What is history to you

Everything we do, everything we use, everything else we study is the product of a complex set of causes, ideas, and practices. Even the material we learn in other courses has important historical elements — whether because our understanding of a topic changed over time or because the discipline takes a historical perspective. U niversity of W isconsin —Madison. My UW. The Past Teaches Us About the Present Because history gives us the tools to analyze and explain problems in the past, it positions us to see patterns that might otherwise be invisible in the present — thus providing a crucial perspective for understanding and solving!

What is History? By studying the past, you will learn more about what makes populations tick the way they do. Increase your understanding of national identities and societies: as a student of history, you will look into how nations were formed by an understanding of a shared past and a common identity. In addition, it makes societies better to learn from the past! Understand change: history is the study of change. The world is constantly changing, so understanding the role of change in society helps you interpret the world in its current state.

History provides you with a firm grasp of why things change, the mechanisms driving change and its significance. How to study History? What kind of jobs can I get by studying History? Vann Woodward, in Adelson, p. History makes no sense unless it is integrated into the dynamics of the contemporary world.

Secondly, you should appreciate the totality of factors that shape human development, including climate and geography, which are insufficiently emphasized by historians. Thirdly, I hope you will realize how cultural conditioning shapes your individual subconscious. Then, you will have to accept the fact that much of your life is predetermined by global pressures that roll over all linguistic, ethnic, and cultural diversities; building your future is determined by factors beyond your control.

Von Laue, Adelson, p. As such, history can widen and deepen our own limited experience. So much can be learned from studying the past carefully that I wish more people, particularly politicians, knew history better than they do. Everyone makes some kind of a contribution, either negative or positive, in the progress of civilization that, taken collectively, has meaning. I think understanding the historical process prevents divisive and destructive forces from overtaking us.

I think there is psychological value in understanding history, as it gives us ideas of what humans are about and what differentiates them from animals. Fortunately, we have a recoverable sense of what happened in the past that historians can document. I think that humanity should take some solace in understanding that every generation had its problems, losses, calamities, disappointments, and victories.

Tomorrow may be not different in that we will continue to make blunders. Clark, in Adelson, p. But that is what society wants and how it pays for its knowledge. Pyne, in Adelson, p. Is the attention-deficit-disorder of the World Wide Web contributing to our social amnesia? These theories of social, economic, or political behavior can help historians make sense of dense, seemingly contradictory data.

Most practicing historians reject the recent fads of philosophical nihilism and anti-empiricism of "grand theory," postmodernism, deconstruction, and "cultural studies.

However, arguing that one reading of a historical factual text is as good as another is patently absurd. Either Elvis is dead or he is not-- we test the proposition with evidence. Regardless of one's ideology, culture, or theoretical disposition, some intractable facts of history remain.

That is the historian's domain. Writing of postmodernist fads, Australian historian Keith Windschuttle writes that "There are three common qualities that all, or nearly all, of them share which make them jointly culpable. First, they reject those aspects of the scientific method of the Enlightenment that were based on observation and inductive argument. They consequently reject works of history that are based on the same principles. Second, they all hold a relative view of the concepts of truth and knowledge.

Most deny that we can know anything with certainty, and believe that different cultures create their own truths. Third, most deny the ability of human beings to gain any direct contact with or access to reality.

Instead, they support a form of linguistic idealism that holds that we are locked within a closed system of language and culture, which refers not beyond our minds to an outside world but only inwardly to itself. Despite the urgings of those who claim that greater adoption of theory would enrich history, the widespread acceptance of any one of these last three points would be enough to kill off the discipline, as it has been practised, for good.

The first undermines the methodology of historical research; the second destroys the distinction between history and fiction; the third means not only that it is impossible to access the past but that we have no proper grounds for believing that a past independent of ourselves ever took place.

In other words, if historians allows themselves to be prodded all the way to this theoretical abyss, they will be rendering themselves and their discipline extinct. My experiences in the South have given me some clues to the Third World. Historical patterns may be very small, but they are still patterns. The use of words means patterning the flux of actual experience. Any word used to describe an event assimilates what happened to a much larger class of similar actions, things, and relationships.

Can this explain their conclusions? Although this may seem reasonably simple, trying to identify an argument within a text can be extremely difficult. Don't be embarrassed if you can't figure it out straight away, practice really does make perfect. In my first year of History for example, my study group was given a particularly obscure topic. We were to write an essay on the historiography of death during the Reformation. After days of reading, head scratching, some tears and several cups of tea we came to the conclusion that the Reformation only changed religious beliefs towards death to a veneer-like level.

Some historians argued that the Reformation was welcomed with open arms and thus rituals in death swiftly changed, whilst others stated that the Reformation was slowly and sullenly accepted which meant attitudes towards death remained covertly Catholic.

Identifying why these different historians thought differently wasn't exactly easy however we realised that opinions began to change in the 's, a time of renewed thought, political change and questioning. It is these patterns that you will need to identify when studying the historiography of a specific topic.

Lastly, one thing I feel I must prepare you for is the amount of reading. This will happen, however don't fear, it is simply your brain adjusting to the influx of information that it is perhaps not accustomed to!

Chocolate, a nap and some socialising tends to cure this one. Take breaks, but do keep on top of the reading! Membership Contact us Support us About us. Historical Periods A-level topic guides Transition to university Choosing history Careers with history Competitions.