Introduction to History: 16 flashcards
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1. What is history?
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The evidence-based study of the human past, built from sources and critical method.
2. What are sources in history?
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Anything left behind by the past: written records, objects, buildings, coins, paintings, oral traditions.
3. What is the difference between the past and history?
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The past is everything that happened; history is the organised, evidence-based account we construct about parts of it.
4. List the five steps of a historian's work.
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1. Ask a question. 2. Find sources. 3. Examine and compare sources critically. 4. Build an interpretation. 5. Stay open to revision.
5. Why is history not fixed?
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New evidence can appear, or old sources can be re-read, so interpretations can change and be revised.
6. What are periods in history?
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Useful divisions of the past (e.g., ancient, medieval, modern) chosen by historians, not natural facts.
7. Name four subjects that history connects with.
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Archaeology, geography, economics, literature (and language).
8. What is the difference between change and continuity?
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Change is what became different; continuity is what stayed the same. Both usually occur in any period.
9. What questions help test a source's reliability?
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Was the author an eyewitness? What was their purpose? When was it created? Does it agree with other independent sources?
10. Why is bias in a source useful?
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Bias itself tells us something about the author and their context, so a biased source can still be useful.
11. Why is perspective central to history?
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Different people experience the same event differently; historians try to recover multiple perspectives for a fuller, fairer account.
12. How does history differ from myth and legend?
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History is based on evidence and critical method; myth and legend are traditional stories conveying meaning, values, and identity, not usually tested against evidence.
13. Why does studying history matter in everyday life?
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It helps explain why the present looks the way it does and builds critical thinking about information sources.
14. What is the common mistake about what history is?
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Thinking history is just memorising dates and names; the real work is understanding cause and effect, change and continuity, and perspective.
15. What does 'history is selective' mean?
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History focuses on parts of the past that can be studied with evidence, so it is always a selection, not the whole past.
16. Why is critical reading of sources a transferable skill?
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The habit of asking where information comes from and whether it can be trusted is useful far beyond the classroom.
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