10 ways to understand History
1. The original history
Of the first kind, the mention of one or two distinguished names will furnish a definite type. To this category belong Herodotus, Thucydides, and other historians of the same order, whose descriptions are for the most part limited to deeds, events, and states of society, which they had before their eyes, and whose spirit they shared. They simply transferred what was passing in the world around them, to the realm of representative intellect. An external phenomenon is thus translated into an internal conception. In the same way the poet channel the material supplied him by his emotions, projecting it into an image for the conceptive faculty. These original historians did, it is true, find statements and narratives of other men ready to hand. simply like one person cannot be an eye and ear witness of everything. But they make use of such aids only as the poet does of that heritage of an already-formed language, to which he owes so much; merely as an ingredient. Historiographers bind together the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up for immortality in the Temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, Ballad-stories, Traditions must be excluded from such original history which can be name as collective work of history.These are but dim and hazy forms of historical apprehension, and therefore belong to nations whose intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary, we have to do with people fully conscious of what they were and what they were about. The domain of reality — actually seen, or capable of being so — affords a very different basis in point of firmness from that fugitive and shadowy element, in which were engendered those legends and poetic dreams whose historical prestige vanishes, as soon as nations have attained a mature individuality. Such original historians, then, change the events, the deeds and the states of society with which they are conversant, into an object for the conceptive faculty. The narratives they leave us cannot, therefore, be very comprehensive in their range. Herodotus, Thucydides, Guieciardini, may be taken as fair samples of the class in this respect. What is present and living in their environment, is their proper material. The influences that have formed the writer are identical with those which have moulded the events that constitute the matter of his story and shaping it in history
2.Reflective History
The second kind of history we may call the reflective. It is history whose mode of representation is not really confined by the limits of the time to which it relates, but whose spirit transcends the present. In this second order strongly marked variety of species may be distinguished. 1. It is the aim of the investigator to gain a view of the entire history of a people or a country, or of the world, in short, what we call Universal History. In this case the working up of the historical material is the main point.A history which aspires to traverse long periods of time, or to be universal, must indeed forego the attempt to give individual representations of the past as it actually existed. It must foreshorten its pictures by abstractions; and this includes not merely the omission of events and deeds, but whatever is involved in the fact that Thought is, after all, the most trenchant epitomist. A battle, a great victory, a siege, no longer maintains its original proportions, but is put off with a bare mention. When Livy e.g. tells us of the wars with the Volsci, we sometimes have the brief announcement: “This year war was carried on with the Volsci.” 2. A second species of Reflective History is what we may call the Pragmatical. When we have to deal with the Past, and occupy ourselves with a remote world a Present rises into being for the mind — produced by its own activity, as the reward of its labour. The occurrences are, indeed, various; but the idea which pervades them — their deeper import and connexion — is one. This takes the occurrence out of the category of the Past and makes it virtually Present. Pragmatical (didactic) reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the Present, and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the life of today. Whether, indeed such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening, depends on the writer’s own spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially noticed, — the moral teaching expected from history; which latter has not unfrequently been treated with a direct view to the former. It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul, and are applicable in the moral instructions of children for impressing excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples and states,their interests, relations, and the complicated issue of their affairs, present quite another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, — that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom of the Present. Looked at in this light, nothing can be shallower than the oft-repeated appeal to Greek and Roman examples during the French Revolution. Nothing is more diverse than the genius of those nations and that of our times. Johannes v. Müller, in his Universal History as also in his History of Switzerland, had such moral aims in view. He designed to prepare a body of political doctrines for the instruction of princes, governments and peoples (he formed a special collection of doctrines and reflections, — frequently giving us in his correspondence the exact number of apophthegms which he had compiled in a week); but he cannot reckon this part of his labour as among the best that he accomplished. It is only a thorough, liberal, comprehensive view of historical relations (such e.g. as we find in Montesquieu’s “Esprit des Loix”), that can give truth and interest to reflections of this order. One Reflective History therefore supersedes another. The materials are patent to every writer: each is likely enough to believe himself capable of arranging and manipulating them; and we may expect that each will insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question. Disgusted by such reflective histories readers have often returned to a with pleasure to a narrative adopting no particular point of view. These certainly have their value; but for the most part they offer only material for history. We Germans are not content with such. The French, on the other hand, display great genius in reanimating bygone times, and in bringing the past to bear upon the present conditions of things.
