PROFESSOR IVO BANAC: OLDSCHOOL HISTORY AT ITS BEST
PROFESSOR IVO BANAC: OLDSCHOOL HISTORY AT ITS BEST

Summary/Abstract: Professor Ivo Banac, whom I was privileged to have as my PhD supervisor between 1994 and 2000, was an old-school historian. He started from a basis of empirical research and was interested in facts and their uniqueness, in nuance and going beneath the surface. It is not what is fashionable today, where the preference is for theoretical models, concepts, and buzzwords. All too often, the contemporary social scientist begins with a theoretical model and generalisation and is interested in the Yugoslav case-study only insofar as it can be reconciled with them; the models seek unsuccessfully to transcend time and place, robbing the case-study of everything that makes it unique and interesting. The true historian, by contrast, pursues the nuances, complexities, flavours, and uniqueness that shatter crude models, transcend bland concepts, and defy facile generalisations; in pursuing the unique, they achieve a more perfect understanding of the case study without negating the possibility of generalisation.

• Details
• Contents