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How Does the Public Define “History”? Summary: A sizeable majority of survey respondents equated “history” with nuts-and-bolts factual material as opposed to explanations about the past. That said, there are measurable differences in those views as a function of such factors as age and political affiliation.
- What Is History?
- History in Your Textbook
- What Are Primary Sources?
- Making Arguments in The Textbook
- Become A Critical Reader
- Your Assignment For Writing History with Primary Sources
- When Sources Disagree
Most people believe that history is a "collection of facts about the past." This is reinforced through the use of textbooks used in teaching history. They are written as though they are collections of information. In fact, history is NOTa "collection of facts about the past." History consists of making arguments about what happened in the past on t...
Many textbooks acknowledge this in lots of places. For example, in one book, the authors write, "The stories of the conquests of Mexico and Peru are epic tales told by the victors. Glorified by the chronicles of their companions, the conquistadors, or conquerors, especially Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), emerged as heroes larger than life." The authors...
To answer these questions, historians turn to primary sources, sources that were written at the time of the event, in this case written from 1519-1521 in Mexico. These would be firsthand accounts. Unfortunately, in the case of the conquest of Mexico, there is only one genuine primary source written from 1519-1521. This primary source consists of th...
Historians then use these sources to make arguments, which could possibly be refuted by different interpretations of the same evidence or the discovery of new sources. For example, the Bentley and Ziegler textbook make several arguments on page 597 about why the Spaniards won: "Steel swords, muskets, cannons, and horses offered Cortés and his men s...
To become a critical reader, to empower yourself to "own your own history," you should think carefully about whether the evidence the authors provide does in fact support their theses. Since the Bentley and Ziegler book provides only conclusions and not much evidence to back up their main points, you may want to explore your class notes on the topi...
There are several ways to make this a successful assignment. First, you might take any of the theses presented in the book and use information from primary sources to disprove it—the "trash the book" approach. Or, if your professor has said something in class that you are not sure about, find material to disprove it—the "trash the prof" approach (a...
If you do work with the Mexican materials, you will encounter the harsh reality of historical research: the sources do not always agree on what happened in a given event. It is up to you, then, to decide who to believe. Most historians would probably believe Cortés’ letters were the most likely to be accurate, but is this statement justified? Corté...
The stability and effectiveness of using the conventions and traditions of academic historians to define historical scholarship constitutes a major hurdle in the pathway to change. Removing that hurdle requires expanding the scope of how we define both genre and format .
Typical fields of study focus on specific geographic areas, a single scholarly approach, and/or set time period. The list of courses offered by your history department will give you an idea of a few such fields: British Empire, History of Science and Technology, US Women’s history, Military history, and Texas, 1845-present.
- Arlington
As historians James Davidson and Mark Lytle put it, “History is not ‘what happened in the past;’ rather it is the act of selecting, analyzing, and writing about the past.” Historians are tasked with finding evidence about the past and then deciding what to do with it.
A historian is who is person specializes in the discipline of History. They aimed to research, study, analyze, interpret, and historical sources of past humanity. They can specialize particular geographies, events, or periods of history.
Feb 18, 2007 · 1. History and its representation. 1.1 Actors, structures, and causes in history. 1.2 Selectivity and scale in history. 1.3 Memory, history, and narrative. 2. Continental philosophy of history. 2.1 Universal or historical human nature? 2.2 Does history possess directionality? 2.3 Hegel’s philosophy of history. 2.4 Hermeneutic approaches to history.
