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Recommended: The perspective of history
What Is History? What is history? Where do I start? And who says it started there? I wasn’t there, does it matter? Can I accept whatever happens in another part of the world into my personal history, or just in the worlds history? What parts of history are most important? Who decides? What a question! The word history has many attached meanings to it, and the result is that the definition for history depends on who it is you are asking. But What is it? Dictionary.com states that, “history is a narrative of events; a story.” Everyone has stories. it goes without saying then that everyone has history. But what about looking at the world in a broader aspect. I think we could look at humans, in whole, and see that we all have a history; a social history. Also, what students mostly study in textbooks, and in lecture halls; political history. Therefore, history, in my terms, can be broken into three very different branches: Personal, Social, and political. A friend of mine unfortunately parted ways with a woman whom he devoted a long period of time to. Inquiring, as I often do, I ask for the details on their break up. I was given a response of, “Man, She’s history.” And my friend is exactly correct. This woman now lies within his personal history. Had this girl never came into my friends life, he could not claim her a part of his history; his past. We have defined history as, “a story,” and my friend can tell stories of him and his girl. (in fact lately that is all he talks about) The Vietnam war was a very important part in history. Actually, the boss at my present place of employment served a long period of time in the war. He was a grunt. I have asked him about it, trying to hear maybe a story or two of what it was like, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. this part of his history he shuts out. Many veterans are like this. I believe the reason being is that the war that is in his history is a very different war than we could ever read in books or hear about from professors. War is different for everyone; as is history itself. These few examples give way to the first area of history; personal history. This is the story that everyone has.
A beginning group of historians to take a closer look at is the empiricists. The empiricists have a very strictly factual and logical view on history and how to examine it. They believe that past is both “observable and verifiable” and that through adherence to three strict principles, the past can be represented objectively and accurately. (Green, Troup 3) The three aforementioned principles can be summed up as: meticulously examining historical evidence and verifying the evidence with references, making sure the research is completely impartial and free of biases and prejudices, and using an inductive, or observational, method of reasoning. (Green, Troup 3) The empiricists seek to find universal historical truths through objective research and sticking to the facts.
Further, Daughan covers the British blockade on American ports and the Napoleonic Wars. First, the British blockade on 1813 made difficult for American flagships to leave ports because the British Navy blocked almost all American ports with the exception of New England which provided goods to the British Navy during the war. Secondly, Daughan adds that the Napoleonic wars had a major impact on the American local war; exclusively, Napoleon’s defeat in Russia gave more confidence to Britain for supporting the War of 1812 longer. In contrast, A.J. Langguth did not include in his book, Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence, any international aspect that might influence the War of 1812.
Elected in 1932 following the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took on his presidency as a challenge to reform the United States by finding ways to provide a larger amount of people economic security in an unequal financial environment. To accomplish this goal, Roosevelt not only implemented a variety of New Deal programs under the categories of reform, recovery and relief, but also redefined what the word “liberty” meant for Americans.
In the document, "Indians: Textualism, Morality, and The Problem of History," Jane Tompkins examines the conflicts between the English settlers and the American Indians. After examining several primary sources, Tompkins found that different history books have different perspectives. It wasn’t that the history books took different angles that was troubling, but the viewpoints contradicted one another. People who experience the same event told it through their reality. This becomes a problem when a person who didn’t experience the effect wants to know what happened. Tompkins said, "The problem id that if all accounts of events are determined through and through by the observer’s frame of reference, that one will never know, in any given case what really happened (202)."
The Aztec Empire was the largest civilization of the Americas in the early 16th century until Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World. A motley crew of men from Spain, they were led by Hernan Cortes who intended to expand lands for the Spanish monarch and through many factors he was able to do just that. The three main factors that contributed to the fall of Tenochtitlan by the hands of Spanish conquistadors were significance of native allies, difference in battle tactics among the natives and conquistadors, and widespread disease. Another chapter in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, this one stands out in particular due to its unorthodox sequence of events that led a small group of men to defeating an entire empire in a few short years.
