Models for Understanding History

1. Models for Understanding History

2. What is history? • History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. -- Napoleon Bonaparte • Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded. -- Virginia Woolf

3. "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

4. The past is useless. That explains why it is past." Wright Morris • "There is properly no history; only biography." Ralph Waldo Emerson • "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." Edward Gibbon

5. Men and history • History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history. • That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach. • We learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

6. Understanding history • "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

7. "The function of 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

8. "A historian should yield himself to his subject, become immersed in the place and period of his choice, standing apart from it now and then for a fresh view." Samuel Eliot Morison

9. "Since history has no properly scientific value, its only purpose is educative. And if historians neglect to educate the public, if they fail to interest it intelligently in the past, then all their historical learning is valueless except in so far as it educates themselves." G. M. Trevelyan.

10. Reading comprehension Title: Models for Understanding History 1. T 2. F 3. T 4. F 5. T 6. T 2. C 3. A 4. B 5. C 6. B

11. Models for Understanding History • Underlying every textbook and every historical work are a set of often unacknowledged assumptions about how history works. Everyone who writes, reads, or thinks about history has a “model” in their mind which helps them to interpret and assemble the facts of history.

12. Model A • It is the dominant model for historians in the 20th century. • It believes that the history of mankind is a record of progress • and that future prospects are bright. • It is flattering, which implies that everyone alive has made progress over all those who are dead.

13. It allows one to face the future with optimism. • The more time passes, the more progress will be made. • e.g. Hegel (the unification of Germany by Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm) • There is great deal of American history written to fit this mold.

14. Model B • Many of the Greek and Roman historians subscribed to this model. • They looked back in the past and saw a “golden age” with fewer problems than their own. • Things were getting worse; prospects for the future were grim.

15. It fits the outlines of Scripture. • We certainly haven’t risen above the level of our first parents, Adam and Eve, • so the broad line from Paradise are trending downward. • One can trace progress and improvement through God’s covenants which Noah, Abraham, Moses, and their fulfillment in Jesus. • One must weigh the prophecies of Revelation.

16. Model C • History is complicated. • It more closely assembles Model C than the simple lines in Model A and Model B. • Periods of accomplishment are followed by periods of decay. • Inevitably, after a period of achievement, a long, slow period of decay sets in.

17. Against Model A • “progress” is mostly a myth. • The idea that the simple passage of time will allow things to improve flies in the face of experience. • The truth is that things deteriorate and decay with age.

18. Against Model B • The periods of progress and achievement are the exceptions and not the rule. • There are remarkable periods scattered through history in which a group of men or a generation seem empowered to reverse the trends and to make remarkable achievements.

19. Examples mentioned • Greek city-states • Roman republic • The fall from Republic through Empire to Dark Ages • Renaissance: rejection of the myth of progress • Reformation: returning to the New Testament church (Martin Luther, John Calvin)

20. Analysis • Question: Has there been progress or decay in our own civilization? • If it has deteriorated, then we need to reverse directions and try to return to ideals of the founders, shedding the mistakes of later, lesser men. • If we have progressed, then we need to continue correcting and eliminating the mistakes and omissions of the founders.

21. Solution • The trick is to move beyond the simple models and to think critically about whatever time period being studied. • If we learn to step back and ask the question “Was this a period of achievement or decay?” and note the facts (and also about the views of historians who are supplying the facts), we will have achieved a much more sophisticated understanding of our age.

22. Vocabulary building

23. Glossary • Natural history • The study of organisms and natural objects, esp. their origins, evolution, and interrelationships. (C. Darwin) • Human history • Prehistoric • The era before the recorded history

24. Stone Age • The earliest known period of human culture, characterized by the use of stone tools. • Paleolithic age (palaeolithic) • Neolithic age • Bronze age • A period of human culture between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, characterized by weapons and implements made of bronze.

25. Babylonian • Of or relating to Babylonia or Babylon or their people, culture, or language. • A native or inhabitant of Babylon or Babylonia. • Babylon(the capital city of Babylonia) • Babylonia

26. Babylonia:An ancient empire of Mesopotamia in the Euphrates River valley. It flourished under Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar II but declined after 562b.c. and fell to the Persians in 539. • Code of Hammurabi • Hanging gardens of Babylonia

28. Hellene • A Greek • < Hellas (Greece) • A country of southeast Europe on the southern Balkan Peninsula and including numerous islands in the Mediterranean, Aegean seas. • One of the most important centers of early civilization. • The cradle of western culture, philosophy, art and science.

29. Byzantine • A native or inhabitant of Byzantium or the Byzantine Empire. • Of or relating to the Byzantine Empire. • Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire ) • The eastern part of the later Roman Empire, dating from A.D. 330 when Constantine I rebuilt Byzantium and made it his capital. Its extent varied greatly over the centuries, but its core remained the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor. The empire collapsed when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

30. Middle ages • The period in European history between antiquity and the Renaissance, often dated from A.D. 476 to 1500. • Dark ages • the Early Middle Ages in Europe • medieval (adj.) • Relating or belonging to the Middle Ages.

31. Renaissance • The humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning that originated in Italy in the 14th century and later spread throughout Europe. • Humanism is the key-note of the Renaissance.

32. Renaissance and Middle Ages • The Hebrew view was being replaced by the Greek view. • Greek view vs. Hebrew/biblical view • humanism vs. Hebraism • knowing the self vs. knowing the god • liberalism vs. clericalism • egoism vs. altruism • naturalism vs. supernaturalism • knowledge, science, experiment vs. religion, moral, belief

33. Old World • The Eastern Hemisphere. The term is often used to refer specifically to Europe. • New World • The Western Hemisphere. The term is often used to refer specifically to America. • It was first used by an Italian historian Peter Martyr (1457-1526), whose book chronicled the discovery of America.

34. Elizabethan Age • The period when Elizabeth I reigned England. • is often referred to as The Golden Age of English history.

35. Elizabeth Tudor (1533-1603) • the fifth and final monarch of the House of Tudor • She made England one of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the world.

36. Industrialization • Also known as Industrial Revolution • the era when innovations in technology have sometimes occurred at such a rapid pace • lots of things were invented that made it easier to make things and get work done.

37. The first Industrial Revolution occurred in Great Britain between 1750 and 1830. • Developments there moved the country from a largely rural population that made its livelihood almost entirely from agricultureto a town-centered society that was increasingly engaged in factory manufacture.

38. Later in the 19th century, similar revolutionary transformations occurred in other European nations and the United States. • The main effects were not felt in countries like Russia and Japan until the 20th century. • In other countries these transformational developments are only now occurring or still lie in the future.