Analytical paper on a book

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Introduction

To conduct research and then filter their perspectives the historians have to carry

out a very in-depth study of the primary sources or written documents, data, or any other

information, besides oral narratives and the artifacts, historians often study primary source

readings or documents. There is a difference between the primary and the secondary sources.

When a source is created very near to the time when the events in history took place, it is known

as primary source. Secondary sources are created after the events have taken place in history and

are usually created by those who were not part of the events, or eye witnesses, the accounts by

historians who try to interpret past events through the analysis of various primary sources and

their synthesis. Heuristics of sources are three as identified Wineburg, who said that they are the

basic to thinking historically. Sourcing is a concern by the historians to check a document before

deciphering it and coming to some possible bias in the point of view or lack of accuracy therein.

The human side of history

The human side of history is represented by the primary sources. Either they are related to

common man of the time or to great men of those times. By reading the historian's version one

can come shinning through the worth, attitudes, beliefs and the life-style of these figures. Huge

information on the socio-political culture, historical viewpoints are provided by the primary

sources. These sources are the reflection of the stories and events of the men and women of that

period. These primary sources are like a film strip which tells the stories of the events of the past.

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The primary sources are studied and analyzed by historians in various ways in order to come to a

conclusion.

Role of historians

Historians ponder to know where and when these documents came into existence. Historians try

to know if a primary source was made close in proximity in the location and time to an actual

event in history. Was it created to be kept personal and private diary? Or it was for everyone to

see. Often some primary sources are more reliable than others, but the one thing common to all

sources is that they all are biased to some extent. As a result, historians read sources skeptically

and critically. Historians follow a few basic rules to help them analyze primary sources. Often

the time frame in which a document was created, its audience for which it was created, socio-

political events which took place at that time when the text was being created etc, are noted by

historians. The historians think about the context of the writing as it helps them know the

creator's perspective and reasons (APC,2013).

Primary sources are often biased

Being snippets from history, primary sources lack context, so historians examine these sources

analytically to understand what more is needed in order to make inferences from these snippets.

Glimpses from history are often attained by mature perspective, which are not usually found in

textbooks. From this it seems that the history of world is like a personal history, nothing

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mysterious about it. It is due to primary sources that are related to the events of the past, coming

away with a deeper knowledge of human history as nothing but a series of events long happened

in the past. With the help of concrete observations, historians move to making inferences about

the sources, and the most crucial of it all the point of view. Documents, sometime tell us one side

of the truth, the truth which the creator of the document intended or thought what happened. For

example a slave's document will differ from that of the plantation owner's, although they will tell

the stories of some events which happened at the same moment of time, but according to their

own versions. Often eye witnesses tell biased stories. Bias is not intentional, it is embedded in

the nature of man, and historians are also not free from it. If the source is the foreign secretary of

some country and is working for the President or the army of that country, it is possible that he

might try to justify a view which is the official point and hence his assessment of some event

could turn biased. The likelihood of some event in the past is determined by focusing on the level

of agreement by most historians.

Reflection

All of us are participating in making history daily, because each amongst us leave a primary

source that years later, some scholars may analyze as a record of the past. Sometimes text by

historians disagree which reveals that the creators of these texts are interpreting history in their

own ways. This happens when historians collect documents or artifacts and look at them from

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varying perspectives. But when readers critically analyze these they are more capable of making

knowledgeable decisions about which interpretation is near to the truth. Intentionally or

unintentionally the primary sources enshrined by the passage of time in which they were

created. Each word imparts some knowledge about the events of the period in which the writer

lived his life, and thus its impact is so powerful that can make volumes of second-hand narratives

can be produced. The events are hard to forget, the facts get embedded into the memory. One

who was the witness to the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders and then by the Muslims, is

clearly more likely to excite our interest than a writer of our own day. The historians do not just

accumulate facts and figures but they try to determine their true origin and meaning. To

understand and peep into the lives and values of the people who lived long ago is not very hard;

the hard part is to look impartially on them without any bias. In order to arrive at a point where

the present can be viewed temperately, it is imperative to look at them impartially. Thus a study

which is un-biased serves the fundamentals of virtues of fairness as well as caution in the

formation of our own judgments. Evidences are required to know about some past events and

conditions, and these are derived from evidences of some kind, which are called sources.

Sometime sources are true and reliable, but not always. Like the decapitation in 1649 of King

Charles, or when Napoleon entered France after conquering it. But for much of the past events

there are no written sources at all, what is present is guessing. Today historians, in their search

for finding new ways of writing history, have to toil hard, think deeply and focus on the creation

of appeal and understanding by making use of metaphor, simile etc.

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Bibliography

AP Central (APC): U.S. History Course APC: “Teaching Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the AP U.S. History Course”: Accessed November 28, 2013 http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/courses/teachers_corner/45743.html