After reading Carl Becker’s
“What are Historical Facts?” I realized that a simple historical fact – the
type of fact, which you are tested on in History tests – is a “generalization of
a thousand and one facts.” What makes it so important that it appears in your
test many years later are the strings attached to it, the thousands of other
facts that had an impact on shaping our world today. Let’s take Rosa Parks as
an example. She was a regular African-American woman who refused to sit in the
back of the bus one day in 1955. That simple historical fact led to several
events that culminated in the Civil Rights Movement, which eventually led to
transforming American society as we know it today. That woman’s small dissent
may be the reason why Barack Obama is president, in addition to other huge aspects of society.
Then again, when we study
history, we are “wrestling with the angel of death,” trying to deal with an
event that is in the past. Historians have to base their studies on “a statement
about the event.” However, the statement is seen through somebody’s perception.
So what we are exploring inevitably contains the source’s bias of what they saw
or understood of a situation. Emotion (way of knowing) is inherently present in
historical accounts. The same event might be seen and interpreted in completely
different ways. How do we select which is one is the most valid? Does authority
apply here? Is a judge’s account of the Salem Witch Trials more valid than an
account from one of the accused? What about that of a complete outsider? Here I
find one of the greatest challenges in the study of history.
Another limitation to History
is the blank spots. We often use the analogy of “putting together the pieces”
to describe the work of a historian. But we don’t have hypotheses as in the
sciences, so there is not a clearly delineated puzzle we aim to reach. How,
then, will the historian know if he left out a very important piece? Are there
any “rules” for defining a historical fact?
History certainly is a really
important area of knowledge for us as humans, although there are many
implications that must be taken into account when studying it.
- Luiza
Good Luiza. You are in the right zone and asking the right questions. I think your exploration on Rosa Parks is a good idea. That example, though, could actually have done a lot more work in your blog. Since the idea is to make a tight unit, you could have explored other ideas, such as Boorstin's, using that same example. It would be interesting to test all the ideas you're suggesting on that single Rosa Parks example. This is something like what you'll be doing in your presentation. This is how to create depth rather than breadth, which is what I wanted you to practice in this blog. Overall, nice job and good example.
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