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” This famous quote from Edmund Burke is one that many of us are familiar with. In spite of this, many people disregard history, branding it as unimportant or irrelevant to modern-day situations. However, history is actually a quite important subject with a myriad of lessons to be learned for anybody to apply now and in the future. Additionally, history gives us much needed information about our past, keeping us from forgetting why our nations became the way they are. It allows us to draw parallels between modern events and past events to collect our best judgment and gives us the important knowledge of the origin of our modern world, giving extra credibility
In Webster’s New Dictionary, history is defined as a study of past events; course of life or existence. Without history, we wouldn’t know our cultures, where we came from, and the major events that changed the world. This is true for many people, because some of them don’t know their culture or their families’ history. People of color, especially many minorities who are born in America (second generation) tend to not learn their histories, for they have to adapt to the American lifestyle which make them lose a part of their identity. Another reason why many second generations don’t know their history is that many are learning the American history or many of them are not asking or willing to question the teacher about their history. As for myself, I fit in to that category, because I am one of the many people who don’t know their ethnicity’s history, which is Filipino. Now in the year 2001, I’m in college and wanting to learn and question my people’s history. “College is one of the best sources to learn your history” (DeGuia). In learning my history, I questioned my friend Rex DeGuia (who is also Filipino) about his life experience and compared his life with my life experience, in which we both have some similarities and differences.
History is a story told over time. It is a way of recreating the past so it can be studied in the present and re-interpreted for future generations. Since humans are the sole beneficiaries of history, it is important for us to know what the purpose of history is and how historians include their own perspective concerning historical events. The purpose and perspective of history is vital in order for individuals to realise how it would be almost impossible for us to live out our lives effectively if we had no knowledge of the past. Also, in order to gain a sound knowledge of the past, we have to understand the political, social and cultural aspects of the times we are studying.
The trends that have been most instrumental in the shaping of America over the past sixty years have been suburbanization and the development of our consumer culture. These two phenomena have changed not only the face of America, but also the fabric of our society, our values and aspirations. Suburbanization and consumer culture are broad, sweeping terms that encompass many different catalysts of change. However, the automobile is an important product and tool of both of these institutions. This paper examines the inundation of American society by the automobile during the post war era as a key catalyst for the rise of consumer culture, its role in facilitating suburbanization and some of the negative impacts the automobile has had on America. Over the past sixty years America has changed greatly to become what it is today, and these changes have largely been driven by our national love affair with the automobile.
What is history? History is the analysis and interpretation of the past. History allows us to study both continuity and change over time. It helps to explain how we have changed throughout time. Part of history is using pieces of evidence to interpret and revisit the past. Examples of evidence include written documents, photographs, buildings, paintings, and artifacts. Is history important? When looking at what the definition of history entails, it is clear to see history is in fact, important.
History is a series of important past events that connect with something. History is what makes people make better decisions. There are many definitions of history and everyone has their own.
I define history as important events that have happened in the past, and the ones that are presently happening. At some time or another everything will be considered history. History tells a story, whether it’s written, painted, carved, or sung; a collection of events that someone explains to you that is usually important.
We can use the word history in so many ways and it can have so many meanings and usages. We often find that using the term history without considering the underlying concepts can be troublesome at best. In some instances we use the word history to articulate an actual event that has happened prior to today. We can also say history to show a timeline that includes a group of events or actions. We try to learn from history but often find ourselves repeating the patterns depending on if we have learned anything previous history, sometimes repeating because we did learn effective uses of past history. We want things to be consistent, in our minds we want to repeat those things that went well and avoid the things that did not. So many things are locked in our minds and psychology is our way of unlocking those thoughts and processes from the mind. What makes us who we are is history; it also makes society what it is. Because we have an understanding of our history it will always influence the present.