Writing History Backwards: Meiji Japan Revisited

Allen C. Kelley and Jeffrey G. Williamson

The Journal of Economic History, 1971, vol. 31, issue 4, 729-776

Abstract: In following the paths of historical development … the analyst finds himself … engaged in the rather thankless task of trying to derive known from unknown or, at least, better-known from less well-known facts. Would it not be much more efficient to reverse this procedure? By establishing the base of his operations, that is, the principal store of primary factual information in the present or a very recent past, and then moving on backward with the help of theoretical weapons step by step toward the more and more distant past, the analytical historian could make most effective use of the limited amount of direct factual information to which he usually has access.

Date: 1971
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