3. The third form of Reflective History is the Critical. This deserves mention as preeminently the mode of treating history, now current in Germany. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History; a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity in point of fact and of intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts something from the records which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given as much that is profound and judicious in this class of composition. But they have not endeavoured to pass a merely critical procedure for substantial history. They have duly presented their judgments in the form of critical treatises. Among us, the so-called “higher criticism,” which reigns supreme in the domain of philology, has also taken possession of our historical literature. This “higher criticism” has been the pretext for introducing all the anti-historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest. Here we have the other method of making the past a living reality; putting subjective fancies in the place of historical data; fancies whose merit is measured by their boldness, that is, the scantiness of the particulars on which they are based, and the peremptoriness with which they contravene the best established facts of history. 4. The last species of Reflective History announces its fragmentary character on the very face of it. It adopts an abstract position; yet, since it takes general points of view (e.g. as the History of Art, of Law, of Religion), it forms a transition to the Philosophical History of the World. In our time this form of the history of ideas has been more developed and brought into notice. Such branches of national life stand in close relation to the entire complex of a people’s annals; and the question of chief importance in relation to our subject is, whether the connexion of the whole is exhibited in its truth and reality, or referred to merely external relations. In the latter case, these important phenomena (Art, Law, Religion,& c.) appear as purely accidental national peculiarities. It must be remarked that, when Reflective History has advanced to the adoption of general points of view, if the position taken is a true one, these are found to constitute — not merely external thread, a superficial series — but are the inward guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy a nation’s annals. For, like the soul conductor Mercury, the Idea is in truth, the leader of peoples and of the World; and Spirit, the rational and necessitated will of that conductor, is and has been the director of the events of the World’s History. To become acquainted with Spirit in this its office of guidance, is the object of our present undertaking. This brings us to
3. Philosophical History
The third kind of history, — the Philosophical. No explanation was needed of the two previous classes; their nature was self-evident. It is otherwise with this last, which certainly seems to require an exposition or justification. The most general definition that can be given, is, that the Philosophy of History means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of it. Thought is, indeed. essential to humanity. It is this that distinguishes us from the brutes. In sensations cognition and intellection; in our instincts and volitions, as far as they are truly human Thought is an invariable element. To insist upon Thought in this connexion with history, may, however, appear unsatisfactory. In this science it would seem as if Thought must be subordinate to what is given to the realities of fact; that this is its basis and guide: while Philosophy dwells in the region of self-produced ideas, without reference to actuality. Approaching history thus prepossessed, Speculation might be expected to treat it as a mere passive material; and, so far from leaving it in its native truth, to force- it into conformity with a tyrannous idea, and to construe it, as the phrase is, “à priori.” But as it is the business of history simply to adopt into its records what is and has been, actual occurrences and transactions; and since it remains true to its character in proportion as it strictly adheres to its data, we seem to have in Philosophy, a process diametrically opposed to that of the historiographer. This contradiction, and the charge consequent brought against speculation, shall be explained and confuted. We do not, however, propose to correct the innumerable special misrepresentations, trite or novel, that are current respecting the aims, the interests, and the modes of treating history, and its relation to Philosophy. The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world therefore, presents us with a rational process. This conviction and intuition is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such. In that of Philosophy it is no hypothesis. It is there proved by speculative cognition, that Reason — and this term may here suffice us, without investigating the relation sustained by the Universe to the Divine Being, — is Substance, as well as Infinite Power; its own Infinite Material underlying all the natural and spiritual life which it originates, as also the Infinite Form, — that which sets this Material in motion. On the one hand, Reason is the substance of the Universe; viz. that by which and in which all reality has its being and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the Infinite Energy of the Universe; since Reason is not so powerless as to be incapable of producing anything but a mere ideal, a mere intention—having its place outside reality, nobody knows where; something separate and abstract, in the heads of certain human beings. It is the infinite complex of things, their entire Essence and Truth. It is its own material which it commits to its own Active Energy to work up; not needing, as finite action does, the conditions of an external material of given means from which it may obtain its support, and the objects of its activity. It supplies its own nourishment and is the object of its own operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of existence, and absolute final aim, it is also the energising power realising this aim; developing it not only in the phenomena of the Natural, but also of the Spiritual Universe — the History of the World. That this “Idea” or “Reason” is the True, the Eternal, the absolutely powerful essence; that it reveals itself in the World, and that in that World nothing else is revealed but this and its honour and glory—is the thesis which, as we have said, has been proved in Philosophy and is here regarded as demonstrated.
