by historiographers. The students read essays including J.B. Bury¹s "Cleopatra's Nose," Trevelyan's "Clio Rediscovered," Isaiah Berlin's "Historical Inevitability," Charles Beard's "That Noble Dream," and Turner's "The Frontier in American History." Excerpts from historians' works include Thucydides' "The History the Peloponnesian War," Vico's The New Science, Toynbee's A Study of History, and Spengler's "Decline of the West."