Archives, Truths and the Historian at Work: A Reply to Douglas Booth's 'Refiguring the Archive'

In his article 'Sites of Truth or Metaphors of Power? Refiguring the Archive' [1] Douglas Booth calls for 'a more cautious engagement with archived materials' and suggests that traditional historians 'conceptualize archives as simple, straightforward neutral sites of knowledge'. In reply, this article argues that all good historians understand that archives are not straightforward repositories from where truths can be retrieved. It suggests that the practicalities of writing and publishing mean that historians' caution in interrogating archives is not always obvious in their publications. Postmodernism does have much to teach historians about how to practise history but its lessons will not be fully embraced while it fails to recognize fully the critical methodologies already employed within the discipline.