4.Understanding History With Numbers
Most of us are usually introduced to the study of history by way of a fat textbook and become quickly immersed in a vast sea of names, dates,events, and statistics.then our 'skills are tested by examinations that re-quire them to show how much of the data we remember;the more remem-ber, the higher grades we get. From this experience I found a one of the ways which can help us to understand history so those are numbers.The number of conclusions seem obvious to some of us: the study of history is the study of "facts" about the past; the more"facts" basically the numbers you know,the better you are as a student of history. The professional his-torian,whether teacher or textbook writer, is simply one who brings together avery large number of "facts."Of course, only the most naive of students fail to see that the data of history,the "facts,"are presented in an organized manner.Textbooks describe not only what happened,but also why it happened most importantly when it happened.For example,students learn that Puri-tans began coming from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the NewWorld in 1630,but they also learn why the Puritans came when they read aboutthe religious persecutions in seventeenth-century England.Similarly, they read of the steady trek of people westward during the nineteenth century; however, at the same time they learn details that explain this movement of people-the availabil-ity of fertile lands in the West,the discovery of gold in California, the improve-ment of roads and other transportation facilities.But beginner in history the best way is to start with learning dates numbers,even as we come to recognize that our teacher and the textbook are explaining as well as describing events in the past in such complex numerical manner,still we have no reason to alter the notion of what history is all about. we are still working in the realm of "fact."The "fact" of the movement of people into Ohio is explained by the"fact" that fertile land was available there. They may learn more details about the event-how many people went to Ohio, when they arrived,where they settled and about the explanation-the cost of land in Ohio,the availability of credit, the exhaustion of soils in the eastern states. Or they may be introduced to a fuller explanation when they read that some people came to Ohio to escape their creditors or to seek adventure or to speculate in land.In either case, they are simply learning more"facts."An advanced course in American history in highschool differs from the sixth-grade course in American history in that it givesmore detail;the older students must remember more "facts."Students who have been introduced to history in this way may become con-fused upon discovering in a book like this one that historians often disagreesharply. To be sure, historians present their material in familiar ways; they tell us what happened and why it happened by presenting a mass of historical data in form of numbers because everyone is constituent and build up with numbers
5.Cynicism and history
Allow me to begin by quoting a passage from Professor Powicke's inaugural lecture as Regius Professor in Modern History in Oxford university : The craving for an interpretation of history is so deep-rooted that, unless we have a constructive outlook over the past, we are drawn either to mysticism or to cynicism. 'Mysticism' will, I think, stand for the view that the meaning of history lies somewhere outside history, in the realms of theology or eschatology - the view of such writers as Berdyaev or Niebuhr or Toynbeee 'Cynicism' stands for the view, that history has no meaning, or a multiplicity of equally valid or invalid meanings, or the meaning which we arbitrarily choose to give to it. These are perhaps the two most popular views of history today. But I shall unhesitatingly reject both of them. This leaves us with that odd, but suggestive, phrase 'a constructive outlook over the past'. Having no way of knowing what was in Professor Powicke's mind when he used the phrase. The future as with the past. Thucydides believed that nothing significant had happened in time before the events which he described, and that nothing significant was likely to happen thereafter. Lucretius deduced man's indifference to the future from his indifference to the past: Consider how that past ages of eternal time before our birth were no concern of ours. This is a mirror which nature holds up to us of future time after our death.' Poetic visions of a brighter future took the form of visions of a return to a golden age of the past - a cyclical view which assimilated the processes of history to the processes of nature. History was not going anywhere: because there was no sense of the past, there was equally no sense of the future.
6.History and thinking of history
History begins when men begin to think of the passage of time in terms not of natural processes - the cycle of the seasons, the human life-span - but of a series of specific events in which men are consciously involved and which they can consciously influence. History, says Burckhardt, is 'the break with nature caused by the awakening of consciousness'.' History is the long struggle of man, by the exercise of his reason, to understand his environment and to act upon it. But the modern period has broadened the struggle in a revolutionary way. Man now seeks to understand, and to act on, not only his environment but himself; and this has added, so to speak, a new dimension to reason, and a new dimension to history. The present age is the most historically-minded of all ages. Modern man is to an unprecedented degree self-conscious and therefore conscious of history. He peers eagerly back into the twilight out of which he has come, in the hope that its faint beams will illuminate the obscurity into which he is going; and, conversely, his aspirations and anxieties about the path that lies ahead quicken his insight into what lies behind. Past, present, and future are linked together in the endless chain of history. The change in the modern world which consisted in the development of man's consciousness of himself may be said to begin with Descartes, who established man's position as a being who can not only think, but think about his own thinking, who can observe himself in the act of observing, so that man is simultaneously the subject and the object of thought and observation. But the development did not become fully explicit till the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Rousseau opened up new depths of human self-understanding and self-consciousness, and gave man a new outlook on the world of nature and on traditional civilisation. history is made not by only history with thinking of rethinking of the history
7.Geography and History
Whilst geography and history are two discrete subjects within the National Curriculum but there is possibility to identify areas of similarity between them from looking at the importance of history and geography so let's begin there are links between history and geography through the knowledge and understanding, skills, concepts and values and attitudes and therefore it is possible to incorporate cross-curricular links when teaching the subjects. However, before these links are explored it is important to provide an overview of both subjects in their own right.
geography is fundamental to us for understanding of the world we live in.geography allows us to study people and develop a sense of place. Furthermore, it point out that geography fosters our thinking of appreciation of the environment and helps us to understand why sustainability is important. the basic geography allow us to develop a curiosity about the world through exploring people and the environment.
