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AP®︎/College US History
Unit 1: Lesson 1
Thinking like a historianThinking like a historian
KA's historian Kim Kutz Elliott discusses some of the basic skills for thinking like a historian.
Want to join the conversation?
- We all have a different lens through which we view the world. How do historians make sure that they do not inject their own biases into their work?(2 votes)
- On a slightly different note, I find it's valuable to read history from a variety of perspectives. Ditch your school textbooks and find books written by actual historians, preferably ones who don't agree on everything. That way you can weigh the evidence and come to your own conclusions.(8 votes)
- Wouldn't it be harder if a historian of a different religion, or race, etc. have a hard time keeping their own bias out of their "story"( history)?(8 votes)
- How do the historians make sure there logic makes sense?(3 votes)
- "Making sense" is a very subjective thing, but, in general, a "professional" historian is part of a community of historians stretching far into the past. When she, or her colleaguse compares her logic to others who are currently working or in the past, whether something "makes sense" becomes apparent. The key is to work within a community of others who have like interests. It's when we invent histories based on fantasies of our own that we cease to make sense.(4 votes)
- would thinking like a historian help you in everyday life?(2 votes)
- As Benny said, checking sources and accuracy about statements is definitely a skill in everyday life. The social media, fake news, and biased news outlets show us that people's biases create headlines that are meant to make you feel a certain way, but it turns out the headline really has nothing to do with information in the article. Or you go to check two or three other news sources and find out a news story is a hoax. Sam Wineburg of Standford University has written books and articles about the lack of critical thinking taught in history classes in primary and secondary schools. Most recently he completed a study on students and discovered how vunerable they are to fake news. http://www.npr.org/2016/11/22/503052574/stanford-study-finds-most-students-vulnerable-to-fake-news He proposes that history classes need to show how historian critical thinking skills are useful for maneuvering in our current media climate.(5 votes)
- As a historian, she was saying that you want to make people agree with your theory using evidence. So my question is this... Is the goal to prove you are right or to find the truth about what happened?(3 votes)
- The goal is to find the truth, and then to adjust your theory based on that which proves the truth. That's good science, good history, and good religion, all 3.(4 votes)
- Can this course be used for 11th grade(3 votes)
- yup, AP USH is an 11th grade course and this is perfect for it(2 votes)
- if history means the past can one hour ago count? For an example if 5 hours ago i was studying for a test and then I go to school after getting ready and taking a nap. after getting to school i sit down in my chair and my test paper gets handed to me i remember everything a studied about and get an A+. Me remembering the past counts as remembering history?(2 votes)
- You are right in a very technical sense. But "history" also has a qualitative element. There was nothing "historical" in the lunch I consumed half an hour ago.(3 votes)
- What exactly do historians "do" in their careers? Do they write books? Teach? Travel around the world? Make documentaries? What lies ahead in the path of a historian?(2 votes)
- From the author:The short answer is: yes! Most professional historians do write books and teach -- those two things are the most important parts of being a history professor. But not all historians are professors! There are also historians who work at historic sites and national parks, researching more about what took place there and helping visitors understand the past. Historians could also make documentaries, as you mention, or consult with those who are making documentaries about the past. Lots of historians do travel around the world to do research, particularly those who specialize in the histories of other nations (as a Civil War historian myself I rarely get to go anywhere outside the United States for research!). Some historians are just writers, like David McCulloch and Barbara Tuchman, who have written important history books but aren't affiliated with universities. But anyone can "be" a historian by thinking like one!(2 votes)
- We all have a different lens through which we view the world. How do historians make sure that they do not inject their own biases into their work?(2 votes)
- Some history books that I have read that were more argumentative than informative in their nature actually had an introduction in them where the author would address some of their beliefs/biases on the topic that they were arguing, which made it even more fascinating to read and to see if you agreed with what the person was saying. I would say if an historian "injects" an obvious bias into his/her work, continue reading with a more critical eye. However, history is how we interpret it for the most part, and we all have different opinions, which is what makes it so fascinating!(2 votes)
- wait, Lawyers are historians?
