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Define the terms Conservative, Liberal and Marxist History and then illustrate the importance of each in the study of History.

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History has been understood differently by different people. While some have understood it as the study of the past events, others have defined it as a record of human actions which have occurred in the past.1 However the variety of definitions, it should be pointed out that history does not constitute everything that happened in the past. Only those past activities which have had a bearing on the present are what may qualify to be worth history.2 Just as there are many definitions of history, so are there many branches of history. This essay is meant to define and illustrate the importance of three of the braches of history. These include Conservative, Liberal and Marxist History. The essay is organized in two parts. The first part will …show more content…

According to him, these struggles are perpetuated by the state and economic conditions such as capitalism which produces oppressed classes. He contended that capitalists will destroy engage in brutal competitive struggles with each other, thereby giving an opportunity to the exploited laboring classes to rise up against capitalism and overthrow it so that they replace it with communism. In communism, there would be no classes and economic benefits would be shared equitably.8
Marxist History is therefore, that interpretation of history on the basis of not only social and political factors but also economic factors. Marxist historians asserted that poverty and diseases of the poor people are as a result of social classes and conditions under which peasants lived and worked.9 The base of man’s problems was to be found in the division of society into classes. Therefore, in order building a society with no exploitation is only dependant on the forceful removal of the capitalist system. At the centre of radical history is the argument that the historical analysis of man’s progress and development is meaningless unless that analysis puts into consideration the economic and social relations aspect.10 This is unlike liberal history which only emphasizes the social and political factors in the analysis of man’s development.
So far, it is clear that Marxist History differs considerably from the other

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