it allows us to question the natural and human influences within the world and the statement draws upon the importance of using enquiry skills. The importance of geography as an enquiry subject is evident. according to the organisation of the geography National Curriculum. The National Curriculum (1999) for geography is divided into two sections; the knowledge, skills and understanding and the breadth of study. The knowledge, skills and understanding and fall into four aspects: geographical enquiry and skills, knowledge and understanding of places, patterns and processes and environmental change and sustainable development.Now history jumps in because it incorporates two areas, knowledge, skills and understanding and breadth of study. The knowledge, skills and understanding identify the key concepts including chronological understanding, historical interpretation and enquiry knowledge and understanding of history and geography can be linked because both subjects focus on people in different places, at different times.. history is an important subject because history is not only about what happened in the past. "it's about why we are who we are and about what's next" moreover geography plays a vital role in understanding history it makes learning relevant to us to understand both of them in more understanding way and we need to understand both
8.Human History as a Mosaic of Cultures
The evolutionist approach was contested by some scholars who preferred to focus on the diversity of human societies and tried to explain the variety of existing culture and understand by culture. In Germany, intellectuals became very interested in building up a history of mankind by studying customs and institutions and culture to better understand the history. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (1767 – 1835) work encompasses the areas of philosophy, literature, linguistics, history, anthropology and political thought as well as statesmanship. During his education, he was introduced to the principles of the French Enlightenment, but he was deeply impressed by the critical views of Kant and Herder on the universal history of mankind. Following Herder, he advocated the intensive study of a particular nation in its political, religious, and domestic aspects in order to grasp its national character. According to Wilhelm von Humboldt, each individual Volk (people) had a distinct character which was expressed in the totality of its outward manifestations: traditions, customs, religion, language, and art. He allocated the term Kultur (culture) and to know the history of any nation or empire first we need to study their culture because it is the easy way to understand the history of anything
9.The Two Aspects of History
THE TOTAL DIFFERENCE between the methods of human thinking represented by the central-ideas of Destiny on the one hand, and Causality on the other, was sharply accented for the reason that only one of them is adapted to the understanding of History. History is the record of fulfilled destinies— of Cultures, nations, religions, philosophies, sciences, mathematics, art-forms, great men. Only the feeling of empathy can understand these once-living souls from the bare records left. Causality is helpless here, for at every second a new fact is cast into the pool of Life, and from its point of impact, ever-widening circles of changes spread out. The subterranean facts are never written down, but every fact changes the course of the history of facts. The true understanding of any organism, whether a High Culture, a nation, or a man, is to see behind and underneath the facts of that existence the soul which is expressing itself by means of, and often in opposition to, the external happenings. Only so can one separate what is significant from what is unimportant. Significant thus is seen to mean: having a Destiny-quality. Incidental means: without relationship to Destiny. It was Destiny for Napoleon that Carnot was Minister of War, for another man would probably not have seen Napoleon’s project for an invasion of Italy through the Ligurian Hills, buried as it was in the files of the Ministry. It was a Destiny for France that the author of the plan was a man of action as well as a theoretician. It is thus obvious that the feeling for what is Destiny and what is Incident have a high subjective content, and that a deeper insight can make out Destiny where the more superficial sees only Incident. Men are thus differentiated also with regard to their capacity for understanding History. There is an historical sense, which can see behind the surface of history to the soul that is the determinant of this history. History, seen through the historical sense of a human being, has thus a subjective aspect. This is the first aspect of History. The other, the objective, aspect of History, is equally incapable of rigid establishment, even though at first glance it might seem to be. The writing of purely objective history is the aim of the so-called reference, or narrative, method of presenting history. Nevertheless, it inevitably selects and orders the facts, and in this process the poetic intuition, historical sense, and flair of the author come into play. If these are totally excluded, the product is not history-writing, but a book of dates, and this, again, cannot be free from selection. Nor is it history. The genetic method of writing history attempts to set forth the developments with complete impartiality. It is the narrative method with some type of causal, evolutionary, or organic philosophy superimposed to trace the growth of the subsequent out of the precedent. This fails to attain objectivity because the facts that survive may be either too few or too numerous, and in either case artistry must be employed in filling gaps or selecting. Nor is impartiality possible. It is the historical sense which decides importance of past developments, past ideas, past great men. For centuries, Brutus and Pompey were held to be greater than Caesar. Around 1800, Vulpius was considered a greater poet than Goethe. Mengs, whom we have forgotten, was ranked in his day as one of the great painters of the world. Shakespeare, until more than a century after his death, was considered inferior as a playwright to more than one of his contemporaries. El Greco was unnoticed 75 years ago. Cicero and Cato were both held, until after the First World War, to be great men, rather than Culture-retarding weaklings. Joan of Arc was not included in Chastellain’s list, drawn up on the death of Charles VII, of all the army commanders who fought against England. Lastly, for the benefit of readers of 2050, I may say that the Hero and the Philosopher of the period 1900-1950 were both invisible to their contemporaries in the historical dimensions in which you see them. The Classical Culture looked one way to Wincklemann’s time, another way to Nietzsche’s time, yet another way to the 20th and 21st centuries. Similarly, Elizabethan England was satisfied with akespeare’s dramatization of Plutarch’s Caesar, whereas fin-de-siécle England required Shaw to dramatize Mommsen’s Caesar. Wilhelm Tell, Maria Stuart, Götz von Berlichingen, Florian Geyer, all would have to be written differently today, for we see these historical periods from a different angle. What then, is History? History is the relationship between the Past and the Present. Because the Present is constantly changing, so is History. Each Age has its own History, which the Spirit of the Age creates to fit its own soul. With the passing of that Age, never to return, that particular History picture has passed. Seen from this standpoint, any attempt to write History “as it really happened” is historical immaturity, and the belief in objective standards of history-presentation is self-deception, for what will come forth will be the Spirit of the Age. The general agreement of contemporaries with a certain outlook on History does not make that outlook objective, but only gives it rank— the highest possible rank it can have as an accurate expression of the Spirit of the Age, true for this time and this soul. A higher degree of truth cannot be attained, this side of divinity. Anyone who prates of being “modern” must remember that he would have felt just as modern in the Europe of Charles V, and that he is doomed to become just as “old-fashioned” to the men of 2050 as are the men of 1850 to him. A journalistic view of History stamps its possessor as lacking in the historical sense. He should therefore refrain from talking of historical matters, whether past or in the process of becoming.
