1. How to Succeed in HIST300

2. How to Succeed in HIST300 Read the syllabus and refer to it regularly
Use a planner to stay organized
Check your daily and bookmark the course website
Be respectful towards others
Come to class prepared and bring the readings!
Take responsibility for your education

3. What Is the Historian’s Craft?
Dr. Kristen Epps

4. Part I: What does it mean to be a historian?
Part II: How do historians think?

5. Marc Bloch,

6. The Historian’s Craft

7. What is history?
What makes the study of the past a profession?

8. What is history?

9. “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.” Cicero History is “more or less bunk.” Henry Ford “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” Georg Hegel

10. “What is the use of history, when the values of the past are being ruthlessly discarded? What is the use of history, when we repeat our old errors over and over again?”
Marc Bloch
p. viii

11. What is history?
What makes the study of the past a profession?

12. “Even if we are sure that history has its uses, are we able to write the kind of history that can be used?”
Marc Bloch
p. viii

13. What Is the Historian’s Craft?
Asking provocative questions
Being objective about your conclusions
Using primary sources
Understanding cause and effect
Studying the “why” not just the “who,” “what,” “where,” and “when”
Producing written work to present your conclusions
Making it useable
Passing it on to future generations

14. Part II: How do historians think?
Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” from

15. Your Identity as a Historian
Geographic area

16. Definition of Atlantic History
It is “based on the notion that the Americas, Africa, and Europe have composed a ‘regional system’ from the late fifteenth century to the present….. It offers rich opportunities for comparative history of its subregions, focusing on a host of issues, from economic structures to state formation, to political discourses and institutions, to the complex relations, identities, and practices of class, race, and gender.”
Michael Jiménez and Marcus Rediker

17. The Atlantic World in 1720

18. Your Identity as a Historian
Geographic area
Time period

19. Your Identity as a Historian
Geographic area
Time period
Approach

20. Historical Approaches
Social history
Political history
Economic history
Intellectual history
Religious history
Environmental history
History of an ethnicity/race (e.g. Latino/Latina history)
Women’s history
Legal history
Military history
Labor history

21. What is Social History?
“History with the politics left out” or “history from below”

22. What is Social History?
“History with the politics left out” or “history from below”
2) Deals with everyday people

23. What is Social History?
“History with the politics left out” or “history from below”
2) Deals with everyday people
The study of people’s behavior, belief systems, socio-economic structures, popular culture, etc….

24. What is Social History?
“History with the politics left out” or “history from below”
2) Deals with everyday people
The study of people’s behavior, belief systems, socio-economic structures, popular culture, etc….
4) Embraces the interaction between history and its neighboring fields (anthropology, political science, sociology, etc.)

25. What is Political History?
Study of political events, movements, ideas, and structures

26. What is Political History?
Study of political events, movements, ideas, and structures
Generally deals with the traditional “nation-state”

27. What is Political History?
Study of political events, movements, ideas, and structures
Generally deals with the traditional “nation-state”
3) Biographies of political leaders and their influence

28. What is Intellectual History?
Studies those who generate, discuss, and theorize about “ideas”

29. What is Intellectual History?
Studies those who generate, discuss, and theorize about “ideas”
Closely tied to philosophy

30. What is Intellectual History?
Studies those who generate, discuss, and theorize about “ideas”
Closely tied to philosophy
Often tends to study the “great white men”

31. Two Main Techniques
Qualitative—the interpretation and analysis of texts and images in order to understand the past
From University of Mary Washington

32. Two Main Techniques
Qualitative—the interpretation and analysis of texts and images in order to understand the past
Quantitative—the use of social science methodology (such as statistics) and other quantification to understand history
From University of Mary Washington

33. How would you categorize this work?

34. What is Historiography?
“The body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively”
(Definition from dictionary.com)

35. What is Historiography?
1) “The body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively”
2) “The body of techniques, theories, and principles of historical research and presentation; methods of historical scholarship”
(Definitions from dictionary.com)

36. What is Historiography?
1) “The body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively”
2) “The body of techniques, theories, and principles of historical research and presentation; methods of historical scholarship”
3) The history of historical study and the important debates occurring in the field
(Definitions #1 and #2 from dictionary.com)

37. A BRIEF Historiography of Slavery
U. B. Phillips (1918)

38. A BRIEF Historiography of Slavery
U. B. Phillips (1918) 
Kenneth Stampp (1956)

39. A BRIEF Historiography of Slavery
U. B. Phillips (1918) 
Kenneth Stampp (1956)
Stanley Elkins (1959)

40. A BRIEF Historiography of Slavery
U. B. Phillips (1918) 
Kenneth Stampp (1956)
Stanley Elkins (1959)
Eugene Genovese (1974)

41. Conclusions
Our goal is interpretation of the past in addition to description
Historians realize that their unique perspective will affect the questions they ask, their method, and their conclusions
History is infinitely complex and often raises as many questions as answers
Historians try to approach their subject objectively because we have a responsibility to not glorify the past