Western Studies
Ms. Portman

WHAT IS HISTORY?
"All human beings are practicing historians. As we go through life we present ourselves to others through our life story; as we grow and mature we change that story through different interpretations and different emphasis. We stress different events as having been decisive at different times in our life history and, as we do so, we give those events new meanings. People do not think of this as 'doing history'; they engage in it often without special awareness. We live our lives; we tell stories. It is a natural as breathing."
-Gerda Lerner Why History Matters

1. What is the text saying?

2. What does the text remind you of in your own life?

WHY STUDY HISTORY?
"People are trapped in History, and History is trapped in them!"
-James Baldwin

1. What is the text saying?

2. Give an example from your own life where this applies.

"Historical knowledge enables us to place our perceptions of the contemporary world into a meaningful context and to discern the cause-and-effect relationships between events that serve as the basis for future expectations. Without such knowledge we would be as bewildered as a quarterback entering the fourth quarter of a football game without knowing the score, the amount of elapsed time, or the successes and failures of plays and players."
-Allan J. Lichtman and Valerie French

1. What is the text saying?

2. How does this apply to your life?

HOW DO WE STUDY/WRITE HISTORY?
The fundamental work of European social historians consists of (1) documenting large structural changes, (2) reconstructing the experiences of ordinary people in the course of those changes, and (3) connecting the two.
-Charles Tilly "Retrieving European Lives"

1. What is the text saying?

2. Try to give a concrete example of this from the history that you have studied in the past.

"The battle for control of the nation's history is even more starkly a battle over the values and beliefs that the nation will officially honor in its museums and inculcate in its textbooks."
-Richard Jensen "The Culture Wars, 1965-1995"

1. What is the text saying?

2. What values have you been taught in your history education?

"In any case, it is never safe to forget the truth which really underlies historical research: the truth that all history perpetually requires to be corrected by more history."
- Herbert Butterfield The Whig Interpretation of History

1. What is the text saying?

2. How has history been corrected during your lifetime?