10.The role of interest
Last but definitely not least so if you think learning anything is easy that's not true from learning how to color to recognizing color is difficult but one thing keep in mind that if u interest and guts to learn so you can learn it but one condition being held and is never loose interest because if you loose then the most easy thing become difficult
that's all folks :)
Of the first kind, the mention of one or two distinguished names will furnish a definite type. To this category belong Herodotus, Thucydides, and other historians of the same order, whose descriptions are for the most part limited to deeds, events, and states of society, which they had before their eyes, and whose spirit they shared. They simply transferred what was passing in the world around them, to the realm of representative intellect. An external phenomenon is thus translated into an internal conception. In the same way the poet channel the material supplied him by his emotions, projecting it into an image for the conceptive faculty. These original historians did, it is true, find statements and narratives of other men ready to hand. simply like one person cannot be an eye and ear witness of everything. But they make use of such aids only as the poet does of that heritage of an already-formed language, to which he owes so much; merely as an ingredient. Historiographers bind together the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up for immortality in the Temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, Ballad-stories, Traditions must be excluded from such original history which can be name as collective work of history.These are but dim and hazy forms of historical apprehension, and therefore belong to nations whose intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary, we have to do with people fully conscious of what they were and what they were about. The domain of reality — actually seen, or capable of being so — affords a very different basis in point of firmness from that fugitive and shadowy element, in which were engendered those legends and poetic dreams whose historical prestige vanishes, as soon as nations have attained a mature individuality. Such original historians, then, change the events, the deeds and the states of society with which they are conversant, into an object for the conceptive faculty. The narratives they leave us cannot, therefore, be very comprehensive in their range. Herodotus, Thucydides, Guieciardini, may be taken as fair samples of the class in this respect. What is present and living in their environment, is their proper material. The influences that have formed the writer are identical with those which have moulded the events that constitute the matter of his story and shaping it in history
2.Reflective History
The second kind of history we may call the reflective. It is history whose mode of representation is not really confined by the limits of the time to which it relates, but whose spirit transcends the present. In this second order strongly marked variety of species may be distinguished. 1. It is the aim of the investigator to gain a view of the entire history of a people or a country, or of the world, in short, what we call Universal History. In this case the working up of the historical material is the main point.A history which aspires to traverse long periods of time, or to be universal, must indeed forego the attempt to give individual representations of the past as it actually existed. It must foreshorten its pictures by abstractions; and this includes not merely the omission of events and deeds, but whatever is involved in the fact that Thought is, after all, the most trenchant epitomist. A battle, a great victory, a siege, no longer maintains its original proportions, but is put off with a bare mention. When Livy e.g. tells us of the wars with the Volsci, we sometimes have the brief announcement: “This year war was carried on with the Volsci.” 2. A second species of Reflective History is what we may call the Pragmatical. When we have to deal with the Past, and occupy ourselves with a remote world a Present rises into being for the mind — produced by its own activity, as the reward of its labour. The occurrences are, indeed, various; but the idea which pervades them — their deeper import and connexion — is one. This takes the occurrence out of the category of the Past and makes it virtually Present. Pragmatical (didactic) reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the Present, and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the life of today. Whether, indeed such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening, depends on the writer’s own spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially noticed, — the moral teaching expected from history; which latter has not unfrequently been treated with a direct view to the former. It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul, and are applicable in the moral instructions of children for impressing excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples and states,their interests, relations, and the complicated issue of their affairs, present quite another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, — that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom of the Present. Looked at in this light, nothing can be shallower than the oft-repeated appeal to Greek and Roman examples during the French Revolution. Nothing is more diverse than the genius of those nations and that of our times. Johannes v. Müller, in his Universal History as also in his History of Switzerland, had such moral aims in view. He designed to prepare a body of political doctrines for the instruction of princes, governments and peoples (he formed a special collection of doctrines and reflections, — frequently giving us in his correspondence the exact number of apophthegms which he had compiled in a week); but he cannot reckon this part of his labour as among the best that he accomplished. It is only a thorough, liberal, comprehensive view of historical relations (such e.g. as we find in Montesquieu’s “Esprit des Loix”), that can give truth and interest to reflections of this order. One Reflective History therefore supersedes another. The materials are patent to every writer: each is likely enough to believe himself capable of arranging and manipulating them; and we may expect that each will insist upon his own spirit as that of the age in question. Disgusted by such reflective histories readers have often returned to a with pleasure to a narrative adopting no particular point of view. These certainly have their value; but for the most part they offer only material for history. We Germans are not content with such. The French, on the other hand, display great genius in reanimating bygone times, and in bringing the past to bear upon the present conditions of things.
