SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HISTORY

INTRODUCTION In the past three or four decades, history and the social sciences have worked so closely together, especially with the rise of the theoretical issues in history and the need for historical context in the social sciences. The social sciences operate with theoretical generalizations inevitable require historical temporal dimension. In its practice, while history needs the theories and generalization (supplied by the social sciences) about the operations of society and process of change, which are the subject matter of history.

Researchers are encouraged to forage into both the natural and social sciences to derive ricer historical evidence and conclusions. Sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences have been necessaries adopted in the study of historical and international studies. They show inter-group relations, kinship systems and the structure of societies. The same applies to the field of political science which can be used to determine political systems and the patterns of leadership and administration in human societies.

DEFINITION AND ISSUES OF CONTRAST Social sciences had been defined as those mental or cultural sciences which deals with the activities of the individual as a member of a group (in society). Social sciences include subjects as politics, economics, law, anthropology, sociology, penology and social work. The semi social sciences are ethics, education, philosophy and psychology. It is clear that

history and the social sciences deal with human society. Both disciplines have man in society as the common object of study and the main interest of their intellectual inquiry is the activities in society.

Furthermore, both fields differ in terms of time orientation. In this regard, while the social scientist studies man in the present, the historian is concerned primarily with human activities in the past and can reach his object only through documentation or evidence. Again, the social scientist used a synchronize time frame, which anthropologist refers to as ethnographic present.

The historians on the other hand, uses two-time dimension, in which he uses the past to explain the present. The time dimension is the therefore imperative in the perspective and approaches adopted by both disciplines. Equally significant is the peculiar terminologies and technique of the social sciences which are differs from the language of the historians. Social scientists supply theories and generalization in explaining the operation of society and process of change, which are the subject matter of history. Such generations supply insights that prove useful to the African history.

Concepts defined by social scientists such as: social change, social control, social mobility, the identity and determinants of human behavior in social philosophy, are copiously borrows by historians in historical research and study. The various social science branches have been useful to the historian. The anthropologists methods of field work have been far useful by the historian.

Anthropologists in their field work undertake observation of people, and their cultural practices, the anthropologists also engage in direct participation in the activities of the societies, study, living and mixing up with people. Their manner of field work recording is also effective. Historians borrow a lot from the anthropologists method.

Furthermore, the anthropologists work on things like symbol, kingship, religion, lineage and rituals are very useful to the historian. The economic concepts occupy central place in world history, especially the Marxist economic history, in which the economy is the base while the other aspects are the superstructure. The theories of economists and the methods of their analysis are very useful to the historian.

The work of the political scientists and their method of research are generally important to the historian. Politics is very crucial in every human society, more so, as most history of early societies was political histories. For instance, in the early days of African historiography, historians were interested in state formation themes and the source of its ideas. History is the central social science, of which all the others must feed, it is basic to social sciences rather in the way that mathematics is basic to natural science. The real point is that everything has a past and a time dimension, so that history is basic to literature, philosophy and the arts as well as to social science.

Indeed as the discipline of history evolved historically its natural place seemed to be with the arts or humanities, since it had very direct associations with literature and languages, and also with philosophy, art

history

and

musicology.

Changes

in

historical

methodology

and

approaches been so great in recent decades that history is now more accurately numbered among the social sciences than among the arts? The answers given are partly a matter of history, partly a matter of administrative convenience within universities, partly a matter of deeply held belief about the nature of historical study. Scholars resolved the issue to their own satisfaction at least with the reflection that history, being neither truly art nor science, is Suigeneris, so that if it cant be in a faculty or school of its own, it might as well remain with the art. It can reasonably be stated that history and sociology or economics stand closer to each other, being concerned with human beings and their activities in society, than sociology or economics stand to those sciences which are concerned with natural phenomena. Historians make extensive use of social surveys, census returns and so on conducted in the past by pure or applied social scientists, and they may, derive a great deal of benefit from participating in controlled surveys conducted in their own time. It remains true that the historian, as historian does not conduct controlled experiments, his or her evidence is always that little bit more impressionistic than is that of the man or woman working on the frontiers of the social sciences. It has also remains true that the social scientist far more regularly uses models and theoretical constructs than do historians, and that these constructs are nearly always of a more abstract character than historians involved be happy with. Historians must always accommodate the unique and the contingent, social scientists are essentially orientated towards the universal, towards the recurrent pattern. Social scientists, too, tend to give certain abstractions an absolute value. Social scientists may make a distinction between class with its explanatory

qualities, and what, in an ugly metaphor; they call social stratification. Historians, on the other hand, may be interested in class in the distinctive forms it takes in different societies (how it actually affects life chances, and how it is actually perceived, in these societies). Those who wish history to assimilate itself to the social sciences enjoin, furthermore, that in presenting their interpretations historians should follow the method of first clearly stating their hypothesis. The fact is that most historians dont do this, and for the very good reason that the kinds of complex reconstructions of past happenings and all their subtle interconnections between short-term and long-term forces, in which historians specialize are simply not amenable to summary in the form of a hypothesis. Value judgments, inevitably, will intrude further into the work of social scientists than into that of natural scientists, but through their use of direct experimental data and abstract models social scientists will tend to avoid the frequent entanglement with them which besets historians. It is more important that historians get things right than that they rely on literary finesse to carry them through, but sometimes it seem to be in the nature of social science to produce cumbersome sentences and ugly jargon. On the whole, historical writing is still characterized by a belief in the need for clarity, simplicity, as well as elegance of expression. CONCLUSION The foregoing leads us to conclude that history and the social sciences need each other to be more effective in their intellectual practice, study and research techniques, and gain deeper insight into understanding man and his activities in the society.

While the historian needs the social scientists concepts and methodologies of study, the social scientist relies on the historians sources and temporal orientation, history has become the laboratory against which social science must test and consolidate its knowledge about the social world.

REFERENCES

Ake Claude (1991) History as the Future of Social Sciences. Tarikh, History and the Social Sciences, Vol. 9. Alagoa E. J. (1978) The Relationship between History and other Disciplines, Tarikh, Historical Methods, vol. 6.

Arthur Marwick (1989), The Nature of History. Third Edition Macmillan. Beer S. H. (1968), History and the Third Culture in Journal of Contemporary History: Oxford University Press.

John Tosh (2000) The Pursuit of History. Third Edition. The Silver Library.

Uzoigwe G. N. (2008), Introduction to History and International Studies. An African Perspective. Goldline Publisher.

1948

ARAB

ISRAELI

WAR:

CAUSES,

COURSE

AND

THE

CONSEQUENCES

INTRODUCTION: The Middle East region has probably suffered more rivalry and conflict than any other part of the world. Israel has fought four major wars with the

Arab countries of the core Middle East: 1948 49, 1956, 1967 and 1973. 1948 Arab-Israeli war was the first instance of a bloody and hostile battle, triggered by the declaration of Israels independence on 14 May 1948. The 1948 war was caused by a number of international and intra-regional factors. The war resulted in Israels victory, yet had significant consequences on not only regional politics of this area, but also international relations, which are still visible today.

CAUSES OF THE 1948 ARAB-ISRAELI WAR: There are three causes of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war: Zionism, Arab nationalism and British foreign policy. Zionism: The classic Zionist idea originated in the deep-rooted biblical