ToK Unit

Rafaela Sabó

It is often boldly assumed that studying history is simply studying the past. When looking at this analytically, however, it goes much deeper than that. In order to effectively study history, one must evaluate the facts that will, in part, explain the reasons behind what happened in the past. This evaluation includes the analysis of primary and secondary sources and the assessment of all the values and limitations that these documents bring. Now, what exactly classifies history as history? Some may assume that history is anything that happened in the past, whether it is the near or very far past. Though that may be accurate, the events taken place in the near past are so recent that a clear evaluation of them cannot be made, making it impossible to determine the real causes and effects of the occurrence. This is why in history class we only study events of a certain grand level of importance that happened at least ten years ago. So, what exactly makes these important events, history? According to Carl Becker, history is the importance you give to the facts you are presented with. For example, in his article “What are Historical Facts”, he gives the example of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. What makes this fact history is not actually that he literally crossed the Rubicon, but why he did it and what the effect of his actions were.

The importance of historical actions can also be evaluated by its mention in both primary and secondary historical documents. In the Alpha Beta simulation we did in class, all participants were asked to write a primary document about what happened during the tribe interactions. Later, as historians, we had to analyze the documents in order to see what really happened and describe how the groups actually acted towards each other. What made the historians convinced that an occurrence was truly important, was how many people mentioned it, for it can be concluded that if it was not mentioned in more than one participant’s document, then it wasn’t really that important for the analysis of the interaction. This is because primary documents are solely based on perception, and what may have been crucial for the experience of one individual, is not substantial for the entire simulation.

In history, of wars, for example, what makes an event important is also the aftermath and what actions happened because of it. In history class we are studying World War II and an example we found was with the signing of a pact between the USSR and Germany in 1939 that would prevent Germany from fighting a two-front war. The reason this is such an important fact in the analysis of the war is because had it not happened, Hitler, historians claim through analysis, would have feared declaring war on any of the European powers, meaning WWII would have not started at the precise time it did, one week after the signing of the pact. But this all goes back to the analysis of documents.

Historical uncertainty comes from the evaluation of facts. Though seemingly reliable, historical facts can never be considered 100% accurate. These facts don’t include the statement of what happened, such as: World War I was fought between the UK, France, and the USSR and Germany and Austria-Hungary. The facts that can never be certain are the causes of the war, due to the infinite number of factors that must be taken into consideration. In history we base ourselves on what is written down on paper, but what about what wasn’t? Personal reasons and intuition of global leaders are things that cannot be documented, proving that history is definitely not an area of certainty, but an area of constant evaluation.