Essay, Research Paper: The Study Of History

The Study of History


The study of history is the study of perspectives. Historians have
different perspectives and as Nevins states it is important to study all
perspectives of history to get a full account of an event. There are three
major aspects of history, the first is the definition. What is history? Many
historians have different ideas about that question. Another part of the
study of history is the uses of history. Do we implement what we have
learned from past mistakes to make the present and future better for
generations to come? A final aspect of the study of history is the
historical method, how historians document history.
There is no clear-cut definition of history due to the fact that each
historian has a different frame-of-reference. Davis and Woodman discuss
how there are three major definitions of history that are most commonly
disputed. They are, history is the entire human past; history is all of
recorded human past; and history is what historians write about history.
Some historians believe geography should be included in the study of
history because the geography of a region affects the people who live on it
and the course of history. The definition will always be open and will
forever cause contreversy among historians.
According to some historians studying history can improve a
society's future and be very important and influential, but as with all
aspects of history, other people such as Karl Marx believe history is just
entertaining. Trevor-Roper believes there is the factor of historical
revenge. He gives the example of nationalism in nineteenth-century
China. The government in China believed that once the intial wave of
nationalism was stopped it would never come back, but they were wrong
as you can see by the events leading up to the protests at Tiennaman
Square in China in the latter part of the 20th century. Dr. Allan Nevins
agrees with Trevor-Roper when he says the past, present, and future are
interrelated. Trevor-Roper's prediction for the future of Chinese
nationalism is that there will be waves of nationalism until the fight for
the cause prevails. Writers help the historians who believe history is just
entertaining by dressing it up for each occasion according to
Trevor-Roper. Trevor-Roper also believes it is best for a historian to study
all perspectives of one part of history so that he can make his own
interpretations. As previously mentioned, there are different uses of
history dependent on what the historians frame of referemce is.
For history to be accurately studied, it must be written. For
historians to write history, they must study all perspectives and decide
what to write by considering what they feel is important. If the event the
author is writing about is recent enough that there are still some primary
sources available, they will usually get information from that source. If
there is no primary source, the historian will then try to retrieve
information from secondary sources. Once a source is found a historian
wants to find out why something happened. For example, if a teacher
wants to know why a student is late and the student responds, " because
I overslept", that would be proximate cause. Then some historians would
go even further and find out why they overslept. A fundamental or
secondary cause would be because the alarm clock wasn't set.
Sometimes the historians go even further by asking why wasn't the alarm
clock set. After a certain point the facts become irrelevant. Many
historians feel it is only necessary to know the proximate cause. Just like
the other two aspects of history, there is more than one view of how
history should be written.
It is obvious that history is the study of perspectives, and that the
definition, its uses, and how it is written are important aspects. The
study of history gives society the information that can and will improve
the life present and future.