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History TOK

History TOK. History. Why does your past matter? How good is your memory? How reliable is it? You take photos, you keep a diary; what do you include, what do you omit? Would you be more inclined to trust an autobiography or a biography of the same individual written by a historian?

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History TOK

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  1. History TOK

  2. History • Why does your past matter? • How good is your memory? How reliable is it? • You take photos, you keep a diary; what do you include, what do you omit? • Would you be more inclined to trust an autobiography or a biography of the same individual written by a historian? • To what extent do you think people learn from their mistakes, and to what extent do you think they keep making the same mistakes?

  3. Head of UN Scenario • Write down ten things in your room that you will bring to college on a piece of paper without your name on it. • Give it to the teacher and get one back that belongs to someone else • Can you judge the new person based on this evidence? • Write 3-5 lines that would describe this person

  4. Artifacts Scenario • Write down ten things in your room • Suppose you wake up and have lost your memory • How could you reconstruct your identity by examining the objects in your room • Compare this to what Historians do • How accurate is this?

  5. What is History? • History • Give two answers as to what you think history is?

  6. History • History is the study of ‘present traces’ of the past. • Look at the Persia and Greece wars in the 5th century • Our view is based on a single, quite unreliable source- the Greek historian Herodotus

  7. Problems with History • Evidence • Too little distant past • Too much modern recent

  8. What is History? • Significance • History is not a record of everything that happened in the past • History is a record of significant things that happened in the past • Can a TOK class be a significant event?

  9. Rate the Historical significance of the following events • The publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Speicies in 1859; • The birth of Bill Gates in 1955; • The deposition of MuamarGadaffi in 2011; • England’s World Cup victory in 1966; • The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001; • BinguMutharika becoming President of Malawi in 2005; • The publication of US diplomatic despatches by Wikileaks in 2011.

  10. What is history? • Explaining the past • Understanding the past • Historians devote considerable energy to establishing what happened and then to why • We know WWI happened but what were the main reasons

  11. Why Study History? • A page of history is worth a volume of logic” • Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1841-1935 • “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” • William Faulkner, 1897-1962 • “Those who don’t study the past are condemned to repeat it” • George Santayana, 1863-1952

  12. History for IB • The study of history is so important that is should be a compulsory IB subject. • Think of an many arguments as you can for and against this claim

  13. Why Study History? • Gives us a sense of identify • Is a defense against propaganda • Enriches our understanding of human nature.

  14. Key points • History seeks to study and explain the significant events of the past on the basis of currently existing evidence • The study of History can be justified on the grounds that it contributes to our sense of identity, is a defense against propaganda, and enriches our understanding of human nature. • History is based on primary sources, but since they are a selective interpretation of events they cannot always be taken at face value

  15. Key points • Since historians usually make a selection from available evidence, there is a sense in which history books are twice removed from what actually happened • In seeking to explain the past, a historian has the advantage of hindsight, but this can sometimes result in hindsight bias • Although it is impossible to achieve completely objective, god’s eye view of history, we can perhaps get closer to the truth by exploring the past from a variety of perspectives.

  16. Key points • Since History deals with complex situations, historical events rarely have a single cause but are usually the result of a combination of factors • Two contrasting theories of history are the great person theory, which says that history is determined by great individuals and economic determinism, which says that is determined by economic factors • We can understand both the past and ourselves better if we study history than if we choose to ignore it.

  17. Key Words • Bias • Primary source • Secondary source • Significance/Significant Events • Cubist History • Economic Determinism • Empathy • Great person theory of history • Hindsight bias • Self-realising expectations

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