The Study of History

1
The Study of History
2
Perspectives on History

• The bodies of knowledge about the past produced
  by historians, together with everything that is
  involved in the production, communication of, and
  teaching about that knowledge. Arthur Marwick
• History is the lie commonly agreed upon.
  Voltaire
• Who controls the past controls the future who
  controls the present controls the past. George
  Orwell
• Every age writes history anew, reviewing deeds
  and texts of other ages from its own vantage
  point. Thomas Cahill
• "History is the witness that testifies to the
  passing of time it illuminates reality,
  vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily
  life, and brings us tidings of antiquity." Cicero
  
• "Each age tries to form its own conception of the
  past. Each age writes the history of the past
  anew with reference to the conditions uppermost
  in its own time." Frederick Jackson Turner

3
Perspectives on History

• "The historian does simply not come in to
  replenish the gaps of memory. He constantly
  challenges even those memories that have survived
  intact." Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
• "History is more or less bunk." Henry Ford
• History is made to say whatever we wish.
  Thomas Cahill
• "The function off the historian is neither to
  love the past nor to emancipate himself from the
  past, but to master and understand it as the key
  to the understanding of the present." E. H. Carr
• "What experience and history teach is this-that
  people and governments never have learned
  anything from history, or acted on principles
  deduced from it." G. W. F. Hegel
• "History . . . is indeed little more than the
  register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes
  of mankind." Edward Gibbon

4
Why study history?

• History helps you discover how your world
  evolved.
• History helps you develop the skills to look
  beyond the headlines, to ask questions properly,
  and to express your own opinions.
• History trains your mind and teaches you how to
  think and process information.
• History students are rounded individuals who
  develop an understanding of both past and present.

5
Why study history?

• A lack of historical knowledge prevents people
  from truly understanding the world they live in.
• History helps you understand the origins of
  modern political and social problems.
• History makes you appreciate that people in the
  past were not just 'good' or 'bad', but motivated
  in complex and inconsistent ways, just like us.

6
Student Objectives

• Think like an historian
• Evaluate historical sources
• Question historical assumptions
• Connect the past to the present
• Understand 3 Cs
• Comparison, change and causation
• Comparing and contrasting cultures
• Continuity and change over time
• Cause and effect relationships
• Evaluate the Big Questions of History
• Communicate critically constructed opinions
  verbally and in writing
• Learn interesting things about the past

7
Characteristics of History

• The process that results in knowledge of the past
• What the historian does when he or she
  investigates the past
• Using evidence to create your own story of the
  past
• History does not reconstruct the past
• History is a human construction

8
Characteristics of History

• Highly selective
• Millions of events occurring each day
• Only a tiny percentage is recorded
• Historians make value judgments to decide what to
  include and exclude
• Many different possible stories
• Focus on different aspects
• Military and political figures
• Great ideas and artists
• Developments of technology
• Role of economics
• Role of particular groups of people

9
Characteristics of History

• History is always told from some perspective
• Cultural
• Political
• Religious
• Winner vs. loser
• Powerful vs. powerless
• Historical accounts are not of the same quality
• Firsthand, secondhand, third-hand

10
Characteristics of History

• Short-term and Long-term historical patterns
• Evolution and decline beginnings and endings
• Rise and fall of civilizations
• Powerful dominating weak
• War and suffering
• Cultural separation and assimilation
• Search for understanding

11
Characteristics of History

• Some things happened before other things
• Some things only happened in certain places
• History is almost always complex
• Events have multiple causes
• Societies involve a mix of good and bad
• Changes depend on continuity
• Historical outcomes were not inevitable

12
Characteristics of History

• History is based on evidence from sources
• Reliable sources
• Unreliable sources
• No sources
• Where there is no record there is no history
• Types of sources
• Primary sources
• Secondary sources
• Archaeology
• Visual Images

13
Primary Sources

• Sources created at the time youre studying
• Come from the culture you want to learn about
• Accounts molded by the spirit of the time in
  which they originated
• All tell us how people lived and what they valued

14
Primary Sources

• Written
• Laws
• Religious revelations
• Letters Journal entries
• Poems
• Stories
• Business lists contracts
• Books Philosophy, history, science
• Government decrees
• Speeches
• Graffiti
• Ostraca

15
Primary Sources

• Non-written
• Paintings
• Statues
• Architecture
• Tools
• Weapons
• Jewelry
• Maps

16
Questions to ask when reading primary documents

• Who was the person who wrote the document?
• What is the audience?
• When was it written?
• Is it a first-hand or second-hand account?
• Is the account reliable?
• What is the point of view of the writer?
• Does the person have an axe to grind?