3. The third form of Reflective History is the Critical. This deserves mention as preeminently the mode of treating history, now current in Germany. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History; a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity in point of fact and of intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts something from the records which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given as much that is profound and judicious in this class of composition. But they have not endeavoured to pass a merely critical procedure for substantial history. They have duly presented their judgments in the form of critical treatises. Among us, the so-called “higher criticism,” which reigns supreme in the domain of philology, has also taken possession of our historical literature. This “higher criticism” has been the pretext for introducing all the anti-historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest. Here we have the other method of making the past a living reality; putting subjective fancies in the place of historical data; fancies whose merit is measured by their boldness, that is, the scantiness of the particulars on which they are based, and the peremptoriness with which they contravene the best established facts of history. 4. The last species of Reflective History announces its fragmentary character on the very face of it. It adopts an abstract position; yet, since it takes general points of view (e.g. as the History of Art, of Law, of Religion), it forms a transition to the Philosophical History of the World. In our time this form of the history of ideas has been more developed and brought into notice. Such branches of national life stand in close relation to the entire complex of a people’s annals; and the question of chief importance in relation to our subject is, whether the connexion of the whole is exhibited in its truth and reality, or referred to merely external relations. In the latter case, these important phenomena (Art, Law, Religion,& c.) appear as purely accidental national peculiarities. It must be remarked that, when Reflective History has advanced to the adoption of general points of view, if the position taken is a true one, these are found to constitute — not merely external thread, a superficial series — but are the inward guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy a nation’s annals. For, like the soul conductor Mercury, the Idea is in truth, the leader of peoples and of the World; and Spirit, the rational and necessitated will of that conductor, is and has been the director of the events of the World’s History. To become acquainted with Spirit in this its office of guidance, is the object of our present undertaking. This brings us to
3. Philosophical History
The third kind of history, — the Philosophical. No explanation was needed of the two previous classes; their nature was self-evident. It is otherwise with this last, which certainly seems to require an exposition or justification. The most general definition that can be given, is, that the Philosophy of History means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of it. Thought is, indeed. essential to humanity. It is this that distinguishes us from the brutes. In sensations cognition and intellection; in our instincts and volitions, as far as they are truly human Thought is an invariable element. To insist upon Thought in this connexion with history, may, however, appear unsatisfactory. In this science it would seem as if Thought must be subordinate to what is given to the realities of fact; that this is its basis and guide: while Philosophy dwells in the region of self-produced ideas, without reference to actuality. Approaching history thus prepossessed, Speculation might be expected to treat it as a mere passive material; and, so far from leaving it in its native truth, to force- it into conformity with a tyrannous idea, and to construe it, as the phrase is, “à priori.” But as it is the business of history simply to adopt into its records what is and has been, actual occurrences and transactions; and since it remains true to its character in proportion as it strictly adheres to its data, we seem to have in Philosophy, a process diametrically opposed to that of the historiographer. This contradiction, and the charge consequent brought against speculation, shall be explained and confuted. We do not, however, propose to correct the innumerable special misrepresentations, trite or novel, that are current respecting the aims, the interests, and the modes of treating history, and its relation to Philosophy. The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world therefore, presents us with a rational process. This conviction and intuition is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such. In that of Philosophy it is no hypothesis. It is there proved by speculative cognition, that Reason — and this term may here suffice us, without investigating the relation sustained by the Universe to the Divine Being, — is Substance, as well as Infinite Power; its own Infinite Material underlying all the natural and spiritual life which it originates, as also the Infinite Form, — that which sets this Material in motion. On the one hand, Reason is the substance of the Universe; viz. that by which and in which all reality has its being and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the Infinite Energy of the Universe; since Reason is not so powerless as to be incapable of producing anything but a mere ideal, a mere intention—having its place outside reality, nobody knows where; something separate and abstract, in the heads of certain human beings. It is the infinite complex of things, their entire Essence and Truth. It is its own material which it commits to its own Active Energy to work up; not needing, as finite action does, the conditions of an external material of given means from which it may obtain its support, and the objects of its activity. It supplies its own nourishment and is the object of its own operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of existence, and absolute final aim, it is also the energising power realising this aim; developing it not only in the phenomena of the Natural, but also of the Spiritual Universe — the History of the World. That this “Idea” or “Reason” is the True, the Eternal, the absolutely powerful essence; that it reveals itself in the World, and that in that World nothing else is revealed but this and its honour and glory—is the thesis which, as we have said, has been proved in Philosophy and is here regarded as demonstrated.
