Method and theory in the practice of nursing history

This paper examines two main issues connected to the writing of history and ipso facto the history of nursing. In the first section, the issue pertaining to the difficulties involved in writing an account of past events is addressed. Light is shed on how the historian goes about interpreting the past in order to render an accurate and reliable account of the phenomenon under investigation. This issue inevitably incorporates the relevant observations of other historians hence highlighting the diversity of views and the underlying assumptions to the methodological approach. In the second section, the issue relating to the thorny problem of the role of social theory in historical writing and the challenge this presents to the historian receive attention. In this analysis about method and theory in the practice of history attention is only directed to the written word as the documentary sources constitute the bulk of the surviving records about the past.