17
Questions to ask when reading primary documents

• What is it actually saying?
• What story is the document telling?
• What does the document intend to convey?
• What is the tone of the document like?
• Respectful, commanding, lamenting, joyous
• Where did the writer obtain the information?

18
Archaeology
19
Visual Images
20
Secondary Sources

• Popular history
• Most get historical information from secondary
  sources
• May be very biased
• May only be based on the secondary sources of
  others

21
Course Themes

• Cultural interaction
• Religion and Philosophy
• Culture Art, Architecture, Writing, Literature
• Language
• Rulers/Politics/Empires
• Geography and Climate
• Role of Women

22
Course Themes

• Economics
• Social institutions and structure
• Role of Technology
• Movement of People Migration and
  Colonialization
• Role of Minorities and lower classes
• Influences on modern culture

23
The 10 Big Questions of Historical Study

• What are the effects of climate/natural disaster
  on cultures?
• How do countries relate war, conquest,
  diplomacy, trade, prejudice, etc?
• How do rulers govern and maintain control over
  people? Do the people get a say?
• How does religion meet the needs of the common
  people and/or the needs of ruling institutions?
• What is the countrys economy like? How do the
  residents earn a living?

24
The 10 Big Questions of Historical Study

• 6. What are the effects of changing technology
  and education levels on the society?
• 7. How does a society treat women, foreigners,
  and the lower classes and what does this reveal?
• 8. What does the art, literature, and philosophy
  of a society reveal about the nature of the
  society?
• 9. What are the private institutions of the
  society? How important are family, kinship,
  children, etc.?
• 10. What are the main, often self-professed,
  cultural values of a society and what do they
  reveal?

25
What is Civilization?

• The word "civilization" comes from the Latin word
  for townsman or citizen, civis, and its
  adjectival form, civilis.
• To be "civilized" essentially meant being a
  townsman, governed by the constitution and legal
  statutes of that community.
• Generally, civilization refers to a complex
  society.

26
What characterizes civilization?

• 1. Intensive agricultural techniques
• use of human and animal power
• crop rotation
• irrigation
• Enabled farmers to produce a surplus of food that
  is not necessary for their own subsistence.

27
What characterizes civilization?

• 2. Division of labor
• specialization of cooperative labor
• divided tasks and roles
• A significant portion of the population that does
  not devote most of its time to producing food.
• Those who do not occupy their time in producing
  food may instead focus their efforts in other
  fields, such as industry, war, science or
  religion.

28
What characterizes civilization?

• 3. Permanent Settlements
• Cities and towns
• Gathering place of some of these non-food
  producers
• 4. Form of social organization
• Political and religious hierarchies
• Chieftain, clan, state government

29
What characterizes civilization?

• 5. The institutionalized control of food by the
  ruling class, government or bureaucracy.
• 6. The establishment of complex, formal social
  institutions such as organized religion and
  education, as opposed to the less formal
  traditions of other societies.

30
What characterizes civilization?

• 7. Development of complex forms of economic
  exchange.
• includes the expansion of trade
• may lead to the creation of money and markets.
• 8. The accumulation of more material possessions
  than in simpler societies.

31
What characterizes civilization?

• 9. Development of new technologies
• by people who are not busy producing food
• metallurgy an important advancement
• 10. Advanced development of the Arts
• Writing
• Music
• Architecture

32
The pattern of evolution of most civilizations

• All civilizations start small, establishing their
  genesis with the creation of state systems for
  maintaining the elite.
• Successful civilizations then flourish and grow,
  becoming larger and larger in an accelerating
  fashion.
• They then reach a limiting maximum extent,
  perhaps managing to hold a degree of stability
  for a length of time.

33
The pattern of evolution of most civilizations

• Competition between states in a civilization may
  result in one achieving predominance over the
  others.
• Dominance may be indirect, or may formalize into
  the structure of single multi-ethnic empires.
• Over the long term civilizations either collapse
  or get replaced by a larger, more dynamic
  civilization.