4.Understanding History With Numbers
Most of us are usually introduced to the study of history by way of a fat textbook and become quickly immersed in a vast sea of names, dates,events, and statistics.then our 'skills are tested by examinations that re-quire them to show how much of the data we remember;the more remem-ber, the higher grades we get. From this experience I found a one of the ways which can help us to understand history so those are numbers.The number of conclusions seem obvious to some of us: the study of history is the study of "facts" about the past; the more"facts" basically the numbers you know,the better you are as a student of history. The professional his-torian,whether teacher or textbook writer, is simply one who brings together avery large number of "facts."Of course, only the most naive of students fail to see that the data of history,the "facts,"are presented in an organized manner.Textbooks describe not only what happened,but also why it happened most importantly when it happened.For example,students learn that Puri-tans began coming from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the NewWorld in 1630,but they also learn why the Puritans came when they read aboutthe religious persecutions in seventeenth-century England.Similarly, they read of the steady trek of people westward during the nineteenth century; however, at the same time they learn details that explain this movement of people-the availabil-ity of fertile lands in the West,the discovery of gold in California, the improve-ment of roads and other transportation facilities.But beginner in history the best way is to start with learning dates numbers,even as we come to recognize that our teacher and the textbook are explaining as well as describing events in the past in such complex numerical manner,still we have no reason to alter the notion of what history is all about. we are still working in the realm of "fact."The "fact" of the movement of people into Ohio is explained by the"fact" that fertile land was available there. They may learn more details about the event-how many people went to Ohio, when they arrived,where they settled and about the explanation-the cost of land in Ohio,the availability of credit, the exhaustion of soils in the eastern states. Or they may be introduced to a fuller explanation when they read that some people came to Ohio to escape their creditors or to seek adventure or to speculate in land.In either case, they are simply learning more"facts."An advanced course in American history in highschool differs from the sixth-grade course in American history in that it givesmore detail;the older students must remember more "facts."Students who have been introduced to history in this way may become con-fused upon discovering in a book like this one that historians often disagreesharply. To be sure, historians present their material in familiar ways; they tell us what happened and why it happened by presenting a mass of historical data in form of numbers because everyone is constituent and build up with numbers
5.Cynicism and history
6.History and thinking of history
History begins when men begin to think of the passage of time in terms not of natural processes - the cycle of the seasons, the human life-span - but of a series of specific events in which men are consciously involved and which they can consciously influence. History, says Burckhardt, is 'the break with nature caused by the awakening of consciousness'.' History is the long struggle of man, by the exercise of his reason, to understand his environment and to act upon it. But the modern period has broadened the struggle in a revolutionary way. Man now seeks to understand, and to act on, not only his environment but himself; and this has added, so to speak, a new dimension to reason, and a new dimension to history. The present age is the most historically-minded of all ages. Modern man is to an unprecedented degree self-conscious and therefore conscious of history. He peers eagerly back into the twilight out of which he has come, in the hope that its faint beams will illuminate the obscurity into which he is going; and, conversely, his aspirations and anxieties about the path that lies ahead quicken his insight into what lies behind. Past, present, and future are linked together in the endless chain of history. The change in the modern world which consisted in the development of man's consciousness of himself may be said to begin with Descartes, who established man's position as a being who can not only think, but think about his own thinking, who can observe himself in the act of observing, so that man is simultaneously the subject and the object of thought and observation. But the development did not become fully explicit till the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Rousseau opened up new depths of human self-understanding and self-consciousness, and gave man a new outlook on the world of nature and on traditional civilisation. history is made not by only history with thinking of rethinking of the history
7.Geography and History
Whilst geography and history are two discrete subjects within the National Curriculum but there is possibility to identify areas of similarity between them from looking at the importance of history and geography so let's begin there are links between history and geography through the knowledge and understanding, skills, concepts and values and attitudes and therefore it is possible to incorporate cross-curricular links when teaching the subjects. However, before these links are explored it is important to provide an overview of both subjects in their own right.
geography is fundamental to us for understanding of the world we live in.geography allows us to study people and develop a sense of place. Furthermore, it point out that geography fosters our thinking of appreciation of the environment and helps us to understand why sustainability is important. the basic geography allow us to develop a curiosity about the world through exploring people and the environment.
it allows us to question the natural and human influences within the world and the statement draws upon the importance of using enquiry skills. The importance of geography as an enquiry subject is evident. according to the organisation of the geography National Curriculum. The National Curriculum (1999) for geography is divided into two sections; the knowledge, skills and understanding and the breadth of study. The knowledge, skills and understanding and fall into four aspects: geographical enquiry and skills, knowledge and understanding of places, patterns and processes and environmental change and sustainable development.Now history jumps in because it incorporates two areas, knowledge, skills and understanding and breadth of study. The knowledge, skills and understanding identify the key concepts including chronological understanding, historical interpretation and enquiry knowledge and understanding of history and geography can be linked because both subjects focus on people in different places, at different times.. history is an important subject because history is not only about what happened in the past. "it's about why we are who we are and about what's next" moreover geography plays a vital role in understanding history it makes learning relevant to us to understand both of them in more understanding way and we need to understand both
8.Human History as a Mosaic of Cultures
