why study history

Gives us a sense of identity – imagine waking up one morning to discover you have lost your memory

Is a defence against propaganda – countries may try to ‘spin’ history to serve their interests.

Enriches our understanding of human nature – shows what humans have done in a wide variety of circumstances.

The past no longer exists – extreme skepticism

OR Because it no longer exists it cannot be

changed and is therefore completely objective.

Both positions are problematic However an element of objectivity has to be

assumed otherwise we will never know the difference between history, propaganda and fiction.

The question is how do historians approach with objectivity.

Written or drawn by someone who was there at the time.

A later second hand account of what happened.

Imagine several diarists are witness to the same historical events. We would probably end up with as many different accounts as there are writers.

People don’t see things in the same way.

Perceptions are shaped by interests, expectations, and cultural background.

Emotion and prejudice also colours the way we see things.

Primary and secondary sources sometimes reflect the interests of a particular group rather than society as a whole.

Eg Medieval Europe may be perceived as a very religious time in history.

What is the problem here?

Governments manipulating primary sources to change the facts of history.

In trying to establish the truth of the past historians try to recognise bias.

They will ask questions of authenticity like – who wrote it? What was their motive? How long after the event was it written?

Primary sources can be compared Eg If a Palestinian eye witness agreed with an Israeli eye witness account – It will probably be reliable.

The historian will have to make a selection from all the available evidence.

Our knowledge of the past is filtered first through the eyes of the those that witnessed it and secondly through the eyes of the historian who wrote about it.

Understanding the dangers of bias etc help the historian to compensate for this.

Is history more prone to bias than the natural sciences?

A historians choice of topic may be influenced by current preoccupations and the questions that they ask – or fail to ask – are likely to influence the answers they find. The topic itself may be influenced by the society the historian has grown up in.

A historian might be tempted to appeal only to evidence that supports his own case and to ignore any counter-evidence.

Since people come to history with a range of pre existing cultural and political prejudices, they may find it difficult to deal objectively with sensitive issues that touch on things like national pride.

Eg To what extent were ordinary Germans aware of the Holocaust?

Despite the fact that history no longer exists, history seeks to reconstruct it on the basis of evidence that can be found in the present.

Many interpretations of the past exist and trying to determine which one is best is a matter of judgement rather than proof.

Use handout to read through and empahsize the points of the lesson.