Autobiographies as sources
Topic: Studying Indian History: Sources, Dating and Historiography · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"
Meaning
An autobiography is a person's account of their own life, written by themselves. Historians use autobiographies as sources, but carefully. They are usually written years later, often from memory, so details may be wrong. Authors also choose what to tell, to show themselves the way they wish to be seen. So historians read them for what they leave out as well as for what they say, and check them against other sources.
Example
Mahatma Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth, written in the 1920s, tells his own story of his growth and his ideas. It is very valuable, but it shows Gandhi's own view of events. Historians compare it with letters, newspapers and official records.
Don't confuse with
- Biography: a life story written by someone else, not by the person themselves.
- Diaries and letters: written at the time of events, not looking back years later.
Related concepts
- Sources of history
- Archaeology
- Numismatics
- Archaeo-botany
- Underwater archaeology
- Literary sources
- Oral tradition
- Hagiography
- Kalhana
- Rajatarangini