Isn't historians just archaeologists??(2 votes)- Yes, lawyers deal with history, but only in the service of legal cases. Historians have a much wider scope. There's also no archaeology of the 1950s, yet, but much history is contained there.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] I think one of
the most underrated skills for learning history is learning how to think like a historian. And what do I mean by
"thinking like a historian"? Does that mean that you
have to go out and buy a tweed jacket with some elbow patches and maybe grow a long, white beard and sit around all day
pondering whether the Civil War was caused by slavery or states' rights? No, but you can try that if you want. But I would say thinking like
a historian is a little bit like being a combination
between a storyteller and a scientist . . . you're gonna see me draw a
really, really bad beaker here there we go . . . some little fumes coming off of that. and a lawyer, maybe I'll put a gavel here. It's a gavel, not a
croquet mallet or a hammer. So first let's start with
the storytelling aspect. I think one of the most important
things that we can learn from telling this story of history is that in a good story nothing just happens. Imagine a story where
everything just happened. The story would be: the wind
blows, the earth turns, right? No one is making those things happen and that's why it's kind of a boring story because it doesn't show cause and effect. And that cause and effect is really the backbone of history, right? And you would be surprised how often people can fall into the
trap of telling history, this incredible story
about what people have done in the past that has led to
the society we have today as if it were kind of a
laundry list of events that just followed one
after another without any possibility of things being different. People will say, "and then
World War II happened" or "and then the United
States was born," right? Those statements are in passive
voice because they don't talk about the people who
make these things happen. And really, short of a natural disaster, pretty much everything happens in history because people made it happen. So when you think like a
historian, you kind of think the same way that a novelist might think. OK, what is this character's motive? What are they going to do to
make their wish come true? What are the influences that lead a person to make certain choices? And just like people make choices, nations make choices, right? World War I didn't just happen and just as people make choices, actions have consequences. You wouldn't write a story where a thief stole 100 million dollars and the police didn't even
try to come after her. Neither can you write a
story about history without talking about the effects
that actions have on people. So that's the storytelling aspect of thinking like a historian. Let's talk about the scientific aspect. We often think of history as something that's pretty much done, right? It's a series of events
that happened in the past and now we just have to
memorize what happened so we can learn from it
and maybe have a good idea about what to do in the future. But really there is only so
much we can actually know about what happened in the past. And so historians always have to do a kind of research to
understand what happened and get a better idea of
what people were feeling. So just like scientists have theories, when historians think about the past, they're really thinking
about theories as well. They're saying, "ok, I have a theory about "what caused the evolution
of jazz in the 1920s." Why did jazz become a major popular form of music in the 1920s? Well, I'm gonna theorize
it was because people were reacting to the horror of World War I which made so many people
interested in kind of, staccato notes and discordant sounds. Alright, so that's a theory. Well, how do you go
about proving a theory? And the answer is you do research and you consult evidence, right? And the way that you do that in history is usually by doing a
lot of reading, right? You might say, alright well, let me take the letters of some jazz
musicians from this time period and see what they write about. Maybe they write all about how they experienced battle in World War I and they were trying to
reflect that in their music. Or maybe they write that World War I had nothing to do with
their interest in music. Actually, they wanted to
simulate the sounds of flight because they were so interested in modern forms of transportation. So our understanding of
what happened in the past is always just a theory. I mean we have a pretty good idea of what was going on most of the time, but new information comes to
light all the time, right? I mean people are always cleaning
out their grandma's attic and finding some new documents and as the preponderance of
the evidence shifts and changes so might our understanding of the past. The last aspect of
thinking like a historian I want to talk about is
this kind of lawyerly aspect. And what I mean by this is that historians are always making an argument. Just like a lawyer gets up
in a court room and says, "Here's my idea, now let me support it "with the evidence from
witnesses, from experts, "from objects we might have
found at a crime scene." A historian is saying, "believe my theory. "Believe my evidence." And I think the analogy of
law is really powerful here because you could see the
same pieces of evidence used to support two different arguments. So for example, say there's, maybe . . . a sock that was found
at the scene of a crime right, and here's our sock . . . I'm not a beautiful artist. But, maybe the prosecution tries to argue . . . that the accused must have committed this crime because the sock is his size. Right, the sock shows he did it. Whereas the defense might say, "My client never wears socks, "he always wears sandals." So it's clear that the sock shows that he couldn't possibly have
been the one to do this crime. So that's how we end up with so many different interpretations
of the same event. The task of the historian
is to gather evidence and to present an argument
that they think will best convince the public
of their interpretation. And so these interpretations
do change over time. So in later videos we'll
get into the nuts and bolts of how you tell these stories
and make these arguments. But for now, I just
kind of want you to see that thinking like a historian is not something that only historians can do. It's actually a really useful skill for lots of aspects of your life. We tell stories, search for
evidence, and make arguments in our lives all the time about things that we interact with
every day like our favorite bands, our favorite foods,
our political views, right? We base those on our own experiences, consequences in our lives and evidence that we see around us. And we can do the same thing for the past. It's not such a foreign country. What we have are the remnants of that past and the ability to interpret them.