Introduction To History

INTRODUCTIO
N TO HISTORY
DEFINITION AND
SUBJECT MATTER
HISTORY
Derived from the Greek word historia
which means “knowledge through
acquired inquiry or investigation”.
Also known as study of the past.
DEFINITION AND
SUBJECT MATTER
HISTORIA
Became known as the account of the
past of a person or a group of people
through written documents and
historical evidences.
DEFINITION AND
SUBJECT MATTER
HISTORY
Also focused on writing about wars,
revolutions, and other important
breakthroughs.
What counts as history?

“NO DOCUMENT, NO
HISTORY”
It means that unless a written
document can prove a certain
historical event, then it cannot
be considered as a historical
fact.
QUESTIONS AND ISSUES
IN HISTORY
 Indeed history as a discipline has already turned
into a complex and dynamic inquiry. This
dynamism inevitably produced various perspectives
on the discipline regarding different questions like:
What is history? Why study history? And history
for whom? These questions can be answered by
historiography.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
 The history of history.
 History and historiography should not be confused
with each other. The former’s object of study is the
past, the events that happened in the past, and the
causes of such events.
 Lets the students have a better understanding of
history.
 Important for someone who studies history because
it teaches the students to be critical in the lessons of
history presented to him.
POSITIVISM
 The school of thought that emerged between the 18th
and 19th century. This thought requires empirical and
observable evidence before one can claim that a
particular knowledge is true.
POSTCOLONI
ALISM
 The school of thought that emerged in the early 20th
century when formerly colonized nations grappled
with the idea of creating their identities and
understanding their societies against the shadows of
their colonial past.
HISTORY
AND
HISTORIA
N
HISTORIAN
 A person who studies and writes about the past and is
regarded as an authority on it. Historians are
concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative
and research of past events as relating to the human
race; as well as the study of all history in time.
 “Facts cannot speak for themselves”. It is the
historian’s job not just to seek historical evidences
and facts but also to interpret them. It is their job to
give meaning to these facts and organize them into
timeline, establish causes, and write history.
 The historian is not a blank paper who
mechanically interprets and analyzes present
historical fact. He is a person of his own who is
influenced by his own context, environment,
ideology, education and influences, among others.
HISTORICAL METHODOLOGY
- Comprises certain techniques and rules that

historians follow in order to properly utilize sources
and historical evidences in writing history. Certain
rules apply in cases of conflicting accounts in
different sources, and on how to properly treat
eyewitness accounts and oral sources as valid
historical evidence.
 The Annales School of History is a school of history born in France
that challenged the canons of history. This school of thought did
away with the common historical subjects that were almost always
related to the conduct of states and monarchs.
 Annales scholars like Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel,

and Jacques Le Goff studied other subjects in historical manner.
They were concerned with social history and studied longer
historical periods.
HISTORICAL SOURCES
In general, historical sources can be
classified between primary and
secondary sources. The classification of
sources between these two categories
depends on the historical subject being
studied.
PRIMARY SOURCES
 Those sources produced at the same time as the
event, period, or subject being studied.
 Example:
 If a historian wishes to study the
Commonwealth Constitution Convention of
1935, his primary sources can include the
minutes of the convention, newspaper
clippings, Philippine Commission reports of the
U.S. Commissioners, records of the convention,
the draft of the Constitution, and even
photographs of the event.
SECONDARY SOURCES
 Those sources produced by an author who used
primary sources to produce the material. In other
words, secondary sources are historical sources,
which studied a certain historical subject.
 Example:
 On the subject of the Philippine Revolution of
1986, students can read Teodoro Agoncillo’s
Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio
and the Katipunan published originally in 1956.
EXTERNAL CRITICISM
 The practice of verifying the authenticity of
evidence by examining the physical characteristics;
consistency with the historical characteristic of the
time when it was produced, and the materials used
for the evidence.
 Examples of the things that will examined when
conducting external criticism of a document include
the quality of the paper, the type of the ink, and the
language and words used in material, among others.
INTERNAL CRITICISM
 The examination of the truthfulness of the evidence. It looks
at the content of the source and examines the circumstance
of its production. Internal criticism looks at the truthfulness
and factuality of the evidence by looking at the author of the
source, its context, the agenda behind its creation, the
knowledge which informed it, and its intended purpose,
among others.
 For example, Japanese reports and declarations during the
period of the war should not be taken as a historical fact
hastily.
PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
 Philippine historiography underwent several
changes since the precolonial period until
present. Ancient Filipinos narrated their
history through communal songs and epics
that they passed orally form a generation to
another. When the Spaniards came, their
chroniclers started recording their
observations through written accounts.

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INTRODUCTIO

What counts as history?

- Comprises certain techniques and rules that

 Annales scholars like Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel,

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