The evolutionist approach was contested by some scholars who preferred to focus on the diversity of human societies and tried to explain the variety of existing culture and understand by culture. In Germany, intellectuals became very interested in building up a history of mankind by studying customs and institutions and culture to better understand the history. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (1767 – 1835) work encompasses the areas of philosophy, literature, linguistics, history, anthropology and political thought as well as statesmanship. During his education, he was introduced to the principles of the French Enlightenment, but he was deeply impressed by the critical views of Kant and Herder on the universal history of mankind. Following Herder, he advocated the intensive study of a particular nation in its political, religious, and domestic aspects in order to grasp its national character. According to Wilhelm von Humboldt, each individual Volk (people) had a distinct character which was expressed in the totality of its outward manifestations: traditions, customs, religion, language, and art. He allocated the term Kultur (culture) and to know the history of any nation or empire first we need to study their culture because it is the easy way to understand the history of anything
9.The Two Aspects of History
THE TOTAL DIFFERENCE between the methods of human thinking represented by the central-ideas of Destiny on the one hand, and Causality on the other, was sharply accented for the reason that only one of them is adapted to the understanding of History. History is the record of fulfilled destinies— of Cultures, nations, religions, philosophies, sciences, mathematics, art-forms, great men. Only the feeling of empathy can understand these once-living souls from the bare records left. Causality is helpless here, for at every second a new fact is cast into the pool of Life, and from its point of impact, ever-widening circles of changes spread out. The subterranean facts are never written down, but every fact changes the course of the history of facts. The true understanding of any organism, whether a High Culture, a nation, or a man, is to see behind and underneath the facts of that existence the soul which is expressing itself by means of, and often in opposition to, the external happenings. Only so can one separate what is significant from what is unimportant. Significant thus is seen to mean: having a Destiny-quality. Incidental means: without relationship to Destiny. It was Destiny for Napoleon that Carnot was Minister of War, for another man would probably not have seen Napoleon’s project for an invasion of Italy through the Ligurian Hills, buried as it was in the files of the Ministry. It was a Destiny for France that the author of the plan was a man of action as well as a theoretician. It is thus obvious that the feeling for what is Destiny and what is Incident have a high subjective content, and that a deeper insight can make out Destiny where the more superficial sees only Incident. Men are thus differentiated also with regard to their capacity for understanding History. There is an historical sense, which can see behind the surface of history to the soul that is the determinant of this history. History, seen through the historical sense of a human being, has thus a subjective aspect. This is the first aspect of History. The other, the objective, aspect of History, is equally incapable of rigid establishment, even though at first glance it might seem to be. The writing of purely objective history is the aim of the so-called reference, or narrative, method of presenting history. Nevertheless, it inevitably selects and orders the facts, and in this process the poetic intuition, historical sense, and flair of the author come into play. If these are totally excluded, the product is not history-writing, but a book of dates, and this, again, cannot be free from selection. Nor is it history. The genetic method of writing history attempts to set forth the developments with complete impartiality. It is the narrative method with some type of causal, evolutionary, or organic philosophy superimposed to trace the growth of the subsequent out of the precedent. This fails to attain objectivity because the facts that survive may be either too few or too numerous, and in either case artistry must be employed in filling gaps or selecting. Nor is impartiality possible. It is the historical sense which decides importance of past developments, past ideas, past great men. For centuries, Brutus and Pompey were held to be greater than Caesar. Around 1800, Vulpius was considered a greater poet than Goethe. Mengs, whom we have forgotten, was ranked in his day as one of the great painters of the world. Shakespeare, until more than a century after his death, was considered inferior as a playwright to more than one of his contemporaries. El Greco was unnoticed 75 years ago. Cicero and Cato were both held, until after the First World War, to be great men, rather than Culture-retarding weaklings. Joan of Arc was not included in Chastellain’s list, drawn up on the death of Charles VII, of all the army commanders who fought against England. Lastly, for the benefit of readers of 2050, I may say that the Hero and the Philosopher of the period 1900-1950 were both invisible to their contemporaries in the historical dimensions in which you see them. The Classical Culture looked one way to Wincklemann’s time, another way to Nietzsche’s time, yet another way to the 20th and 21st centuries. Similarly, Elizabethan England was satisfied with akespeare’s dramatization of Plutarch’s Caesar, whereas fin-de-siécle England required Shaw to dramatize Mommsen’s Caesar. Wilhelm Tell, Maria Stuart, Götz von Berlichingen, Florian Geyer, all would have to be written differently today, for we see these historical periods from a different angle. What then, is History? History is the relationship between the Past and the Present. Because the Present is constantly changing, so is History. Each Age has its own History, which the Spirit of the Age creates to fit its own soul. With the passing of that Age, never to return, that particular History picture has passed. Seen from this standpoint, any attempt to write History “as it really happened” is historical immaturity, and the belief in objective standards of history-presentation is self-deception, for what will come forth will be the Spirit of the Age. The general agreement of contemporaries with a certain outlook on History does not make that outlook objective, but only gives it rank— the highest possible rank it can have as an accurate expression of the Spirit of the Age, true for this time and this soul. A higher degree of truth cannot be attained, this side of divinity. Anyone who prates of being “modern” must remember that he would have felt just as modern in the Europe of Charles V, and that he is doomed to become just as “old-fashioned” to the men of 2050 as are the men of 1850 to him. A journalistic view of History stamps its possessor as lacking in the historical sense. He should therefore refrain from talking of historical matters, whether past or in the process of becoming.
10.The role of interest
Last but definitely not least so if you think learning anything is easy that's not true from learning how to color to recognizing color is difficult but one thing keep in mind that if u interest and guts to learn so you can learn it but one condition being held and is never loose interest because if you loose then the most easy thing become difficult
that's all folks :)
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